And the Oscar Goes to . . . Charlotte, N.C.

Limousines disgorge fashionable people as the paparazzi move in to snap pictures. It’s Oscar night--in Charlotte, N.C.

The $75-a-plate bash planned Monday night for the city’s Mint Museum of Art is one of a dozen parties nationwide licensed by the motion picture industry as part of a new program to boost excitement about the Oscars.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hopes local publicity about the bashes will spark greater interest in the nationally televised awards show. Viewership in Charlotte, Indianapolis, Tampa, Fla., and other cities last year ranked below the national average.

“We’re trying to give the Oscars a lift,” said Michael Broggie, a marketing consultant who coordinates the program for the academy.

The bashes are sponsored by local charities that receive official Oscar programs and posters. The local ABC affiliate provides a live feed of the broadcast. The charities don’t pay anything for the license.

There’s no mistaking the licensed showings for the real event. For one thing, there are no stars, though the sponsors of the Charlotte party have hired people to impersonate Dolly Parton, Diana Ross and Miss Piggy while fake paparazzi shoot photos.

Moreover, party-goers will receive free product samples not typically given away at Oscar parties, such as packages of Breath Assure.

“At an Oscar party, you don’t want to worry about what your breath is like,” Breath Assure President Anthony Raissen says. He confides: “Hollywood has more than it’s share of bad breath.”

There will be no Oscars awarded at the parties, of course, though the folks in Charlotte plan to distribute--shhhhh--bootleg Oscars purchased from a local gift shop.

Whether the event encourages more people in Charlotte to stay up late and watch the Oscars is hard to say. A test of the program last year in a handful of cities had mixed results.

“Charlotte is a conservative city,” said Cheryl Helden, a fund-raiser for the Arthritis Foundation, the party sponsor. “I don’t know how many people stay up to around midnight to see the whole thing.”