If you have not read the first part of this post, you can find that link here!
In case you missed the first part, I have a bug up my... sphincter, yeah let's use that word, about award shows, and even though I have a fondness for the Annie Awards, they are still an award show at the end of the day, and award shows are notorious for having weird, off the mark and sometimes just straight up wrong nominees and awards, and the Annie Award is no stranger to nominating stuff that just makes you go... "Eh?". So, inspired by Crash Thompson's Curse of the Best New Artist Grammy videos, which by the way you should absolutely check out, I figured I'd talk about the weird and almost befuddling beginning period of the Best Animated Feature Annie Award, from 1992 until 1999.
So basically, now I'm just gonna wrap up the 1990s, and how... odd the Best Animated Feature Nominees are this decade. I have nothing else to add (Unless there is something I missed in the previous part), so let's get started.
1996
So, a big problem with the Annie Awards in this decade was, like I stated previously, that they didn't really keep their nominees to just "The previous year", I do believe they did have a cut-off date, but because these award ceremonies were often held late in the year, often in November, it meant that they really did have little to no excuses for not nominating certain films. However, even if 1996 was a spectacular year for animated movies (Which we will discuss in a bit), 1995 had a movie that was massive, and changed animation for ever. 1995 was the year that a little animated feature was released to the public, a little animated feature by the name of...
Winner: Toy Story
I mean, come on... this is another case of Beauty and the Beast where literally nothing else could have won that award this year. Unlike 1992 though, there were some other good nominees in 1996, but none of them had the impact as Toy Story did, and the amazing this is, the impact this movie had on animation wouldn't be felt until the 2000s, so Toy Story won based off the quality of the movie alone, though the novelty of it being 3D probably helped a lot.
I'm not the biggest fan of Toy Story, I don't really like the kind of story it tells, but even I can't deny that it is a well-made movie that absolutely deserved the award. It's just that there was also a bit of competition this year.
The Other Nominees: Balto, Ghost in the Shell, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, James and the Giant Peach
Yeah, like Balto was going to have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning this award. Say what you want about the movie, standing between Toy Story and Ghost in the Shell is practically a death sentence to any movie, and yes, this makes Ghost in the Shell our second Anime film to be nominated for this award. Enjoy it while you can because it will take five years before another anime film is nominated and an extra year until one actually wins. If your math is correct, or you looked it up, you probably already know what the first Japanese film to win this award is. Honestly, major dark horse candidate Ghost in the Shell, if Toy Story wasn't in the race, I could imagine this one might have won instead, but then again it might have been too much of an out there choice.
Our contemporary nominees this year are The Hunchback of Notre Dame and James and the Giant Peach. Hunchback is definitely an odd candidate, as it was also nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award in 1997 for "Worst Written Film grossing Over $100 Million", even the joke award is an absolute joke sometimes, to be fair though, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was insanely popular at the Annie Awards, being nominated thirteen different times for nine different awards. It won zero awards that night, it had three nominees for Best Achievement in Voice Acting and still lost to Pinky and the Brain, that is just... sad, but don't feel too sad for the movie though, it did win eight awards in 1997 so it didn't finish the year empty handed.
James and the Giant Peach on the other hand, it was nominated for seven awards, again winning none of them, and honestly... I don't think it really warranted the nomination, it's an okay movie but surely there were better movies to nominate, right?
Snubs:
Well the problem is, both Pocahontas and A Goofy Movie were nominated in 1995, that doesn't leave a whole lot for this year right? Well, kind of, but like with the 1995 awards, the stuff that is available is really worth noting, especially in Japan. It makes total sense that Ghost in the Shell was nominated, but you know what else was released in 1995? There was the third Sailor Moon movie, Sailor Moon SuperS, Slayers - The Motion Picture, and this little movie called Whisper of the Heart. You know, it does sting when one of your favourite movies isn't nominated, I get that, but this one especially hurts.
Over on the American side of things, there isn't really too much. Don Bluth is still losing his magic with The Pebble and the Penguin, another movie that is on my "To do list", and there was also the Gumby movie that... are there any Gumby fans reading this? Overall, this year was pretty solid... as long as you lived in Japan. However, Toonami is just around the corner, so Anime will soon get its foot on American shores.
