-- 1985 Accepting the Best Actress statuette (her second) for Places in the Heart, Sally Field gushes, ''You like me! Right now, you like me!'' The ecstatic utterance instantly becomes a punchline -- -one which she herself uses the following year, before presenting William Hurt with a Best Actor Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman, when she says to the crowd, ''Let's see which one you like, you really, really like.''
-- 1986 Perhaps Oscar's first great screw-you fashion moment. Snubbed for her performance in Mask, Cher stuns the fastidious Academy by wearing a belly-baring Bob Mackie number that is one part spider, two parts Vegas showgirl. ''I did receive my Academy booklet on how to dress like a serious actress,'' she cracks. Two years later, Cher is named Best Actress for Moonstruck.
-- 1989 Though song-and-dance numbers have never fared well on Oscar night, they reach a nadir when Snow White (actress Eileen Bowman) and a clearly embarrassed Rob Lowe duet on ''Proud Mary.'' It's so tacky it's literally illegal -- Disney later threatens to file a lawsuit but changes its tune after the Academy apologizes.
-- 1991 ''Here she is, the NC-17 portion of our...show,'' jokes host Billy Crystal before a Monroe-esque Madonna performs Best Original Song winner Dick Tracy's ''Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man).'' And while she refrains from shedding much more than a white stole, her first trip to the Oscars is still undeniably scorching. And endearing: Trembling hands and a quivering voice betray a clearly humbled Material Girl.
-- 1992 City Slickers' Jack Palance pauses in the middle of his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor to display his virility, doing push-ups that culminate in three of the one-armed variety. The cinematic tough guy also notes of host and Slickers costar Billy Crystal: ''I crap bigger than him.''
-- 1994 He'd lost for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., and The Color Purple didn't even earn him a nomination. But in 1994, Steven Spielberg finally triumphs, winning Best Director for his moving Holocaust drama, Schindler's List, which also wins Best Picture.
-- 1995 An out-of-his-element David Letterman bombs as host. Nevertheless, he manages one enduring moment: introducing Uma (Thurman) to Oprah (Winfrey). ''Oprah, Uma,'' he deadpans. ''Uma, Oprah.'' Letterman milks it all evening.
-- 1997 Best Supporting Actor winner Cuba ''Show Me the Money'' Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire) jumps around. And jumps around. And professes his love...for everyone. For a good, long while.
-- 1998 Best Director winner James Cameron turns the Academy Awards into an impromptu coronation by declaring (a la Titanic hero Jack Dawson) that he is ''king of the world!'' By the end of the night, his $200 million disaster epic sails away with 11 statuettes, including Best Picture, and ties 1959's Ben-Hur for the most Oscar wins.
-- 1998 ''Oscar's Family Album,'' a gathering of actors who have won Academy Awards, features such veterans as Shelley Winters and Gregory Peck alongside Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman. An awe-inspiring moment, although research later shows that 64 living winners were missing from the photo op.
