The world of animation bowed before Coco tonight at the 45th annual Annie Awards from UCLA’s Royce Hall. The Day of the Dead-themed Disney/Pixar toon pummeled the competition, going 11-for-13 in its nominated categories including Best Animated Feature. If it wasn’t clear who the Oscar front-runner was yes, it is now.
How will tonight’s awards, presented by ASIFA-Hollywood, factor into a certain trophy show happening in early March? Well, since the Academy Awards’ Best Animated Feature category was launched in 2002, 11 of the 16 winners of the Annies’ top feature prize – and four of the past six — went on to claim Oscar gold. That includes last year’s big winner Zootopia, which took Best Animated Feature along with writing and directing nods en route to Oscar glory.
Coco producer Darla Anderson ended the night on a lovely note, asking for a round of applause for all the nominees before saying of her movie: “We cannot be more proud of this film and its success around the world.” She encouraged all to “continue to follow their dreams.” Just like one little boy in Mexico.
The top category was split three years ago with the addition of the Best Independent Animated feature category. This year’s champ was Cartoon Saloon’s The Breadwinner, the tale of a young girl growing up in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. It came in with 10 nominations but went home with only the one.
On the TV side, the top prize went to Rick and Morty, which recently set ratings records for Adult Swim. The series from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, which follows a sociopathic genius scientist who drags his inherently timid grandson on insanely dangerous adventures across the universe, also won for TV writing.
Adult Swim also picked up three other Annies for Samurai Jack, and Walt Disney Television Animation’s Disney Mickey Mouse picked up a pair.
Tonight’s ceremony was dedicated to longtime voice actor and Annie Awards co-founder June Foray, who died in July at 99. Probably is best known as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel from The Bullwinkle Show and Granny from the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, she was an avid supporter of animation and tirelessly lobbied to have animated films recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A documentary about her life, The One and Only June Foray, was produced in 2013.
The ASIFA-Hollywood Certificate of Merit went to David Nimitz, who helped care for Foray in the last years of her life.
This year’s Winson McCay Awards went to James Baxter, SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg and Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis. The Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancement went to TVPaint, and a Special Achievement Award went to Studio MDHR Entertainment for its hand-drawn video game Cuphead, which uses 1930s techniques. It also won an Annie for Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Video Game.
The June Foray Award for charitable impact was presented by animation historian Didier Ghez.
The Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as individual achievement in a total of 36 categories including Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Special Production, Commercials, Short Subjects and Outstanding Individual Achievements. Here is the complete list of winners at the 2018 Annie Awards:
Best Animated Feature
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Outstanding Achievement, Directing – Animated Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina
Outstanding Achievement, Directing – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!
Walt Disney Television Animation
Dave Wasson, Eddie Trigueros, Alonso Ramirez-Ramo
Best Animated Feature-Independent
THE BREADWINNER
Cartoon Saloon / Aircraft Pictures / Melusine Productions
Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production\
RICK AND MORTY
Episode: 303 – “Pickle Rick”
Williams Street Productions
Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production for Children
WE BARE BEARS
Episode: Panda’s Art
Cartoon Network Animation Studios
Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children
OCTONAUTS
Episode: Operation Deep Freeze
Vampire Squid Productions Limited, a Silvergate Media company, in association with Brown Bag Films
Outstanding Achievement, Writing – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Adrian Molina, Matthew Aldrich
Outstanding Achievement, Writing – TV/Broadcast Production
RICK AND MORTY
Episode: 307 – “The Ricklantis Mixup”
Williams Street Productions
Ryan Ridley, Dan Guterman
Outstanding Achievement, Voice Acting – TV/Broadcast Production
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
Nickelodeon
Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants
Best Animated Television/Broadcast Commercial
JUNE
Broad Reach Pictures/Chromosphere/Lyft
Best Animated Special Production
REVOLTING RHYMES
Magic Light Pictures
Outstanding Achievement, Production Design – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studio
Harley Jessup, Danielle Feinberg, Bryn Imagire, Nathaniel McLaughlin, Ernesto Nemesio
Outstanding Achievement, Production Design – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCIII
Adult Swim
Scott Wills
Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
John Chun Chiu Lee
Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation – TV/Broadcast Production
TROLLHUNTERS
Episode: 205 – “Homecoming”
DreamWorks Animation Television
Bruno Chiou, Yi-Fan Cho, Kevin Jong , Chun-Jung Chu
Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation – Live Action Production
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, River Road Entertainment, 20th Century Fox
Daniel Barrett, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Emile Ghorayeb, Luisma Lavin Peredo, Alessandro Bonora
Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation – Video Game
CUPHEAD
StudioMDHR
Hanna Abi-Hanna
Outstanding Achievement, Character Design – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Daniel Arriaga, Daniela Strijleva, Greg Dykstra, Alonso Martinez, Zaruhi Galstyan
Outstanding Achievement, Character Design – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCVI
Adult Swim
Craig Kellman
Outstanding Achievement, Music – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Michael Giacchino, Kristin Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Germaine Franco, Adrian Molina
Outstanding Achievement, Music – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!
