Bruce Vilanch, a writer for awards shows such as the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Grammy Awards, said that despite what viewers might think, the joke-writing process before the ceremony itself airs is incredibly intensive. "Billy Crystal came up with the idea of creating a huge playbook, almost like a football team would use for a big game," he said. "The script itself is 300 pages. It's a big hefty tome, and it's kept offstage, generally offstage left. The host will leaf through it during commercial breaks. It's mostly based on what might happen during the broadcast.... You study who's nominated to win all the awards, the movies these people are associated with, everything that's necessary to come up with jokes. A ton of research.... Out of the hundreds [of jokes] that we write – really hundreds – if one or two are used, it's a big deal."
Mark J. Terrill/AP
