After the inevitable months of buildup, the 82nd annual Academy Awards were distributed last night at the Kodak Theatre in L.A. First, check out the complete list of winners; then, watch the telecast's best and worst moments, as chosen by "The Early Show" this morning (above). Even more highlights are after the jump.

3:19:04 PM Tara Ariano: I feel like we've all gotten past the fear that Britain is going to rise again as an imperial power, but today "The Early Show" made me wonder whether the U.S. can compete in one key arena: bunny domination.
3:20:07 PM Julie Klausner: I don't think there's any wondering left to do: The UK has cornered us in the "gigantic rabbit" department and we are powerless in its wake!
3:20:49 PM Tara Ariano: Wasn't this basically the exact plot of that "Wallace & Gromit" movie? With the were-rabbit? Because the so-called bunny in the clip above clearly wishes humans ill, or why would it have decided to get so big?
3:21:23 PM Julie Klausner: Wait a minute. Why do you think that bunny hates people? Because it's huge? That's just more bunny for hugging!
3:21:44 PM Tara Ariano: That's what people said about King Kong!
3:21:54 PM Julie Klausner: Really? I thought they just said "AWJHGLAJGRASLJGSALJDGH!!!!"
3:22:02 PM Tara Ariano: They did after they realized they shouldn't have tried to hug him.

Are you comfortable with soup? I mean, sure, you like eating soup. That's why it's called soup! But are you COMFORTABLE with it? Because it's comfortable with you! It told me.

Anyway, this morning, Katie Lee Joel, who is a cookbook author as well as Billy Joel's 29-year-old stick-thin ex-wife, told Harry Smith of "The Early Show," "I just love to curl up on a cold day with a hot bowl of soup." She managed to keep a straight face for the duration of that sentence, even while Smith repeatedly said "mmmm" in a high-pitched voice, in a way that made me cower in my seat like a taunted baby chimpanzee. After her "cold day" monologue, Joel continued with a "fun fact about soup": apparently, people who eat more of it are more likely to be thin. She should know because she is very thin and likes soup enough to talk about it on television! Also, here's a "fun fact" about Katie Lee Joel -- she began dating Billy Joel when she was 22 and he was 54. You learn something gross every day! Katie Lee's is the last of "The Early Show's" comfort food-themed cooking segments, alongside a roster of recipes I can only pray included mac and cheese pancakes, deep-fried Cadbury Creme Eggs, and those cheeseburgers with hot dogs stuffed inside of them and topped on the outside with a weaved bacon shell so they look like turtles. Lentils, shementils -- that's how *I* spell comfort! Enjoy this clip, in which the Lohanesque Joel brags about how much she likes to eat and how easy it is to roast your own tomatoes. I believe neither thing, but who knows what the hypnotic effects of listening to "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" over and over again for the duration of a marriage will do to one's gullibility?

Obviously, it is Pancake Day. The IHOP website says as much, and its special Pancake Day site got a charming animation of a stack of flapjacks piling atop each other, and it's all for charity or something. Don't you guys check the IHOP website every day? For news?

Well, if you didn't hear about Pancake Day until right now, the good news is that it's still not too late to eat a lot of pancakes. So while you're mixing the batter, allow me to serenade you with some history about God's most important holiday. Pancake Day takes place the day before Lent each year (it's also the day traditionally known as Mardi Gras). Speaking of which, give your King Cake to Larry King and flush the plastic baby inside it down the toilet. I don't mean to disparage other kinds of cake. But if I'm given the choice of a stack of pancakes or a handful or whatever the portion is called of King Cake -- after it's been torn to ribbons -- I would literally laugh in the face of the person giving me the option, and then, while my mouth was still open, stuff it full of more pancake parts.

But back to the history of Pancake Day! Wikipedia tells me that it's also known as "Shrove Tuesday" -- "shrove" being not a synonym for "pancake" but instead, the past tense form of the verb "to shrive," which means "to atone," basically. Also according to Wikipedia, and my colleague, Tara, the tradition of making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday came from the last feast before Lent, for which Lenters would use up all the fat, sugar, milk, and eggs in their homes to make fantastic, terrific, succulent, fluffy, sometimes chocolate chip-filled, always syrup-drenched, delicious, happiness-inspiring pancakes.

My point is this: You do not have to be Catholic to eat pancakes today, so please keep that in mind before you convert. And the other important thing is that you do not need to make pancakes on Pancake Day -- you merely need to eat them. That said, if you're feeling inspired, watch the above clip from "The Early Show" on how how to make perfect banana and walnut pancakes, or follow this link to a pulse-quickeningly comprehensive list of pancake recipes, including blueberry and pumpkin.