Walt Disney Television Animation
Christopher Willis
Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Shaun Galinak, Dave Hale, Jason Johnston, Carl Kaphan, Keith Daniel Klohn
Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects – Live Action
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, River Road Entertainment, 20th Century Fox
Daniel Barrett, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Emile Ghorayeb, Luisma Lavin Peredo, Alessandro Bonora
Best Animated Short Subject
DEAR BASKETBALL
Glen Keane Productions, Kobe Studios, Believe Entertainment Group
Best Student Film
POLES APART
Paloma Baeza
Outstanding Achievement, Editing – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Outstanding Achievement, Editing – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCIII, XCIV, XCIX
Adult Swim
Paul Douglas
Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding – Feature/Broadcast Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Dean Kelly
Welcome to Deadline’s live blog of the 45th annual Annie Awards.
Among tonight presenters are Wendie Malick, Coco’s Anthony Gonzalez, Director Nora Twomey and actress Saara Chaudry from The Breadwinner, Disney voice actor Russi Taylor and SpongeBob and Adventure Time voice veteran Tom Kenny, animators Mark Henn and Floyd Norman and other industry notables including Debi Derryberry, and E.G. Daily.
Annie Awards veteran Kobe Bryant has his own office backstage to keep the masses at bay.
Because we’re at UCLA, hard to tell whether we’re at an awards show, or commencement exercises
They’re telling us it’s one minute to showtime.
Talked to a Mexican American grad student who is rooting for Coco — it’s the subject of his Master’s thesis!
First mention of June Foray.
Attendee calls Coco a “Love letter to Mexico.” Sweet
First presenters are Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant.
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: Bee Inspired
Walt Disney Television Animation
Eddie Trigueros
Next category is the first with Coco competing.
Yeah, the cheers are big for the first Coco scenes.
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Storyboarding – Feature/Broadcast Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Dean Kelly
A dazed Dean Kelly thanks his golden Retriever
We have 36 categories, let’s hope not all the speeches are that long.
Kelly’s still talking, but no one can hear him over the music. OK.
Security!
Kobe on Boston native Kelly: “If he was a Laker fan, they would h ave given him more time.”
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Editing – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCIII, XCIV, XCIX
Adult Swim
Paul Douglas
Paul Douglas isn’t there; like much of California, he has the flu.
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Editing – Feature Production”
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Hot Coco! Editing team talks about the hard work that went into it
Coco makes it 2-for-2 so far.
Time for the tribute to June Foray.
Foray, who died in July, was an avid supporter of animation and tirelessly lobbied to have animated films recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
A documentary about her life, The One and Only June Foray, was produced in 2013.
Foray probably is best known as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel from The Bullwinkle Show and Granny from the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons.
Foray described onstage as “a wonderful tiny giant”
Didier Ghez is being interoduced as recipient of the 2018 June Foray Award.
He hosts a site called The Ultimate Disney Books Network
A lot of emphasis this evening on preservation and restoration of classic animation
ASIFA-Hollywood’s Jerry Beck is giving the President’s Message.
No mention of Hollywood hot-button issues or politics as yet. Fine by me.
The ASIFA-Hollywood Certificate of Merit goes to David Nimitz, who helped Foray in the last years of her life.
