[return from commercial]

Announcer #1: "Welcome back, folks. Here to present the Oscar for Best Actor in a Motion Picture— she plays a street-smart magazine editor in the big city — and he's the star of such films as Jerry Maguire and Pearl Harbor — ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Brooke Shields and Cuba Gooding Jr.!"

[music swell. Brooke Shields descends from elaborate staircase.]

Announcer #1: "I've just been informed that Mr Gooding, Jr. is unable to attend tonight, due to post-production filming on his new movie."

Announcer #2: "Wow. That's dedication, isn't it? Hollywood stars give so much, and ask for so little."

Announcer #1: "That's the most reasonable and true thing I've ever heard anyone say. Apparently a test screening of Pearl Harbor was conducted yesterday, and one woman in the back complained she couldn't make out what was happening on the screen. So they're reshooting the entire movie with
nothing but tight close-up shots."

Announcer #2: "Now that's dedication."

Announcer #1: "It certainly is. Let me just take a moment of our viewers' time to commend the brave filmmakers of Tinseltown, who work so very hard at test screenings, excising and adding to their product — all to ensure a bland, easily palatable film that will offend no one and avoid debate and
controversy."

Announcer #2: "I don't like controversy."

Announcer #1: "That makes two of us. Controversy makes it difficult to be nice to everybody and agree with everyone you meet. I say we do away with it."

Announcer #2: "That makes two of us. I've just been informed that Cuba Gooding Jr.'s place at the ceremony will be filled in by a black caterer who, I'm told, does a passable Cuba Gooding Jr. impression."

Announcer #1 :"Now that's dedication."

Announcer #2: "That makes two of us."

[cut to elaborate staircase as caterer walks down]

Brooke Shields: "Wow, Cuba. It certainly is exciting to be here, isn't it?"

Caterer: "Um. Yes it is, Brooke. And can I just say that I'd show YOU the money any day."

[audience laughter]

Brooke: "Cuba — that's an odd name! What's it like to be named after a continent?"

Caterer: "Oh, it's great. I don't have to pay taxes…"

[audience laughter]

"—and I keep getting BILL CLINTON phoning me, asking if he can bring MONICA LEWINSKY there for a vacation with him!"

[audience consumed in the throes of laughter. Cut to Tim Robbins, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Cut to Heather Graham laughing, mouthing the words "I KNOW who Bill Clinton is! That's so funny!" Cut to Meryl street laughing so hard that she's bitten through her own hand.]

Brooke: "Ha ha ha! That's a funny coincidence! Often on the set of my television show, 'Suddenly Susan,' we tell jokes also."

Caterer: "Wait a minute. When I read that 'I'd show you MY money any day' off the prompter just now — was that an offer to show you my penis?"

Brooke: "I — don't know."

Caterer: "Wow. That's odd."

Brooke: [suddenly speeding things up, as if someone off stage was telling them to hurry] "Okay, well, as everyone knows, the Best Actor award is the most important award of the night. It's very similar to the Best Female Actor award, except with men, so people care."

Caterer: "That's right, Suddenly Susan Shields." [opens envelope] "And the winner is Tom Hanks!"

[long awkward silence. Tom Hanks heard in background: "Fuck! Yes! Fuck!"]

Brooke: "It think we were — weren't we supposed to—"

Caterer: "The first nominee for the Best Actor award is Kirk Douglas for his role in 'The Legs That Could.'"

Brooke: "Wait. You just gave it away that Tom Hanks—"

[cut to first clip. Kirk Douglas stands in the middle of a study. Jason Patric sits in a wheelchair with an IV drip wedged into his ear. Kirk Douglas is wearing a toque.]

Kirk: "Goddamnit, Kevin. I'm not going to give up. Is that what you want me to do? Just give up? Just pretend I don't care?"

Jason: "I don't care."

Kirk: "Well, that's not going to happen, you son of a bitch. You keep pushing me away because you want to feel sorry for yourself. You want to think that you're the only person in a wheelchair — that your life's so goddamn tragic."

[Kirk spins around to face Jason]

"Well, that's not the Kevin Kevinson I know. The Kevin Kevinson I know wouldn't let becoming a quadriplegic crush him! The Kevin Kevinson I know is a survivor! And that Kevin Kevinson reminds me a lot of you! Do you know why?"

Jason: "Why?"

Kirk: "Because you're him! You're Kevin Kevinson and you're a quadrlplegic too."

Jason: "Oh, that's right."

Kirk: "So you can sit there in that wheeled prison and give up. And be a quitter. Or you can fight, goddamnit, and go out and WIN that speedwalking championship like you always told me you would those starry nights when we were growing up as kids."

Jason: "Alrighty." [gets out of chair]

Kirk: "Now you get out there and WIN."

[Cut back to stage. Brooke Shields is near tears and looks confused. Tom Hanks is cheerfully making his way to the main stage.]

Caterer: "Our next nominee is Dustin Hoffman for his performance in 'She's Having a Baby II: She's Having a Baby.'"

Brooke: "Oh God. We're in so much trouble."

Hanks: [heard off camera] "Hey, Douglas! Good luck! Har har!"

