LOS ANGELES - The hottest accessory on this year's Oscar red carpet was carried beneath the designer gowns.

Nicole Kidman, Jessica Alba and most noticeably Cate Blanchett brought baby bumps to the Academy Awards. And though Angelina Jolie was nowhere to be found, hers got a big shout-out from host Jon Stewart, who noted the number of actresses who are expecting.

"This is so exciting. The baby goes to ... Angelina Jolie," Stewart said, opening a fake envelope as photos of Blanchett, Alba and Kidman flashed on the screen. "Angelina couldn't be with us tonight. It's tough to get 17 baby sitters on Oscar night."

Blanchett is closest to term for what will be a third child with playwright husband Andrew Upton. Kidman is expecting her first child with country singer husband Keith Urban; she has two adopted children with first husband Tom Cruise.

Alba, with fiancee Cash Warren at her side, was serene in a deep purple strapless gown with purple feathers decorating her bodice.

"I'm not really terribly nervous," she said before the show. "Being pregnant is like taking a sedative."

Jolie and partner Brad Pitt are expecting their second child together. They are the parents of 1-year-old Shiloh, and three children adopted from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam. Their adopted children are Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; and Zahara, 3.

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TAKE THIS BLING AND SHOVE IT: The shoes fit — and cost $1 million — but Diablo Cody didn't wear 'em.

Fancy-footwear designer Stuart Weitzman had selected the Oscar-nominated "Juno" screenwriter to wear his specially designed $1 million diamond-encrusted Retro Rose shoes on the red carpet, but Cody opted to wear a pair of simple gold flats under her flowing Dior leopard print dress instead.

"It was a cheesy publicity stunt," she told the AP on the red carpet.

On Friday, Cody lashed out at Weitzman on her MySpace blog following the expensive shoe selection.

"They're using me to publicize their stupid shoes and NOBODY ASKED ME," she wrote. "I would never consent to a lame publicity stunt at a time when I already want to hide."

Weitzman later said he made the cost of the metallic beige T-strap high heels — more than $2.5 million, including parts that were not used in the final pair — clear to Cody when he met with her. He blames the stripper-turned-screenwriter's behind-the-scenes team for not fully communicating the value of the shoes to Cody.

"I'm just embarrassed that she wrote what she wrote," he told the AP during a telephone interview Saturday night.

Even so, the designer says he wouldn't change his decision to give the ultra-expensive heels to Cody.

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RAIN CHECK: Mother Nature should have known better than to try to dampen Hollywood's biggest event of the year.

Although the heavens opened up and rain poured down on Los Angeles almost all day Sunday, anyone watching the Academy Awards at home would have had no idea.

Yards and yards of tenting kept all of the red carpet outside the Kodak Theatre high and dry except for one brief edge near a tricky turn. Powerful lights gave the illusion that the sun was shining even though most of the time it wasn't.

"It's great to be here and not get rained on," said Oscar nominee George Clooney, who spent nearly an hour on the red carpet schmoozing with fans and talking with reporters before the show.

Oscar producer Gil Cates said the tenting kept the humidity down, helping actresses who had spent hours on their hair look the same as they did when they walked out of the salon. He might have gotten an argument on that point, however, from Steve Carell.

"It's really sort of like a greenhouse in here," Carell said upon arriving on the red carpet. "It's like hydroponics."

After hours of heavy rain, the sun finally did break through, just a few minutes before the Oscar pre-show began.

It was the perfect Hollywood ending to a thoroughly Hollywood day.

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BUSEY BODY: Gary Busey lived up to his reputation by strangely crashing Ryan Seacrest's interviews on the Academy Awards red carpet.

While Seacrest was interviewing Jennifer Garner and Laura Linney on the live E! pre-show broadcast, Busey repeatedly interrupted.

After Busey warmly greeted Linney, Seacrest introduced him to Garner, whom he promptly gave a bear hug. Garner was clearly annoyed, and was left wondering why "this man" had just grabbed her. Linney tried to usher them both out of the interview as Garner curtly replied to Seacrest's final questions.

As Busey continued to linger, Seacrest politely suggested they catch up later in the evening.

"I'll see you later at the party. You know the one," said Seacrest.

When an E! co-host asked Seacrest what had happened, Seacrest was dumbfounded and acknowledged he had never met Busey before.

The 63-year-old actor has parodied his out-there reputation on HBO's Hollywood insider comedy "Entourage."

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SPEECH! SP ... : Just 12 seconds and 34 words, including the "um."

Alexandra Byrne set the gold standard in short award show acceptance speeches when she picked up the costume design Oscar for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age."

And she still got in four "thank yous."

Source: AP