If They Gave an Awards Show And Nobody Came....

would anybody care?

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - A roar went up from the lobby bar of the Beverly Hilton before Sunday night's Golden Globes. But it wasn't fans thrilling at the sight of Angelina Jolie or George Clooney on the red carpet - it was the New York Giants upsetting the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL playoffs.

The Globes typically kick off Hollywood's award season with more than 1,000 stars and power brokers on hand for a rollicking ceremony. But they were knocked back into humdrum reality by the Hollywood writers strike, forced to trade that tradition for an awkward news conference with all the drama of a Los Angeles weathercast.

The hotel ballroom, which should have been filled with famous nominees cheek-to-cheek at cozy tables, instead was given over to risers holding TV cameras and an audience of reporters and anonymous others. The after-Globe parties that were to have drawn 3,000 merrymakers were canceled.

Lacking Hollywood's trademark famous faces and manufactured excitement, the awards voted on by 85 little-known journalists from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were missing any magic or meaning - an emperor stripped of his designer duds.

No question - best awards show ever.