The 31st Annual Annie Awards: Pixar 10, Disney 1

First published February 09 2004

By C. W. Oberleitner

Right from the red carpet at Glendale's Alex Theatre, C. W. Oberleitner reports in on this past Saturday's event. Where—just as audiences around the world did—ASIFA-Hollywood seems to have lost its heart to "Finding Nemo."

What the Heck Is ASIFA?

ASIFA is the acronym for the ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE DU FILM D'ANIMATION an organization founded in France in 1957 and chartered under UNESCO in 1960. ASIFA is devoted to the encouragement and dissemination of film animation as an art and communication form. It has over 1700 members in 55 countries, with national chapters in such unlikely places as UlanBaatar, Mongolia and Tehran. The national chapters maintain direct contact with ASIFA members, like the American regional groups, with their own monthly newsletters and screenings. ASIFA provides the linkage between all the chapters as well as a direct connection to International events such as animation festivals and seminars.

For the past 31 years ASIFA-Hollywood has hosted the annual ANNIE AWARDS show. This year’s show took place last Saturday February 7, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. For most of its history the Annies has been a way for the very talented men and women of this highly skilled profession to recognize one another’s achievements. Always a favorite event among fans of animation the Annies rarely attracted much national attention. That was up until about 2002 when a little fellow named Oscar also decided to begin recognizing achievements in the field of feature animation.

With the addition of the "Best animated feature film of the year," category to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) annual Academy Awards presentation entertainment media found itself in need of a way to handicap the best animated feature race. Awards shows like the Golden Globes and Director’s Guild Awards had long since been pressed into service as precursors for the Oscars for best picture, actors and director. Neither of those shows, however, focused on the field of animation. Enter the Annies.

Like the Golden Globes, the Annies are presented weeks before the Academy Awards. And, with the increased attention being focused on the field of animation, brought on by the major studios continuing layoffs of traditional animators and subsequent shift to computer generated, or 3D, animation, there is more public interest than ever in "horse-race" stories about the nominees for Best Animated Feature. This year, due mostly to the end of Pixar Animation Studios’ thirteen year relationship with the WDC and the very public battle for the heart and soul of the Walt Disney Company going on between Roy E. Disney and Michael Eisner, there is a even a great deal of interest in the Best Short Film Animated category.

And the Annie Goes To

Steve Marmel hosted the 31st Annual Annie Awards. Marmel is a writer, comedian, and producer for Nickelodeon’s highly rated Fairly Oddparents animated series. Marmel, who hosted last year’s Annies, opened the show by saying.

"I got a lot of flack for taking so many shots at and being pretty hard on Disney last year." He went on to say. "So this year if you think I’m making too much fun of Disney I want you to just think ‘layoff.’ So when I say Disney you just think layoff, okay?"

This got a huge laugh from the sold out audience of over 750, most of whom are animators, many of whom once worked for Disney.

While Steve Marmel got more than a few laughs from his audience credit for the evening’s biggest laugh has to go to young voice actor, and the voice of Koda in Disney’s Brother Bear, Jeremy Suarez. Jeremy presented the award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Commercial. The nominees included two state lotteries and an ad for Lamisil, a toenail antifungal treatment whose ad depicts an ugly animated fungus and his friends invading a giant toenail only to be dispatched by the Lamisil product.

Lamisil won in the animated television commercial category. The folks at Wild Brian, Inc., who produced the ad, however, did not show up to claim their award. So, young Jeremy Suarez accepted for them saying, "Lamisil thanks his mom, God and the crew."

As more awards were handed out it didn’t take long for the pace to be set for the rest of the evening. Most Annies are given out for achievements in both television and feature animation. The first such award of the evening was for Production Design. Scott Willis won for his work on the television show, "Samurai Jack – The Birth of Evil." Ralph Eggleston won the Annie for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production for his work on Finding Nemo.

In all Finding Nemo was nominated for nine Annies including voice acting, and direction. The Disney/Pixar co-production of the story of a little lost clown fish and his father’s search for him in the waters off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef beat out Warner Brother’s Looney Tunes: Back In Action, Disney’s Brother Bear, the Japanese anime film Millennium Actress as well as the critically acclaimed French import The Triplets of Belleville for outstanding animated theatrical feature.

The only Disney film in the television, home entertainment or feature film categories to win anything at the 31st Annie Awards was The Jungle Book 2. Sharon Forward won the Annie for Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production. The other three nominees in this category were also nominated for their work on The Jungle Book 2. It was the only film nominated in this category.

Pixar wasn’t the only big winner. In the field of television animation the FOX animated television show, The Simpson’s also took home four Annies including one for Writing in an Animated Television Production. Matt Warburton—no relation to actor Patrick Warburton—won this Annie for his script, "The Simpsons - Three Gays of the Condo."

Following each award the winners were escorted to the lobby of the Alex Theatre for pictures and interviews. After Bob Peterson, who along with Andrew Stanton and Dave Reynolds won the Annie for Outstanding Achievement in Writing in an Animated Feature Production for Finding Nemo, came out for his interview I asked him.

