From star snubs to angry Japanese fishermen to a "Kanye" moment, for a broadcast panned as dull, Sunday's Academy Awards are sure generating day-after water-cooler chatter. At the top of that chatter is an incident that's being dubbed the "Kanye West moment of the Oscars."

When accepting his award for best documentary short, Roger Ross Williams, a producer and director of Music By Prudence, was interrupted by a woman who awkwardly usurped his speech. Later backstage, the woman identified herself as co-producer Elinor Burkett, and told Salon that Williams improperly "raced up there to accept the award," while his mother blocked the aisle with her cane, trying to keep Burkett off the stage.

Williams, however, says he did nothing wrong. "Only one person is allowed to accept the award. I was the director, and she was removed from the project nearly a year ago," he said. Oscar producers are also taking heat for the Academy Award Memoriam montage Sunday night that omitted a pair of high-profile actresses -- Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur.

There's some speculation that, in Fawcett and Arthur's case, their reputations as TV stars superseded their film work -- though both had plenty of film work to their credit. Oscar organizers responded to the gaffe via Britain's Daily Telegraph: "Every year it's an unfortunate reality that we can't include everybody."

Some Japanese fishermen are wishing today they hadn't been included. Dolphin hunters on Monday defended their annual cull after The Cove, a hard-hitting film about the slaughter, won the Oscar for best documentary. Every year, fishermen in Taiji herd about 2,000 dolphins into a secluded bay, select several dozen for sale to aquariums and marine parks and harpoon the rest for meat, a practice deplored by animal rights activists.

Town mayor Kazutaka Sangen and the local fisheries co-operative said in identical statements released on Monday: "We feel regret that the film features elements that are false and not based on scientific facts." All of the controversy may be an embarrassment, but did help the broadcast record its biggest ratings in five years. About 41.3 million Americans tuned in to ABC Sunday night for the awards. That's up 14 per cent from 2009.