With the giant, overturned hourglass in the courtyard of the Hollywood & Highland complex trickling sand until its final grains pass through it at the strike of midnight on February 24, producers of the Oscars ceremony are continuing to stick to their pledge that come hell or high water, audiences looking for four-plus mind-numbing hours of premium trophy distribution won't walk away disappointed:

Anyone who endured as much as two minutes of NBC's Access Hollywood-branded Repetition Of The Winners' Names Recited Moments Ago At The First Annual Crippled Golden Globes Press Conference Spectacular probably didn't find it hard to envision a similar nightmare scenario unfolding at a strike-hampered Academy Awards, wherein planned host Jon Stewart is replaced by a dream celebrity-newsmagazine-mannequin team of Mark McGrath and Maria Menounos, whose only function will be to smile and point to headshots of Oscar victors projected onto the 100-foot screen looming behind them on the Kodak Theatre stage. (And to respond with glee to reaction shots of a cardboard cut-out of Jack Nicholson, complete with omnipresent sunglasses and shit-eating grin, propped up in the actor's customary front-row seat.)