Some of Hollywood's biggest names -- Angelina Jolie, Charlie Sheen, Johnny Depp, John Travolta -- were caught in the crosshairs of Gervais' aim, and the gilded crowd inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel had to choose between feeling shock or awe.

Here's the transcript of his opening monologue:

Hello. Welcome to the 68th annual Golden Globe awards live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. It’s going to be a night of partying and heavy drinking. Or as Charlie sheen calls it breakfast. Wow, whoa, so let’s get this straight. What he did was, he picked up a porn star, paid her to have dinner with him, introduced her to his exwife, as you do. Ah, went to a hotel, got drunk, got naked, trashed the place while she was locked in a cupboard and that was a Monday! What does he do New Year’s Eve?

Anyway, welcome. The Golden Globes is a celebration of the best in TV and movies over the last year voted for by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It was a big year for 3-D movies, Toy Story, Despicable Me, Tron, seems like everything this year was three dimensional. Except the characters in The Tourist. Um, I feel bad about that joke. No, I’ll tell you why! I’m jumping on the bandwagon. Cause I haven’t even seen The Tourist. Who has? Um, but, no! It must be good because it’s nominated, so shut up. And I’d like to quash this ridiculous rumor going around that the only reason The Tourist was nominated was so the Hollywood Foreign Press could hang out with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. That is rubbish. That is not the only reason. They also accepted bribes. (Claps and yowls of the audience. A camera pans to Johnny Depp chewing gum and smiling with good sportsmanship in the audience.) All that happened was some of them were taken to see Cher in concert. How the hell is that a bribe? Really, do you want to go see Cher? No, why not? Because it’s not 1975.

There were a lot of big films that didn’t get nominated this year. Nothing for Sex & The City Two. No, I was sure the Golden Globe for special effects would go to the team that aired that poster. Great job. Girls! We know how old you are! I saw one of you in an episode of Bonanza. (Sentence beeped.)

Also not nominated I Love You, Phillip Morris. Um, Jim Carrey and Ian MacGregor, two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay. Sort of the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists then. (Gales of laughter.) Probably? My lawyers helped me with the wording of that joke. They’re not here.

Okay, there’s been some great new TV drama this year like Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead. Talking of The Walking Dead, congratulations to Hugh Hefner who’s getting married at the age of 84 to 24-year-old beauty Crystal Harris. When she was asked why she was marrying him, she said ‘cause he lied about his age. He told me he was 94.’ Oh come on. Don’t worry, hold out. Just don’t look at it when you touch it. (He gestured with his mouth as though he was giving a BJ.)

He then added: "I warned them.”