by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 22, 2010   Last Updated: February 23, 2010

It's a very personal experience. Each person has their favorite stars, and reactions differ when they those same stars appear at the Academy Awards ceremony. It's been said that nearly one hundred million people watch the broadcast of those celebrities walking down the red carpet. The pressure's on when there's this many eyeballs watching. So what kind of crazy things can happen?

Here's five of my favorite moments.

* One red-carpet moment was so notorious, the actor involved later had to apologize .  Gary Busey snuck up on actresses Laura Linney and Jennifer Garner during the 2008 ceremony - startled them during an interview. The three are all friends, but the two women were appearing on-camera. It raises an interesting question - are the stars really arriving spontaneously, or are they on-duty, in the middle of an ad hoc press conference where they've made themselves available for  interested media professionals? Busey lingered to continue the conversation - making the two  starlets uncomfortable.  The interviewer? Ryan Seacrest. And the aftermath? Seacrest received a phone call on his radio show the next morning - from Garey Busey.

"I didn't know you were in the middle of an interview, and I was just moving through there," Busey explained.  Then he rushed to assure Seacrest that he respected his work, saying "You are to me, when you're working, an innocent champion of honesty..."

* I swear it's true.  About 20 years ago, two 20-somethings with a camera filmed themselves conning their way onto the red carpet. The footage was hysterical - first there's a bouncer who, sternly, tells them they're not welcome. But the camera keeps rolling as they continue filming the outside of the ceremony - and, obviously, scanning for another entrance into the ceremony.

I remember the voice saying something optimistic - and then another stern bouncer appearing,  as the camera suddenly switches its direction.  No entree there either, but the cheerful banter continued as they found their way to another entrance.  There was another bouncer, who - mistakenly - seemed to recognize them as legitimate media. He smiles and waves them in, and suddenly the camera is moving forward!

They then proceeded to interview major celebrities. And eventually, they even got to be on the Tonight Show themselves - just to describe the excitement of being the two ordinary mortals who had finally gotten in!* Joan Rivers served the same function. She was the ordinary mortal who dared to speak the truth about the way those celebrities looked! But in 2008, she was unceremoniously dumped from her coverage duties by one channel (which promised their coverage would become "kinder and gentler.") So Rivers turned to the internet for the ultimate act of revenge. She continued broadcasting her poisonous analysis of the celebrities on a fashioned web site called StyleList. It was a watershed moment for me, since I saw what it really represented. TV tried to cover movies, but you had to look to the web if you wanted the nasty truth!

* I also have fond memories of the time they actually had film critic Roger Ebert interviewing the celebrities as they arrived. (Since, after all, who knows more about movie stars than a man who's reviewed movies for nearly four decades.) He's a familiar face, and it seemed like every celebrity lit up with recognition when they spotted him on the red carpet.  That's my personal favorite memory, especially now that 67-year-old Ebert is struggling with mouth cancer. 

He'd finally found his way to the very heart of the Hollywood enteratinment center on its biggest day - just to mix it up with the celebrities who made the movies he loved so much!

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