You see it everywhere on the red carpet, in the tabloids, on stage. They call it the 'Hollywood Smile' - those perfect sets of pearly whites gleaming in the spotlight. But not everyone gets to the top in Hollywood with naturally perfect and straight teeth. In a lot of cases, that comes afterwards. You might be surprised at the number of stars who have had work done on their chompers. And fortunately for us we've got miles and miles of photographic evidence documenting the sometimes shocking before and afters. Below are ten of the most glaring examples.

1) Shane McGowan

McGowan is the lead singer of a UK rock band called the Pogues. You might have heard of them. If you haven't, I guarantee you that the kinda douchey hipster guy at the record store definitely has. Anyway, our buddy Shane is world renowned for his hard drinking and self-destructive behavior. And up until a couple years ago - his god awful teeth (or lack thereof). Tired of being accosted by lonely truck drivers asking for a gummy in exchange for meth, McGowan flew to Malaga and got himself the best set of teeth Malagan dentalcare can provide. Which isn't saying much. But hey, it's better than nothing, right?

2) Liam Gallagher

I don't want to say that all the Brit rock stars are angry drunks with terrible teeth - but whatever. I guess I just did. Liam Gallagher certainly is (or was). The former Oasis singer got his front teeth KTFO during a brawl and ended up spending close to $14 grand fixing them.

3) Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise might be an allegedly gay cult member with a Napoleonic complex but hey, at least his teeth look awesome. Well, now they do. Little Tommy Mapother (seen above looking like he just thought so hard he shit his pants) decided to shave his unibrow, get a nose job and cap his teeth and voilà - instant movie star. It's good to see he kept the haircut though. That's nice.

4) David Bowie

The Man Who Fell to Earth... directly on his face. The Thin White Duke was famous for playing the guitar with his teeth during his Ziggy Stardust years. I mean, why not? Look at them. But somewhere along the line Bowie decided that a bum eye and gankity teeth were too much for one immensely talented man to have to put up with. So he went out and bought himself some new teeth. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's how all these stories are going to end. Not very surprising I guess. So I'm just going to use this space to say that Bowie in The Prestige was amazing. Easily his best performance. Better than Labyrinth. And I can say this because I have a blog and you don't. So there.

5) Nic Cage

Before becoming the dead broke stumbling drunk eccentric we all know and love today, Nic Cage at least had his priorities in line at some point. Despite having been born into a fairly famous family, when he first hit the scene back in the day Nic still had some terribly doofy looking teeth. So as soon as he made a little dough Cage got his chompers aligned leaving him free to become world famous for losing his shit and starring in movies that no one on Earth wants to see.

6) Catherine Zeta-Jones

Born in Wales in 1969, Catherine Zeta Jones was named after he two grandmothers Catherine and Zeta. For whatever reason when she landed in America the press mistakenly added a hyphen to her name thus making her Catherine Zeta-Jones. They 'bridged the gap' so to speak (you see where I'm going with this, right?). This has been your absolutely boring and trite Catherine Zeta-Jones fact of the day.

7) Cheryl Cole

Because I'm a barely literate American whose idea of multi-culturalism is dining at Chili's I naturally had no clue who Cheryl Cole is. Thanks to the internet however I soon realized that Cole was in fact some super-hot judge on the British show The X-Factor. She allegedly sings too but really she's more famous around the internet for her blank stare and huge tits. Now it seems she'll be moving out to California to be part of Simon Cowell's American version of the X-Factor. Which just goes to show you how versatile she is. It takes a certain amount of talent to be able to sit in front of a group of shrieking queens and make that pensive I-Totally-Give-A-Shit look on both sides of the pond! One has to wonder though if she would have gotten as far as she has if she didn't get that nose job and her teeth fixed (answer: no).

8) Keith Urban

Keith Urban is a country singer from Australia. So it should be no great surprise that he didn't always have the best teeth. They weren't bad at all - especially by those standards - but by the time he made it big in the US and married fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman (who also had her teeth fixed btw) he had everything perfectly aligned and shining bright. By all accounts Urban is a really cool guy, so I really don't have anything bad to say about him. And shame on you if you do. I probably hate you.

9) 50 Cent

Rap mogul, brilliant business man and epic Tweeter 50 Cent arrived on the scene with some less than perfect teeth. Not surprisingly, when you live a life where you have to worry about being shot multiple times in one day somehow braces slip by the wayside in terms of importance. Once he got his money though, Fitty went ahead and got some work done. Not content with just any ole grill, Mr. Cent now sports some near perfect chompers. Which is great since he apparently has his sights on transitioning into more acting roles in the future.

10) Elliott Yamin

Finally we end the list on Elliott Yamin. What an ending, huh? Why Elliott Yamin you ask? Hell, who is Elliott Yamin? Well the answer to both questions is - I don't really know. I write a blog for a living. What do you want from me? It's not like you paid admission to get in here. Deal with it. The point of this whole exercise is to show that even a guy like Elliott Yamin (who was famous for approximately 3 seconds) can use his fleeting American Idol cash to score some new teeth. Granted now adays he might be broke and sold into the white sex slavery (or whatever happens to those American Idol has-beens) but hey, at least his teeth look good.

All of this vapidity serves to remind me how thankful I am for the overall low-standards people have for bloggers' looks. Once this whole blog thing takes off I'm getting mine capped and not looking back. Shouldn't be too much longer. After all, when those banner ads on top say 'Catch the Monkey and Win a Prize' I'm pretty sure they mean it. Sounds legit to me. I think so anyway.