If you haven't yet caught an episode of the new CBS reality show, "Undercover Boss," here's the premise. A CEO of a major company -- a fat cat, a bigwig, a grand poobah, so to speak -- takes a position usually held by an employee lower on the food chain than he. A job held by, say, a Joe Sixpack, a Steven Truckstop, a Gary Football Stadium, or what have you. And it's all caught on tape! It is a show.

Anyway, in this clip from "The Early Show," they preview the next episode of "Undercover Boss," in which Coby Brooks, the CEO of Hooters Restaurants -- or "Breastaurants," per the New York Post -- goes undercover to dish out onion rings to drunk, knee-sock-appreciating customers. Now, I know everybody probably died of laughter imagining Coby -- a man with the name Coby, which is apparently a man's name -- in a sexy tank top and nude pantyhose with little nylon short shorts over the whole deal. Because he's a man, and that uniform is a lady's uniform, and if anybody tells you different, they are liars who are probably making fun of you. But I don't think, based on this clip, that Coby seems like the kind of guy who'd be willing to shave his goatee. So I imagine he'll be in the back washing dishes with owls on them and mixing sauce for wings instead of crunching numbers and shredding sexual harassment lawsuits back in his corner office. Anyway, enjoy this interview with America's great-uncle, Harry Smith, in which Coby Brooks discusses the 26-year-old institution, created by his father, known as Hooters, a restaurant that, according to Brooks, "empowers women all the time." Your move, Hawaiian Tropic Zone!

Good news! It's not just our constant intake of alternate courses of donuts and burritos that's making Americans fat. It's also sadness! But apparently, in addition to both of those things, there are magical chemicals called "obesogens" that exist in our food, and those apparently lower our metabolisms and make us more prone to be chubbos. This is the subject of a new book called "The New American Diet," written by Stephen Perrine, who is a fan of wearing his shirts unbuttoned to the collar bone, and of blaming things on stuff we can't see with the naked eye or control with the naked hand. In this clip from "The Early Show," Perrine tries to talk to Harry Smith about obesogen-containing foods, including pesticide-rich fruit, artificial hormone-laden meat, and BPA-containing tuna fish -- but Smith seems to just want to laugh at the idea of eating the fake plastic fruit they have on display. Enjoy this clip of Perrine trying to explain how to order grassfed beef on the internet to Harry Smith, giggle-puss.

It sucks to be a man. Women make them shop for undies and smell candles, and their bosses make them sit in boring meetings and do all kinds of stuff they hate. Given the chance, a man would trade his wife for a good set of tires so he can drive over the speed limit to somewhere that has snacks and beer. In fact, in the face of doom, the only thing that can save the world is beer. And animals love cars as much as men do. And women love babies, Paris, and book clubs. And men hate being around women -- unless those women have beer. And Hollywood only produces remakes or movies based on videogames. Men love videogames, especially if they are violent.

This is the overarching narrative of Sunday's Super Bowl ads. If you believe that the people shelling out millions for these spots have done their research and targeted the audience well, this is the country we live in: Men feel castrated by modern society and are on their way to fatal obesity and a 12-step program -- alone in a speeding car.

After the jump is a breakdown of the ads that aired during the Super Bowl, which attracted an estimated 106.5 million people. That makes it the most watched television in history. Sorry "M*A*S*H." Football is the new king.

We've suffered through the People's Choice and Golden Globes and Critics' Choice and SAGs, but now we can quit playing: the 2010 Oscar nominations are official, as of this morning. Watch the announcement above; also, read the complete list. There's plenty more after the jump.

Leave it to morning talk shows to devise ways to make the Super Bowl something less than the Peytonmannian orgy of gooey cheese and sudsy beer that it is meant to be. Here are a few "expert" suggestions for people who know nothing about football, nor the guzzling, chomping, fist-pumping culture that has sprung up around this made-for-commercials sport. (Really: Did you know the average football game only has about 11 minutes of action?) More after the jump. 

There are so many things that are impossible to understand. Why do bad things happen to good people? Who built the pyramids? How is this news? But leave it to People magazine to tackle one of the most unsolvable mysteries of our time in this segment on "The Early Show." Editor Betsy Gleick spoke to Harry Smith this morning, in hopes of solving the Columbo-worthy riddle, "Why did Elizabeth Edwards leave John Edwards?" To paraphrase Sherlock Gleick's theory, it may have had something to do with Edwards finally coming forward and admitting that the nearly 2-year-old daughter of his former mistress is, indeed, his. Which means that Edwards conceived of what we know, per The Supremes, as his love child when his wife Elizabeth was being treated for incurable cancer; then he lied about it, even though he knew he was the father during his primary run and if the scandal had surfaced any later, he could have cost his party the presidency. But who knows if Gleick's even close to the mark? Maybe Edwards made some really annoying sounds while he was gargling or something, and Elizabeth just couldn't take it anymore? It's the little things that add up!