The strike's end may have lead to the show's speedier pace.

Given years of bloated telecasts and climatic moments that sometimes didn't arrive until the rooster crowed (or threatened to crow), Sunday's Academy Awards seemed destined to borrow from two of its front-running films in setting this year's tone: "There Will Be Boredom" and "No Entertainment for Longtime Viewers."

But then a strange thing happened: It started.

It was almost as if after years of being criticized for being superlong and anti-climatic, Oscar decided to tighten his belt, slim down and swap Super Size for simple-does-it.

For starters, Hollywood's 80th love affair with itself threw off such familiar conventions and traditions as starting with an eye-popping stunt or production number (remember Billy Crystal vamping as a wheeled-out Hannibal Lector or being spliced into clips of nominated film like Cuba Gooding Jr.'s towel scene in "Jerry McGuire")?

And it dropped the long-held tradition of giving the night's first award to one of the best supporting roles (usually alternating between Best Supporting Actor and Actress each year).

Given that the Writers Guild strike continued until literally just days before the red carpet got its annual tromping, the lack of advance planning - and writing - likely impacted Oscar's switch to an Ultra Slim-Fast approach.

Ironically, the writing that did make the show (and its delivery by the usually glib and funny Stewart as well as many presenters) was pretty crisp and pertinent.

Stewart, for example, started by comparing the night to "makeup sex" between Hollywood's writers and producers, and wisecracked about this year's "nominated psychopathic killer movies."

"All I can say is thank God for teenage pregnancies" he said, alluding to "Juno," the comparative bright spot among the year's nominees.

Witty also were such presenters as Steve Carell, who had to be "reminded" halfway in that he was presenting the award for Best Animated Feature and not for Best Documentary, and Jerry Seinfeld, who appeared as his animated "Bee Movie" character in presenting the award for Best Animated Short Film.

Nevertheless, there was plenty of irony in Stewart's wink to the audience that had the strike not ended, they would have been in for a night of "Oscar tributes" like a "Salute to Binoculars and Telescopes" and "Bad Dreams."

The irony, of course, was that the night then proceeded to be filled with plenty of highlight reels that threatened to sink Oscar's new slimmer, faster approach.

But if the pacing seemed to lag (like the good old bad days), consider this: After just 90 minutes, half of the awards - yes, a full 12 of the night's 24 awards - had been given out.

This was truly remarkable in and of itself: No more time-wasting of Oscar's typical first hour in which, say, only three paltry awards were presented, producers seemed to be saying.

For the most part Sunday, it was almost as if, to paraphrase Sally Field, Oscar was poised to stand and scream - writers strike or not - "You will like us! You will really like us!"

Well, at least he gave it the old college-Oscar try.

Bill Dean can be reached at (352-374-5039 or bill.dean@gvillesun.com.