What are the Annie Awards?

This Saturday, UCLA’s Royce Hall will be home to hundreds of animators looking to win the highly sought after Annie Award.

For many, the Annie Awards aren’t something people have never heard of before like other award shows like the ADDYs (for advertising) and the CLIOs (for public relations). Still, the common thread through all of them is that its industry members honoring their peers.

Whereas most award shows, like the Oscars or the recent Golden Globes, present their prizes as a third-party as critics or people with different disciplines, awards like the Annie Awards have nominations and winners come from the animators themselves.

June Foray, an animation icon who was the voice of Lucifer from Disney’s “Cinderella” and Rocky from “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle”, said “I think we should give animation awards. Everybody else has awards but animation doesn’t”. Together with her husband who coined the Annies name, June and the animation organization ASIFA-Hollywood created the first Annie Awards back in 1972.

Since then, many of those within the animation industry, known and unknown, have been honored for their achievements by their peers. From prizes like Best Animated Feature to Character Design in an Animated Feature Production, the Annies aim to honor even the most obscure roles that the bigger award shows wouldn’t. And organizers don’t mind that – so long as talented animators receive their due recognition.

This year is no exception. Our friends at Disney Animation were honored for their work on “Big Hero 6”. Disney Television Animation was also honored with a nomination for “Gravity Falls” and “Wander Over Yonder”. Pixar also received a nomination for their ABC TV special “Toy Story That Time Forgot”.

See which one takes home the Zoetrope when the 42nd Annie Awards takes place this Saturday, January 31! We’ll be live streaming the show, as well as sharing the Disney winners and updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram live throughout the evening.

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Be sure to check out our coverage of last year’s Annies HERE.

Have you heard of the Annie Awards before? Who are you rooting on for this year? Share your predictions in the comments below!