As everyone well knows, the Oscars were dished out last Sunday. Which got me thinking about the Oscar Best Song winners that reached #1 in the U.S. charts. Thanks to the wild and wonderful Intertubes, here are the Academy Award-winning Best Original Songs that have reached #1 since 1955, the year Billboard created the Hot 100. (Beware: A few songs are listed that didn’t quite manage to eek out #1. These are included because they came so damned close.)

1956 – “Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” (The Man Who Knew Too Much) just missed out on reaching the top spot, but managed to peak at #2 and garners a mention because it takes more than a decade before …

1969 – “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” (Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid)

With the dawn of the 1970s, the Oscar winning original song really begins to make its presence felt, beginning with the Isaac Hayes classic.

1971 – “Theme From Shaft” (Shaft)
1972 – “The Morning After” (The Poseidon Adventure)
1973 – “The Way We Were” (The Way We Were)
1976 – “Evergreen” (A Star Is Born)
1977 – “You Light Up My Life” (You Light Up My Life)
1980 – “Fame” (Fame)

“You Light Up My Life” saw a Debby Boone version which not only topped the charts in 1977 but went on to become one of the biggest selling singles of the decade. “Fame” tried to song and dance its way the top spot but ultimately stalled at #4.

Then we hit the Mother of All Movie Theme Song decades. The big, bad, bold 1980s. Winning the Oscar for Best Original Song was like a free pass to a #1 hit.

1981 – “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” (Arthur)
1982 – “Up Where We Belong” (An Officer And A Gentleman)
1983 – “Flashdance … What A Feeling” (Flashdance)
1984 – “I Just Called To Say I Love You” (The Woman In Red)
1985 – “Say You, Say Me” (White Nights)
1986 – “Take My Breath Away” (Top Gun)
1987 – “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” (Dirty Dancing)

The 1990 Best Original Song winner, Madonna’s “Sooner Or Later” from Dick Tracy missed out on potential chart success after being pulled as a single in favor of the controversial “Justify My Love”. The four-year drought was broken when Disney rained on Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” parade with …

1992 – “A Whole New World” (Aladdin)

Having shanked Houston’s record-breaker, “A Whole New World” would succumb after only a single week at #1 to the tour de force known as Snow and his signature “Informer” (lick your boom-boom down).

Again four years pass before Ms. Dion dropped the ubiquitous single for James Cameron’s epic.

1997 – “My Heart Will Go On” (Titantic)

And, yet another four year lull in chart success! Then, the Academy finally acknowledges the existence of hip hop by awarding its, then, bad boy, Eminem an Oscar.

2002 – “Lose Yourself” (8 Mile)

Since “Lose Yourself” we’ve seen the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and now 2007 Awards come and go without Oscar seeing singular chart success.

Huzzah! Those Zany Charts …