Gil Cates, producing the Oscar telecast this year for a record twelfth time, has attracted a great deal of controversy over changes he's made to streamline the show -- in some cases calling all nominees in a category to the stage at once, and in others giving awards to winners while they're still in their seats. And while some have complained that Cates's changes are too Draconian, they represent but a fraction of what he wanted to do, but was talked out of. Fametracker has obtained this list of notes from Gil Cates's Filofax:

Cut Rock monologue from broadcast -- ABC.com can webcast it if people are interested

No movie clips! That's what screeners and bootlegs are for, and if people didn't see the movies the clips are from, then tough titties

Two podiums/split screen/could get two presenters to announce and hand out awards

Password -- great game show from the 70s -- could make winners give one-word acceptance speech. Just need to pick the right keyword to express a whole speech's worth of feelings!

Commercial time = dead time. Give out awards while the cameras are off, and announce which prizes the home audience missed with a crawl. Works for CNN.

Red carpet time is on TV but it's not my responsibility. Could leave Oscars around the red carpet area for winners to find -- think Easter egg hunt

Current administration conservative: skip over all categories where the winner's gay

Dead people montage -- too long. Leave out every person who died past age fifty OR every person who died on a weekend

Acceptance speech gets cut off as soon as award winner uses the letter "e"

Takes too long for a statuette to get from the stage to the crowd. What about a giant slingshot? Catapult? Talk to someone at the Lakers about those cannons they use to shoot shirts to the fans.

Julia Roberts set bad example with her speech when she won in '01; burn her in effigy backstage