1995

Best Picture: forrest gump

The ballot for our second annual Oscar party is the most hideous thing committed to paper ever. Ever. Comprised entirely of CAPITAL LETTERS it practically begs to be set aside and ignored, but our guests filled them out anyway. Things could only go up from here.

This also appears to be the first year that we sent out a bona fide invitation to go along with the ballot. (I think we simply called everyone up and invited them the previous year.) I banged the thing out on my trusty old electric typewriter; it wouldn't win any design awards, but at least it wasn't in all caps. It also instituted a tradition of making a snarky use of the year's worst films to help explain how to fill out the ballot. I must have creamed everyone else pretty badly in the first year's Oscar Pool, because the invite makes mention of me giving myself a five-point hanidcap in this year's Pool. I lost by a wide margin in the second year's Pool, though, and the handicap was discontinued thereafter (Yea!).

(P.S. This was the infamous Oscar ceremony hosted by David Letterman. "Uma...Oprah. Oprah...Uma....")