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Today's Rush & Molloy column offers some preview items of behind-the-scenes Oscar wackiness from the upcoming book The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards. This Whitney Houston anecdote reveals the chilling conspiracy by Oscar producers to ensure that the awards telecast remains totally devoid of entertainment:

Rehearsing with musical director Burt Bacharach for the 2000 awards, a disoriented Whitney Houston began singing "The Way We Were" - even though Bacharach was playing "Over the Rainbow."[...]

Pulling her from the lineup, producer Lili Zanuck said, "We didn't want to work for six months for this to be a show about how [bleeped]-up Whitney Houston was."

How are any of us supposed to watch the Oscars knowing how close we are to a televised rock-smoking meltdown? Let's hope they don't repeat the mistakes of the past; it wouldn't be too hard for a producer to leave a crack pipe and a wireless mic "unattended" near Houston. (Sorry if we sound a little impatient, but sometimes it seems like Bravo's Being Bobby Brown is never going to arrive. We ache for it.)