[cut to second clip. Dustin Hoffman sits annoyed in heavy traffic. He taps nervously at the steering wheel of his car, and adjusts his tie with hurried impatience.]

Hoffman: [shouting out window] "Come one, move it! My wife's having a baby and I'm gonna miss it!" [shuts window] "Damn it."

Radio: "The I-90 is backed up for miles here, folks."

Hoffman: [farting] FBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBT

[Hoffman looks startled, then amused]

PHHbbbt! PHHBBT! F-BAP! F-BAP! Fuh-BAPBAPBAPBAPBAP!

[Hoffman sits motionless.]

[pause]

gurgle gurgle gurgle fffffBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTTTTTTT

[pause. Hoffman gets pained look on his face and leans to one side.]

PHHRAAAAAARRRP! Bhbhbt! Bhbhbhbhbhbtt!

[Hoffman looks visibly relieved]

FBBT!

[Hoffman rolls window down again] "Christ! I'm gonna have to buy a new car!" [laughs to self]

[cut to stage. Brooke Shields is pale white. Tom Hanks is standing behind her and caterer, making funny face noises and comically checking his watch.]

Caterer: "Our next nominee is—"

Brooke: "For God's sake, Cuba! It's over! You've ruined the Oscars! This is pointless! Just give Hanks the damn Oscar and let's go home!"

Hanks: "Yeah, cough it up, Cuba. I'm gonna make a fort out of em at home."

Caterer: "I'm sorry, no. Imitating Cuba Gooding Jr. is a sacred trust. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it all the way."

Brooke: "[bleeped out] amateur."

[from back of auditorium, Cuba Gooding Jr. comes racing in, flushed and panicky. He tries to flag down a camera. His lips mouth the words: "That's not me! I didn't ruin the Oscars! I didn't—" He is carted off by security]

Caterer: "Our last nominee is Tom Hanks, for his performance in 'Tom Hanks Walks Around an Island For 156 Minutes.'"

[cut to final clip. Tom Hanks, bedraggled and with a long beard, walks around an island]

Hanks: [singing] "Co-co-nut… I like to eat cohhhh-co-nuts…" [in low baritone] "He eats em all up…"

[He stumbles over a Fed/Ex package.]

Hanks: "Hmmm. A Fed/Ex package. Conceivably, this package could contain any manner of life-saving items - a knife, a compass, a blanket, or dried food, or maybe a lighter, or even a pup tent. Clearly the sensible thing to do would be to hold onto it for five years and deliver it to a total stranger
if I ever get out of here."

[Hanks holds onto the package for five years and talks to a volleyball, then gets rescued. He delivers the package to the stranger.]

Hanks: "Here you go!"

Stranger: [irritably] "Yeah, well. You're late."

Hanks: [in falsetto Chinese accent] "Don't rook at me! I just giva yo package!"

Stranger: [opening package] "Oh, look — it's a care package from Mom. A pup tent, a box of waterproof lighters, a goose-down sleeping bag, a five-year supply of dried foods — she thought of everything! A compass, fifty feet of rope, a book called "Surviving on an Island", a fishing rod and a hunting rifle with fifty cases of ammunition."

Hanks: "Wow. THAT'S why it was so heavy." [looks at camera] "Don't rook at ME!"

Stranger: [sniffing] "What's that smell?"

Hanks: "I have lupus."

[cut to stage. Brooke Shields has left. Tom Hanks is wrestling with caterer for the Oscar]

Hanks: "Give - me - that!"

Caterer: "No! No!"

[Hanks clubs caterer unconscious and takes Oscar. He steps up to the podium]

Hanks: "I'm so proud to have another one of these things that I don't know what to say. I'd like to thank my parents, who were very supportive of me getting into acting. They were always trying to get me waiter jobs, or bringing beefy studs down to the rec room in an attempt to get me to explore
homosexuality. They were behind me all the way, and I'm the man I am today because of them."

[he points out to Antonio Banderas. Antonio mouths the words: "I want you," and licks his teeth suggestively.]

"I'd also like to thank the divine saviour Jesus Christ, for seeing fit to reward me with this in his master plan. I know everyone thanks God in their Oscar speeches, but I really mean it. I'm convinced that my meteoric rise to fame was guided my an omnipotent otherwordly power. I'm not certain why it's necessarily part of Jesus' plan to kill all those starving African children, though. My guess is that they deserve it in some way."

[holds up Oscar]

"Like I deserve this. You'll note also that in having my Oscar win guided by the Lord Almighty, the implicit suggestion here is that Jesus Christ is actively seeking to destroy the lives of Michael Douglas and Dustin Hoffman. I believe this to be true. Anyway, Jesus is behind me, and
with his continued support of me, I suspect I'll be up here a lot more often. Between you and me, I sleep under the stage to save on commuting time. Anyway. Thanks again, everybody." [points to wife] "Hey, honey!" [holds up Oscar] "Look what YOU'RE getting up the cunt tonight!"

[Wife laughs and applauds. Jack Nicholson leans over and makes comical reaming gestures with fingers, which cracks up a nearby Hugh Grant to no end. Backstage, a weepy Cuba Gooding Jr. is restrained]