1997
Like I said, the actual domination of Computer Generated Animation would not be felt until the 2000s, so I can't imagine too many people were thinking about how Toy Story would change the animation industry, but if you were, I can't imagine the 1997 Annie Awards to be anything other than either hilarious or just... unimpressive. Like, the most important animated feature film of the entire decade just won the award, what could follow that?
Winner: Cats Don't Dance
Cats Don't Dance? Really!? This is... kind of an odd choice for them, like I haven't watched Cats Don't Dance yet, but my understanding is that it only really became popular with the advent of the animation community on Social Media. Like, it was a box-office failure, was not promoted at the time and it did not receive a Blu-Ray release until 2023, that is absurdly late for any movie to be given a Blu-Ray release. That all being said, the film has received a lot more praise in the modern era, so this was a very... oddly foretelling nomination... especially considering the other nominees this year.
The Other Nominees: Hercules, Space Jam
Straight up, I'm shocked Hercules did not win. Disney was on top, winning this award every year, except for this one, making this the first year that Disney did not win the Best Animated Feature award... It won't even be the last of this decade either. Even despite that though, if I had to guess why they chose Cats Don't Dance instead... Well, maybe the story and the homages to golden era Hollywood resonated more than... Gerald Scarfe and Michael Bolton being involved in a project Musker and Clements got in so they could do something better.
However, this does also mean that there technically is no "Best Animated Feature of 1996", because a movie from 1995 won in the 1996 awards, and a movie from 1997 won in the 1997 awards. However, considering the only contemporary nominee this year is Space Jam... yeah... I'm not shocked that didn't win. Was there anything else in 1996 that could've been nominated?
Snubs:
I mean... not really. Once again, most of the films that could've been nominated were foreign releases. Slayers Return and X are our big anime movies this year, and we actually have something from Brazil this time. Another early CG Animated Feature called Cassiopeia, it doesn't seem like it was ever released in America, but we are starting to see the effects of Toy Story on animation. Though, it does seem like this movie is to Toy Story as Fleischer Studio's Gulliver's Travels was to Disney's Snow White.
As for domestic films, believe it or not, there are only two that I think could have gotten nominated, and one of them is All Dogs Go to Heaven 2. Yeah, I was kinda surprised that this one was released theatrically, but it was. This was apparently the last animated feature released theatrically by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios until the late 2000s. I mean, I don't think it would have won, but it could have been eligible for a nomination. However, you know what movie I'm both really shocked, and absolutely not shocked that it wasn't nominated this year? Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. I mean, on the one hand, it's a pretty good movie, but on the other hand... I mean, it's Beavis and Butt-Head, I can't really imagine Beavis and Butt-Head at any kind of Award show.
I guess I can't really be to shocked that there was practically nothing released this year, while Disney was on top of the Animation world this decade, lots of others were trying to copy their success to mixed results. Speaking of Disney!
1998
The year is 1998, I was born, but more importantly... Okay I have nothing to introduce this year. That is a big problem with the Annie Awards being held late in the year and not keeping the nominees to movies from the previous year. You can't really talk about what was going on in animation, especially when you should be talking about animation in 1997, but the award winner is a movie from 1998.
Winner: Mulan
I'm going to be honest, I'm not surprised that Mulan won the award, but I'm also not impressed either. Like, it's kind of a Beauty and the Beast thing, where I feel they purposefully selected nominees nobody would vote for just so they could hand the award to Mulan, and when I say "Nobody would have voted for these nominees", folks... I really do mean nobody would have voted for these movies.
The Other Nominees: Anastasia, Quest for Camelot, I Married a Strange Person!
Okay, to be fair, I can imagine some people voting for Anastasia, Don Bluth was finally getting back on track with his films after a series of bizarre messes, and while I don't think it's a great movie, I can definitely say there are weirder choices, like the sophomore feature by Bill Plympton. I told you to remember that statement because I Married a Strange Person! was nominated for the award this year. This movie has been on my watchlist, but like... there's practically nothing on Wikipedia about this movie, just a literal one sentence introductory line, a plot summary and a cast list, no production history, no reception, no release history, it either says something about the impact of this movie, the fanbase, or just Wikipedia in general.
