Marc Malkin

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Only Bruce Vilanch can give the complete scoop on the Oscars, which is why I chatted him up to get the goods. The guy has been a writer for 16 Academy Awards, after all.

Yesterday I posted Part I of Planet Gossip's first annual 10 Things You Don't Know About the Oscars, and here is the exciting conclusion: 

5. The Bald Truth About Britney
Ellen DeGeneres, according to Vilanch, wasn't the kind of host to joke about Britney Spears' recent troubles. "I think for a different host, certainly!" Vilanch says. "I think Whoopi [Goldberg] or Billy [Crystal] would do some Britney reference, but that's just not Ellen's style. And there was nobody else who was going to pick up those cudgels and do a Britney joke. Other than the fact that Jack Nicholson looked like her, there was no other point of reference." 

4. Sundays at Ellen's
There were 16 writers for the telecast. "On Sunday nights we'd go up to Ellen's house and we'd talk Oscar," Vilanch says. "She had 10 and we had 6 who were working on the rest of the show. And then what happens is you get to the Kodak and it gets collaborative. I've done the show for 16 years. The first time there were two of us writing, but there was no host that year! That was the Snow White year!" 

3. A Carbon-Neutral Party
There was a good reason Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio didn't use the term carbon neutral when they announced the Oscars were going green. "When they were explaining it to me, I said, 'I don't know how I can possibly translate any of this into something on a television show like this that won't make everyone [excuse themselves] to go pop a beer,' " Vilanch says. "Can we just find some other way to express this than saying carbon neutral? It sounds like something in a salad dressing." 

2. Monkey Business
When Robert Downey Jr. and  Naomi Watts presented Best Visual Effects, Downey cracked wise about his own turbulent past, saying: "Visual effects: They enable us to see aliens, experience other universes, move in slow-motion, or watch spiders climbing high above the city landscape...For me, just a typical weeknight in the mid-'90s." Vilanch says originally they had intended a quip about Watts working with a visual effect like King Kong. "Robert was going to say, 'I know what you mean, because I've had a monkey on my back,' " Vilanch says. "But then we worked it down to what actually was a big laugh for him." 

1. (Tie) Thanks, but No Hanks
Tom Hanks has declined offers to host the Oscars. "I think Tom would be great," Vilanch says. "He'd be fabulous, but I know he's turned it down a couple of times." George Clooney is another hopeful. "I think they felt around about George," Vilanch says, "but he wasn't interested."

1 . (Tie) Oscar Dave, Dave Oscar
Vilanch says he thinks DeGeneres and last year's host, Jon Stewart, will be asked to return, but more surprisingly, he says Academy honchos wouldn't mind another turn from the infamously panned David Letterman. "They've asked Dave back," Vilanch says. "At one point, he said he wanted to do it again, but then he said he didn't. It's a hard gig, and it's a very short list of people who can do it. If you do a good job, they go, Nice job, and nothing changes. But if you don't do a good job, it will haunt you forever."