Let’s add some dirt to all the glitter

You know the drill.

Glammed-up superstars exit their limos, sashay along the red carpet, bestow a few waves and interviews, and off they go inside the big auditorium. They take their high-profile seats and smile for the cameras, present awards, receive awards and give tiresome speeches while the vast viewing audience waits eagerly for something -- anything -- to shake things up a little bit.

But what if the Academy Awards, like the rest of Hollywood, got a face-lift? What if the producers of reality television got their hands on the movies’ biggest night? What would they do?

Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of “American Idol”:

The Oscars ceremony is so wonderful. But the entire process is based on the movies of that year and the stars of that year and what they say. And there’s no getting away from that, really. You want to see what’s up for an award and who wins it and that’s it.

What I would do is create certain programs around the Oscars. There’s certainly a show in the pre-Oscars dress-designer fight I’d call “The Catty Catwalk,” where all of the designers fight for the Reese Witherspoons. “I want Reese to wear my outfit! No, I want her to wear mine!” It’s very much a catfight.

There would be “Red Carpet Wrangling,” where all the stars are held [in a waiting area] and people fight for when they get to go on the red carpet. Then during the program, I would have cameras in the bathrooms because I think “Bathroom Bickering” would be one, where all of the women come out and they complain that they’re wearing the same dress as somebody else. Or they complain about who has won and who hasn’t. And probably one in the guys’ bathroom to see who is doing what drugs.

There’s also possibly a talent show at the end of the ceremony for the seat fillers -- people who have to come in and sit down for most of the ceremony until the star is ready to come out for their category. All of them are very, very talented, you know.

And then at the end of the whole thing, because it’s so “in” at the moment, we would send a forensic team to pull hairs off the seats to see what drugs have been consumed or who is the real father of the love child.

Ben Silverman, executive producer of “The Biggest Loser” and “Nashville Star”:

I’d try to create some more spontaneity and fun. I would have a category for the audience to vote on. And I would create a huge multi-platform experience around the Oscars and the audience favorite, so we could have a parallel exercise that linked in the audience and gives them a vested rooting interest, beyond just their enjoyment of the celebrity and the earnestness of the show.

I would probably drop the songs. They’re usually slow and boring movie songs. It sucks the energy out of the show.

I would create a promotional campaign outside with a big Oscar advertiser and build out a kind of parallel online interactive experience, where you could look at clips of the films, you could check out all the nominees. I’d create something where you could vote and create a community around the people voting and build chat rooms so people could be discussing who they think should win and why and what movies they like and why.

I want a lot more spontaneity and the interaction of the amazing stars that are there. You’d have the audience vote on what their favorite movie is and reveal it at the end of the show. I also wouldn’t cut [the actors’] speeches down. I’d rather hear Tom Hanks for 2 1/2 minutes than look at another clip from “Brokeback Mountain.”

I also love the red carpet. I would let one lucky fan in one big, promo sweepstakes give a thank you speech as if they’d won an award. It’s everyone’s dream. I’d call it “The Whoever Is Sponsoring It” like “The Coca-Cola Fan.” They get their one minute of the Oscar audience to thank whoever they want.

Conrad Green, executive producer of “Dancing With the Stars” and “Big Brother”:

I think what we would like to do is “The Oscars Unmasked.” It would really get to the bone of finding out all the secrets -- the deals of who got to wear what dress and what everyone really thinks of each other. It would be the truth behind the Oscars. In “The Oscars Unmasked,” you do everything possible to find when they stumble into each other after the show and start moaning about each other, using as many hidden cameras as possible to catch the real behind-the-scenes feel of it.

The first thing would be to put cameras behind the mirrors in the toilets, so you could see people commenting, “Oh, I never deserved to win that award.” And whenever the stars come out to present an Oscar, or whenever they appear, a bubble appears on screen that tells you all of the demands they made, how much their appearance cost in terms of free clothing. So you’d have a little bubble that comes off their dress saying, “Julia Roberts chose this dress. She was offered a $50,000 dress by Dior and was promised an hourlong [shopping spree] in the Dior store if she wore this one.”

You’d make the speeches available online that they [intend to] give. Click on one and up would come the speech that Jack Nicholson would give if he had accepted his award. And, of course, you’d have to reveal the awards in reverse order based upon the number of academy votes they had: “ ‘Whale Rider’ only got a pathetic seven votes. Unfortunately, you’re out of the competition.” Then a light would turn off and they would disappear. As you go through the nominees, they would disappear. “And now it’s head-to-head between Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson and the academy says we give four votes to Johnny Depp.” And you play it out.

The idea is to strip down all of the backroom deals, find out what’s really going through their heads, find out what their speeches would have been, hear all the arguments, like who is not allowed to attend whose parties.

And I’d keep the losers on camera while the winner is making his speech. They can’t keep that smile going forever and you’d see how cross they really are. That’s what you want to know.

Jon Murray, executive producer of “The Real World,” “The Simple Life” and “Starting Over”:

What I like is having the cameras catching those moments that feel like something I normally wouldn’t get to see. I think that’s delicious. I don’t need a goofy host with it or a goofy sub-host. I just want the camera there with one of those big microphones, like the kinds they use on football games, where you can hear things. So I would like, as people are coming off with awards, to be able to hear what they’re saying to the person who’s walking them off. And I’d like to hear right after someone’s lost; I want to hear what they’re whispering to their wife or boyfriend.

And you’ve got to have cameras set up at the men’s and women’s rooms. It just seems so much is going on there that we’re missing.... They could set up a little place for women to reapply their makeup and you could have a two-way mirror with a camera behind it so you could hear what they’re saying to each other.

Give me more up close and personal. Make it seem like I’m a fly on the wall. The counter to that is the beautifully produced ceremony with the wonderful, fancy shots -- sweet pans of the room, the actors running up onstage. I wouldn’t mess with those. Just coming in and out of those moments, give me a little of the behind-the-scenes sense of being there.