OSCAR RECAP

They Were Watching: ABC estimated Tuesday that about 75 million U.S. viewers watched all or part of Monday night’s Academy Awards telecast. According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., an average of 29 million viewing homes--a 50% share of the available national viewing audience--tuned in to the three-hour, 39-minute broadcast. Although good numbers, those ratings are down slightly from last year, when the Oscars drew a 53% share, making it the top-rated entertainment special of the 1994-95 season.

*

Case Solved: So what really happened to the missing envelope proclaiming Luis Bacalov’s dramatic score win for “The Postman (Il Postino)”? Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis said Tuesday that after careful review of the events, it appears that the glitch occurred because two score awards were handed out by the same presenters, Sharon Stone and Oscar producer Quincy Jones. While the first set of winners--”Pocahontas” writers Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz--made their way to the podium, Frank Johnson, Price Waterhouse managing partner, is seen on tape handing the second winner’s envelope to Stone. Stone is then seen placing the envelope on the podium, slipping it directly underneath the Oscar statuette, where it remained stuck when Schwartz carried the trophy offstage. Although the envelope was found during Stone’s well-received ad-libs, Jones had already made his way over to Price Waterhouse’s all-knowing Johnson, who divulged the outcome.

*

More Oscar Notes: Director John Lasseter said after winning his special award for “Toy Story,” the first fully computer-animated film, that “nothing has been decided yet” as to the course of a sequel for Woody and Buzz Lightyear. “I’m not sure what form it would take, whether it would be direct to video or a theatrical sequel,” he said. . . . The talking Oscar at the end of the show’s “Toy Story” animation segment prompted “a lot of questions as to how Oscar should sound,” such as whether the golden statuette would have an accent, the academy’s Bruce Davis said. In the end, a voice-over specialist was called in to lend Oscar his brief vocal abilities. . . . Scott Anderson, who picked up “Babe’s” only Oscar for his work as visual effects supervisor, has signed a multiyear deal with Sony Pictures Imageworks. . . . HBO will re-air “One Survivor Remembers,” Kary Antholis’ Oscar-winning documentary short, on April 16 at 4:15 p.m.