With those four words, comedian Chris Rock brought a new tone to the Oscars that network executives and sponsors of the Academy Awards hope will lure back a bigger, younger TV audience to Hollywood's biggest night.

Giving the Oscar producers what they paid for, the first-time host introduced an edgy, provocative mood to the show, with a monologue that was politically charged and racially aware while seeming, at times, to veer close to profane.

Rock, who drew controversy weeks before taking the Oscar stage by suggesting that he and most other African Americans had little reason to watch the awards, opened Sunday's show by acknowledging the record number of black performers vying for acting honours this year.

"We have, like, four black nominees. It's kinda like the Def Oscar Jam tonight," he enthused, in a reference to the HBO comedy series "Def Comedy Jam," a springboard for many black performers.

While flirting with network censors in his choice of words as he urged the star-studded studio audience to take their seats, the opening minutes of the broadcast bore no signs that ABC was forced to bleep put any of his remarks.

The sharp-tongued comic drew some of his biggest laughs with jabs aimed at President George W. Bush, the involuntary star of Michael Moore's scathing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

Rock noted that Moore's film, though shut out of the Oscar competition, was breaking box office records at the time Bush was running for re-election.

"Can you imagine applying for a job, and while you're applying for that job there's a movie in every theatre in the country that shows how much you suck in that job?" Rock said. "It would be hard to get hired, wouldn't it?"

Citing "another movie nobody wanted to make this year," Rock turned to Mel Gibson's blood-soaked homage to the final hours in the life of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ.

"I saw Passion of the Christ. Not that funny, really," he joked. "Nobody wanted to make 'Passion of the Christ,' man. Come on. They made six 'Police Academies' and can't make one 'Passion of the Christ.'"

Turning again to race for laughs, Rock complained that Hollywood makes movies "for white people to enjoy -- real movies, with plots, with actors, not rappers, with real names, like, Catch Me If You Can, like Saving Private Ryan.

"Black movies don't have real names," Rock continued. "They get names like 'Barbershop.' That's not a name. That's just a location. 'Barbershop,' 'Cookout,' 'Carwash,' ... you know 'Laundromat's' coming soon, and after that, 'Check-Cashing Place.'"

Rock closed his monologue by sending "love out to our troops fighting all over the world."

Off-camera friction with ABC over what performers could say during the broadcast bubbled to the surface when Robin Williams took the stage to present the award for best animated feature, and ripped a piece of tape from his mouth.

The gesture was a reference to the network's reported refusal to allow Williams to perform a song lampooning a conservative group that had criticised cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in a video the group branded "pro-homosexual."

But Williams got in his licks anyway.

"SquarePants is not gay," he said. "Tight pants, maybe. SpongeBob Hot Pants, you go girl. What about Donald Duck? Little sailor top, no pants. Hello?" ... "Bugs Bunny? In more dresses than J. Edgar Hoover at Mardi Gras. Hello?"