• Jon Macks, an Academy Awards veteran and a staff writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and who is nicknamed the ''Machine'' because he is so prolific. This is a guy who, as far as I can tell, thinks entirely in jokes. If Jon were sentenced to die on the guillotine, he'd fire off three jokes while the blade was coming down and at least two of them would be really good.

• Rita Rudner, the very funny standup comic lady and TV host, who also turns out to be a sweet person.

• Robert Shapiro, our dryly amusing liaison to the Academy Awards, who kept us updated on which stars were coming, which stars were not coming and which stars were actually deceased.

• Bruce Vilanch, actor, comedian, Hollywood Squares fixture, big hairy funny guy and award-winning writer who has worked on every Academy Awards show since 1989 and knows all the dirt on everybody who has ever been anybody in Hollywood (we are talking about a lot of dirt).

By the second meeting, we were comfortable with each other and with the way Martin liked to work. There was a clear pattern to the way he reacted to ideas. When somebody tossed out a joke, Martin would, most of the time, nod and say, ''Ya, ya, ya.'' This meant: ''no.'' He almost never actually said no, because he's a genuinely nice guy, and he wanted to let the joke-tosser know he appreciated the effort. But ''ya'' definitely meant no.

When Martin liked an idea enough to at least consider using it, you could tell because he typed it into his computer. The taptaptap of his keyboard was kind of like applause. If he really liked the joke, he'd perform it, trying different wordings and deliveries; sometimes he'd even stand up to do this, giving it the full standup-comedian treatment. And if it was your idea, you'd think -- at least I did -- Steve Martin is performing MY joke.

The most interesting part for me was listening to the group work on a joke that wasn't quite right, trying to figure out why, using a kind of shorthand developed from countless hours of making humor for a living. Like, Macks would toss out a joke (he does this every 30 seconds, awake or asleep) and Martin would go, ''Ya, ya, ya,'' meaning ''no.'' And Macks would go, ''Too roast-y?'' And Martin would go, ''Yeah, too ba-dump-BUMP.'' With that cleared up, it was on to the next joke.

AIR OF THE DOG

We met eight times over the course of three months. Most of the meetings were in the living room of Martin's home, a fine place to sit and laugh. In addition to the writers, these meetings were attended by Martin's Labrador retriever, Roger, whose contribution to the process was to periodically emit eye-watering blasts of flatulence. We'd be sitting around, tossing out jokes, and suddenly, WHOA, the air would turn green. When this happened, Martin would give Roger a stern lecture.

''Roger,'' he'd say, ``do you want me to do to you what I did to the cat?''

Roger would cower and look guilty, to indicate that he was sorry and would never do it again. But he always forgot.

Some of our jokes stunk, too. But I thought a lot of them were pretty funny. Of course some of these couldn't be used in the show, because they were too insider-y, or too vicious, or too obscene (defined as ``very funny''). We also had to steer clear of certain topics, the most obvious one being the looming war. Since we had no way to know what the news would be on the night of the show, Martin decided early on -- correctly, I think -- that although he'd probably have to acknowledge breaking news, he'd focus his monologue on the movie industry, which is, at least theoretically, the subject of the Academy Awards.

In the end, Martin took the mass of jokes, winnowed it down to the ones he liked and thought would work well together, and shaped these into his monologue. In the process, a lot of jokes got cut, including a few I'd grown attached to. My personal favorite -- I lobbied for it at every meeting -- was one Breckman came up with one day while we were going over a list of the movies that came out last year.

''Halloween 8 came out,'' Breckman said. ``I thought it was the best Halloween ever. It made Halloween 7 look like Halloween 5.''

For some reason, I love that joke. But you won't hear it on the show tonight. In fact, I don't know exactly what you will hear: Martin continued working on his monologue right up to the end.

But whatever you hear, I hope you'll be entertained. I don't presume to speak for the Academy Awards, but I believe the general feeling of the people involved in putting on the show is this: We know you have more important things -- MUCH more important things -- on your mind right now. We know that, in the context of world events, it makes absolutely no difference who wins these weird little statuettes. We just hope that -- if you feel up to it -- you'll enjoy this brief and harmless diversion from real life.

OK, maybe not ''brief.'' But however long it runs, we hope you like it. We especially hope you like the jokes.

And if you hear any jokes you don't like, those were Roger's.