Mercury - 100,000 camera flashes "Hello America. I'm Steve Martin. Why not just make it official: I will host the Oscars until I'm dead, or Conan O'Brien is ready, whichever comes first. Let's face it: I'm the funniest, the sharpest, the smartest, and the classiest. My monologue was bang on, with only a few rough patches -- there was a big skinny one-hump camel joke in there somewhere -- and my ad-libs were hilarious. And I managed to actually stay funny throughout the whole show. Welcome to my world, Richard Gere. So is there any point in leaving even a small possibility that Whoopi might be back? Or even Billy 'Luke Sleepwalker' Crystal? And, most crucially, until you sign my to my lifetime hosting contract, there's still a sliver of a chance that Robin Williams might wind up hosting. And who can stand Robin Williams? Geez, I could barely stand Bono doing his impression of Robin Williams."

Venus - A more respectful 75,000 camera flashes
"Hi, I'm Adrien Brody. I'm the guy who, just when you were starting to get really disgusted by the Chicago sweep, rescued the Oscars from being a complete travesty. Since most of you didn't see the movie I was in, you probably didn't really know what to expect when I won Best Actor. Kicking off my acceptance speech by planting a giant smacker on Halle Berry might not have set quite the tone I would have liked if I'd had all my faculties about me, but hey, I was excited. But then, I managed to regain sure footing, tearfully thanking my parents and my infamously absent director. Finally, on a night when so many full-of-shit winners and presenters did such a ham-handed or insincere job of advancing their political positions, I ended by simply and eloquently pleading for peace, demonstrating how best to do so with grace and conviction. Perhaps if I'd been able to lead with my example earlier in the evening, Michael Moore wouldn't have made such a colossal ass out of himself. Actually, there's probably nothing any mortal human being could have done to prevent that."

Earth - Dozens of shiny peace pins
"Hi, I'm Bob Fosse. I wrote the book for the original Broadway production of Chicago, as well as directed and choreographed it. Maybe you've heard of me? Of course, on the Oscars you wouldn't have heard of me if some random person in the audience hadn't shouted my name during Marty Richards's acceptance speech for the Best Picture award. Yeah, thanks for the props, filmmakers. But hey, what do I care. I'm not even alive, and besides--"

Mars - Millions of sequins
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah blah blah, Fosse, Fossi, Fossay. Hi, I'm Rob Marshall. You may know me as the director of Chicago -- you know, the current brilliant version that everyone loves. I'd like to thank the Academy for this award, which means so much to me. It certainly was an honor to share this category with such distinguished competition, and to win on my first nomination is just -- what? I what? Roman who? They gave the award to some Italian guy? But I directed Chicago! Me! Are they aware of that? So what are you telling me? You mean that now I have to direct another one of these things before I can win more shiny statues? I want my shiny statues! Harvey!""

Jupiter - Nicole Kidman's forehead
"Hello, I'm Catherine Zeta-Jones. It's a thrill to win Best Supporting Actress for Chicago, a throwback to the glory days of the Hollywood musical, and a tribute to the performers who made sure that no matter what -- even if one of them happened to kill her husband and sister -- the show would go on. You gave me this award because you thought I was convincing as a showbiz trouper, but you don't know the half of it: you see, my water broke halfway through my performance of 'I Go On.' I delivered the baby backstage, interviewed six nannies, handed the kid off to the successful candidate, and made it back to my seat in time to accept my award. I'd like to see Meryl Streep do that."

Saturn - Louis Gossett Jr.'s suit
"Hi, we're Eminem and Roman Polanski, kicking it here in France in Ro-Dog's hot tub. We don't know which one of us was more surprised to hear his name. When Roman won, Em was all like 'Ah, shit Ro!' and snapping his fingers together, and when Em won, Ro was all like, 'My dizzle!' and then he started laughing and sprayed bub all out his nose. We never thought we'd win, for shizzle -- Eminem was so sure he'd lose that he sent Kenny G in his place to accept the award. Yeah, sure, maybe we're a bit sad we didn't show up -- especially Em, 'cause he's had a crush on Babs Streisand for, like, forever -- but we're cool. We enjoyed the show from here in France, where we're both part of an American sleeper cell waiting for our call to take out Chirac."

Uranus - Ben Affleck's forehead
"Hi, I'm Richard Gere. I've been told that I was not nominated for any Oscar for my role as Billy Flynn in Chicago. Though I don't know how that's even possible, I'm going to assume that the Academy's decision to seat me in the front row is its way of recognizing their appalling oversight and giving one of the other Chicago winners a chance to pull me up on stage and let me get an Oscar for being, you know, part of the team of editors, or art directors, or Catherine Zeta-Joneses. No one ended up pulling me up on stage, even when I got in their way and practically tripped them, but no matter: that's a little trick for mooching camera time that Sharon Stone taught me at the Golden Globes."

Neptune - Three or four extremely subdued and respectful camera flashes
"Hi, I'm Michael Moore. It's a good thing you gave me an award for Best Documentary Feature and recognized the one thing I do better than anyone else: championing popular causes in such a way that even those people who agree with me fundamentally despise me for acting as their public spokesman. But I don't care! 'Sense of occasion'? What's that? 'Speaking persuasively and making cogent arguments instead of screeching slogans'? I've never tried that before -- why start now? No, I feel that the best way to get my message across -- my rather popular message, which is that war is bad -- is by bloviating semi-coherently and screaming over the boos and basically acting like a would-be bad-ass high-school senior trying to rile up the class with some confused crap in opposition to 'The Man,' filibustering as long as I can until the principal hauls me offstage to detention. So the more you boo me, the more my inner high-school senior -- the part of me that has cobbled together a simplistic political attitude from chants I've heard at protests and the table of contents of The Nation -- the more convinced I am that I, and only I, am right. So, now that you've given me this award, financing my next documentary will be a cinch. I think I'll make my next movie about how America is, like, bad."

Pluto - Jack Nicholson's teeth
"Hi, I'm James Coburn. Yes, it's sad that I, like many Hollywood legends, passed on last year and was honoured in the annual Oscars montage. But the real tragedy is that I've taken my secrets to beating the slot machines with me to my grave! My secrets to beating video poker, however, can be found in the drawer in my bedside table, next to my spare pair of dentures. Or can they? I'll never tell! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"