"Bob, you’ve just won the Annie for best animated feature writing. Where are you going to go now?"

"Pixarland." Was his immediate and enthusiastic response.

Hello Dali

One of the evenings most widely anticipated awards was for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Short subject. There was increased interest in this award because one of the nominees was Walt Disney Pictures Destino, produced in the style, and with the assistance of, renowned artist Salvador Dali. Destino was begun by the studio in 1946 and completed last year by Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney over the objections of WDC CEO Michael Eisner. Since completing Destino, Roy Disney has resigned from both the WDC board of directors and his position at the Disney studios and is currently engaged in campaign to persuade the investment community to pressure Eisner to leave the WDC.

If Destino had won for best animated short Roy Disney, as the film’s executive producer would have accepted the award. As Jim said in his column last Friday the great majority of folks in attendance at this year’s Annnies were wondering whether or not Mr. Disney would use his acceptance speech to speak out about the effort to oust Michael Eisner as head of the WDC. Once again, however, it was a Pixar Animation Studios nominee, Boundin, that took the top honors for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Short.

It turns out that neither Jim nor the members of ASIFA-Hollywood needed to worry about what Roy Disney might have said if Destino had won. I spoke with Mr. Disney at the reception before the awards and he told me,

"Folks don’t need to worry. I’m not going to say anything embarrassing. Destino, is about the fine work and efforts of people like John Hench at the studio."

In addition to representing a nominated film, Roy Disney also presented one of the evenings three Windsor McCay Awards in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation. As he was introduced and took to the stage the audience rose to its feet and gave him one of the evenings longest and most enthusiastic ovations. It went on so long that he eventually had to wave the audience down into their seats.

Mr. Disney presented the Windsor McCay Award to John Hench. The same John Hench Walt Disney had assigned to work with Salvador Dali on the initial designs for Destino in 1946. A Senior Vice President at Walt Disney Imagineering, Hench passed away just three days before he was to receive his award.

During his remarks about Hench’s remarkable sixty plus year career with the WDC, Mr. Disney said that in addition to having played a major role in everything from all ten of the company’s theme parks to such classic films as Cinderella, Peter Pan, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, "he could, with some persuasion, read your palm. Accurately! I got a little place right here (pointing to line on his left palm) it divided and I can tell you the year it happened. 1984. And now I gotta look for the next division."

After The Show

Following the awards show, which lasted nearly three hours without an intermission, ASIFA-Hollywood held a reception in the Alex Theatre’s courtyard. I had the opportunity to speak with many of the evening’s winners and their colleagues and fellow nominees. For as Eric Goldberg, nominated for Directing in an Animated Feature for his work on Looney Tunes: Back In Action, told me, "As long as we’re working we’re all winners."

As you might imagine some of the most upbeat and exuberant folks at the party were the guys from Pixar. I asked Finding Nemo writer and director Andrew Stanton if he had called Pixar Vice President Creative John Lasseter to share the good news of Pixar’s clean sweep of the Annies. He said, "We may call John tomorrow. It’s his anniversary. I don’t know if I want to interrupt it."

When I asked if he would call Pixar CEO Steve Jobs he laughed and said, "We’ll probably let John tell Steve."

Later I happened to be standing nearby when Brother Bear executive producer Chuck Williams came over and introduced himself to Stanton and congratulated he and his team on Finding Nemo’s phenomenal success. Stanton looked as though he had just found a long lost brother. He embraced Williams and just as enthusiastically began praising Williams and his team’s efforts on Brother Bear. He went so far as to say that disagreed with remarks made by Pixar CEO Steve Jobs earlier in the week about the lack of creativity in Brother Bear and Treasure Planet.

"I don’t care if Mom and Dad are fighting." Stanton said. "The way I see it we’re all family under the skin."

I had another opportunity to speak with Roy Disney. I asked him how he felt about Pixar’s sweep of the awards. He laughed and said, "Of course the movie (Finding Nemo) is wonderful. What can you say about that?"

Earlier in the evening when the best feature animation nominees were announced The Triplets of Belleville got a very enthusiastic response from the audience. Recalling that moment Mr. Disney went on to say. "I really thought Triplets of Belleville might win there for a minute… It’s a marvelous, crazy nutty movie."

I then asked if he thought the Disney studios lackluster showing at this year’s Annie Awards was indicative of the things he has been trying to make the public understand about the current management of the WDC. "Well that’s part of it." He said. And, then we both reminded each other about the coming WDC shareholders meeting this March in Philadelphia.

While Roy Disney may not have wanted to use the 31^st Annual Annie Awards as a platform to criticize Michael Eisner’s management of the WDC the same could not be said of some animation and self described "absolutely mad Disney fans" in the crowd. As one of them told me:

"I didn’t really feel that Disney was being shutout (of the Annies) tonight. I feel it was Eisner being shutout and what he’s done to the company."

You can find a complete list of all this year’s Annie Award winners at ASIFA's website.

C’ya real soon!