However, I could still see someone, literally just one or two people, voting for it. I can't see anyone voting for the contemporary nominee that year. I mean, out of all the movies released in early and Mid 1998, why on Earth, with any sense of sincerity, nominate Quest for Camelot? Why?
Snubs:
Well, their might not have been much else to nominate that year. Literally everything I could find that could have been eligible, was also a foreign film that probably didn't see much of a major release in the United States, unless you want to count that direct-to-video Christmas Carol movie that I previously reviewed. There was Pippi Longstocking, which did get a theatrical release, but I doubt that got much attention from the folks at the Annie Awards. Of course, we also have our usual spattering of Anime films that probably would not have been nominated, The End of Evangelion, Princess Mononoke and Perfect Blue all being released in 1997.
Honestly, I think any of these would have probably been a better nominee than Quest for Camelot, but I guess this is just a case of hindsight being 20/20. Wait, no it isn't, Quest for Camelot was a commercial flop and a critical failure, nobody looked at Quest for Camelot and said "Hey, this movie is worthy of winning an award for being the best". Did they really pick it to guarantee Mulan won the award?
1999
Alright, finally, 1999, and I just have to comment, this year's nominees are all really solid. We don't have a case of "Well their just wasn't anything else to nominate" here, every single one of these movies, I feel, could have walked away with the award. So the winner of this award had to be something extra special, and was it?
Winner: The Iron Giant
It has been quite a while since I last watched The Iron Giant, but I can safely say... yeah, this movie earned the award. Frankly, this should have been the movie that made Warner Bros. bounce back from Quest for Camelot, but the box office was arguably worse on this movie. Still, I think this victory makes sense, even if it had some stiff competition.
The Other Nominees: A Bug's Life, The Prince of Egypt, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Tarzan
I'll start with the two movies from 1998 here, A Bug's Life and The Prince of Egypt. Starting with the least likely to win the award, A Bug's Life is honestly one that I'd be shocked if it won, but I'm also a tiny bit shocked didn't win. Again, the whole novelty of being a Computer Generated movie I think would have given it a small edge, but I guess this just goes to show that Toy Story was awarded for the story and not the animation. The Prince of Egypt on the other hand, like I said in my review, is practically an epic, but maybe it was a little bit much to win the award. The Prince of Egypt is a fantastic movie, but it's kind of a movie you really have to be in a proper mood to watch, not just something you throw on for sheer entertainment... honestly, I'd probably have given it the award for that factor alone, but maybe they wanted something a bit more middle ground.
As for the contemporary nominees, I think Tarzan would have been the least likely movie out of all of these to win the award. Not that it's a bad movie, honestly I really like Tarzan, but it's not anything special, like the previous three movies, in their own ways, were special, and even South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is special in some way. Tarzan is just a really solid movie. Though, on that same subject, I am really not at all shocked South Park didn't win the award either, I mean at 399 uses of the F-Bomb, this would have probably been a very controversial win, honestly I'm surprised it was even nominated, but if a movie is really that good, anything is possible I guess.
Snubs:
Frankly, I think all the movies that should have been nominated from 1998, were nominated. There really is not much else that could have been nominated from 1998, like what do we have leftover? Antz and The Rugrats Movie. That is really it on the American side.
Foreign Animated films don't really stand much better to be honest, I think the biggest release from outside of the United States would be Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back, considering this was when the show was starting to air in America, the movie being nominated would have been really confusing at the time. There is also an Italian film named Lucky and Zorba, and a French film called Kirikou and the Sorceress... I may have to give that a look sometime in the future.
But really, everything that should've been nominated from 1998, was nominated if not in 1999 than in 1998, y'know except for Quest for Camelot, yeah that definitely deserved a nod over Antz.
And that wraps up the Best Animated Feature Annie Award for the 1990s, honestly, this was kind of a fun little look back on the award, and the history of animated cinema. It was fun looking at what movies won, what else was nominated, what got snubbed and why. I definitely would like to carry on into the 2000s and 2010s, and maybe look at other awards as well, maybe also do some speculating on years previous for what movies could have been nominated, what movies might have won, and what movies I think should have won. Though, right now, I think I want a small break from the Annie Awards, so I'll see you next time.
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