Oscar winners and a CG note...

Much as I was rooting for Persepolis, and also as much as I liked Surf's Up, was there ever any doubt that Ratatouille, that wonderful story about a rodent gourmet chef, was going to win the best animated feature award? Year of the Rat indeed. Gong hay fa choy.

The animated short statuette went to Peter And The Wolf. Again, tremendous disconnect between Annies and Oscars on this one. Both How To Hook Up Your Home Theatre System and Your Friend, The Rat got robbed of the honor of being nominated, which bit the big one. Maybe I would have liked this crop if I would have gotten a chance to see 'em.

Also, the three songs in the running from Enchanted got cancelled out by a song from the live action movie Once.

So thus ends the frantic award season.

The next Cartoon Geeks podcast should be up in a few days, and we'll be recording another one fairly soon after. Meanwhile, try the fruit and cheese plate, it's excellent.

Annie Awards: The Winners

35th Annual Annie Awards Winners And Nominees
Winners in bold. For more information, see www.annieawards.org.

PRODUCTION CATEGORIES

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille - Pixar Animation Studios

Best Home Entertainment Production
Futurama "Bender's Big Score" - The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television

Best Animated Short Subject
Your Friend the Rat - Pixar Animation Studios

Best Animated Television Commercial
Power Shares Escape Average - Acme Filmworks

Best Animated Television Production
Creature Comforts America - Aardman Animations

Best Animated Television Production for Children
El Tigre - Nickelodeon

Best Animated Video Game
Ratatouille - THQ, Inc.

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT CATEGORIES

Animated Effects
Deborah Carlson - "Surf's Up" - Sony Pictures Animation

Animation Production Artist
John Clark - "Surf's Up" - Sony Pictures Animation

Character Animation in a Feature Production
Michal Makarewicz - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Character Animation in a Television Production
Eric Towner - Robot Chicken - ShadowMachine

Character Design in an Animated Feature Production
Carter Goodrich - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Character Design in an Animated Television Production
Jorge R. Gutierrez - El Tigre "Fistful of Collars" - Nickelodeon

Directing in an Animated Feature Production
Brad Bird "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Directing in an Animated Television Production
Seth Green "Robot Chicken Star Wars" - ShadowMachine

Music in an Animated Feature Production
Michael Giacchino - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Music in an Animated Television Production
Alf Clausen & Michael Price - The Simpsons "Yokel Chords" - Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox

Production Design in an Animated Feature Production
Harley Jessup - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production
Ted Mathot - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production
Steve Fonti - Family Guy "No Chris Left Behind" - Fox TV Animation/Fuzzy Door

Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
Ian Holm - Voice of Skinner - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production
Winner: Eartha Kitt - Voice of Yzma - The Emperor's New School "Emperor's New Musical" - Walt Disney Television Animation

Writing in an Animated Feature Production
Brad Bird - "Ratatouille" - Pixar Animation Studios

Writing in an Animated Television Production
Ian Maxtone-Graham & Billy Kimball - The Simpsons "24 Minutes" - Gracie Films

A new Cartoon Geeks Podcast! Scary stuff, eh, kids?

Yes, it's that time of year. When kids come to beg for candy at the door. When Universal bases their Halloween Horror Nights on some horror icons they didn't create themselves - two child killers and one adult killer. When the only TV icon who truly honors the season is Roseanne (remember Becky's armless flight stewardess?).
And in honor of that season, we present a new Cartoon Geeks podcast. Windows users, right-click on this link and select "Save As..." from the menu. Mac users, option-click and select "Save As..." You Linux users can build a program module to download things, but don't forget, when they change the kernal next week, you'll have to write a new one...nya-ha-ha!

This show features a special guest - Don Burr from OtakuNoPodcast (click on his name for the link) whom we will invite back on future shows. He speaks about the strange development in the world of anime, where the big distributor Geneon suddenly terminated American operations and stopped distributing shows. Why did the company that released such hits as Trigun, Serial Experiments Lain, Akira and others suddenly close up shop?

Our regular member Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman shows up in a taped segment where he speaks about how Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille has changed voice acting.

Some other treats in the bag come from Atlanta's Dragon*Con, including their Filk Guest of Honor Carla Ulbrich, (click on the link to see this beautiful and funny lady) and Tom's question to Master Shake voice artist Dana Snyder.

To send you all screaming into the night, we close with a special song in honor of Halloween from comedy music great Jonathan Coulton. Click on this link to see his music store and buy some songs ($1 each, or $70 for the whole music library). And if you want to see him perform, click on this link for a YouTube video of one of his concerts. This is a live concert and he blows a chord...and he recovers with style!

Pixar redeems themselves: Ratatouille cooks.

Leave it to Brad Bird to save Pixar's reputation after Cars. Ratatouille is going to own. Big time. Bird seems to be the first person to really get the knack of doing cartoony CGI human characters that don't look like crap. And Our Rodentine Hero...c'est magnifique!

I don't like the "deus ex machina" aspect of the deceased chef, Auguste Gusteau, becoming Remy's guardian spirit. Too neat. Too tidy. Oh well, it's a big part of the movie. At least he's not made of stone and fairly crying out to be thrown into a concrete recycling machine like the wacky sidekick gargoyles in the last movie where Disney went a la Francaise.

Brad Bird did sentimental without being sappy in Iron Giant. The Incredibles was action, action, action 98% of the time, with only a little sentimentality. This one you might want to bring your kleenex for, because you needed it with IG.

Interesting that the one animated movie that didn't blow goats last year featured a mouse or rat or whatever he was. Also this IS just a clip. This might be the entirety of what's good in the movie, and I run the risk of having to eat crow (in sauce Bearnaise, mais bien sur!) if this turns out to be crap.

Nine minutes of Ratatouille can be found at http://home.disney.go.com/index for a "limited time." Have at it. Yomigaeru iyaaan RAAAT!