CIFA Certificate of Merit: David Nimitz says “June is looking down on us”
Nora Twomey and Saara Chaudry will present the next four awards.
WINNER:
Best Student Film
POLES APART
Paloma Baeza
The student winner and her entourage had a long walk to the stage.
Paloma Baeza thanks the team, calls animation a 24-hour a day job for all
WINNER:
Animated Short Subject
DEAR BASKETBALL
Glen Keane Productions, Kobe Studios, Believe Entertainment Group
Slam dunk for Kobe Bryant. He’s got his own special room backstage because everybody wants to meet and greet
Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant returning to the stage. I wonder if Kobe will find a way to score 60 tonight. Somehow.
Speaking of 60 (or so Oscar noms), John Williams supplied the music for Dear Basketball.
Kobe (the tall one) gave a much shorter speech than Keane (the shorter one)
OK, 51 for Williams. But that’s quibbling.
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Animated Effects – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Shaun Galinak, Dave Hale, Jason Johnston, Carl Kaphan, Keith Daniel Klohn
Seems we’ve heard the name Coco a few times already tonight.
The large Coco animated effects team says one word: Thank you. The crowd loves it.
Nice feint — vowed a “20-minute” speech and then just said, “Thank you.”
Anthony Gonzales, the voice of Coco, is presenting with the film’s editor Lee Unkrich. The latter is an Oscar winner for Toy Story 3.
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Music – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!
Walt Disney Television Animation
Christopher Willis
Two for ol’ Mickey tonight.
Musical Mouse: Composer Christopher Willis calls his wife an “extremely fierce choral director”
Coco might be the big winner so far tonight, but it was only the No. 2 animated movie of 2017, behind Despicable Me 3.
DM3 was the ninth-biggest grosser of the year domestically and Coco 13th.
The Lego Batman Movie, The Boss Baby and Cars 3 also made the overall top 20.
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Music – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Michael Giacchino, Kristin Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Germaine Franco, Adrian Molina
And Coco now 4-for-4 so far.
Before Coco win for music, Anthony Gonzalez gets onstage kudos “for not letting your voice change before we finished the movie”
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Character Design – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCVI
Adult Swim
Craig Kellman
Great montage of sketches from character design nominees shows where it all begins.
That’s two already for Samurai Jack, which comes in with four noms.
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Character Design – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Daniel Arriaga, Daniela Strijleva, Greg Dykstra, Alonso Martinez, Zaruhi Galstyan
Yess, we got a theme tonight, folks.
It’s men against boys at the Annies — and the 12-year-old boy hero of Coco is making them pay.
Frank Gladstone: “Welcome to the Rosh Hashanah of animation!”
Frank Gladstone is giving the Executive Director’s Message for a seventh consecutive year.
He said a friend referred to the Annies as “the high holy days of animation.” So he said, “Welcome to the Annies — the Rosh Hashanah of awards shows.”
Sue Shakespeare joins Gladstone to present the Ub Iweks Award to the team behind Cuphead.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s … different. Check this trailer out:
Cuphead team thanks “Everyone at Microsoft for pushing us along on this journey”
Oops, the Cuphead creator got the Special Achievement Award.
Studio Mdhr Entertainment
The Ib Uwerks Award went to TvPaint
That one is for technical achievement.
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Character Animation – Video Game
CUPHEAD
StudioMDHR
Hanna Abi-Hanna
Yes, my two youngest kids are obsessed with Cuphead.
Presenter Mark Henn to co-presenter Floyd Norman, for Cuphead: “(The announcers) didn’t make clear, who is the animator and who’s the legend?”
“This weird idea of creating a video game using only 1930s animation techniques.”
Hanna Abi-Hanna reminds that “hand-drawn animation is alive and well.”
Now for a feature category that Coco is NOT up for
WINNER
Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation – Live Action Production
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, River Road Entertainment, 20th Century Fox
Daniel Barrett, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Emile
Ghorayeb, Luisma Lavin Peredo, Alessandro Bonora
WINNER
Outstanding
Achievement, Character Animation – TV/Broadcast Production
TROLLHUNTERS
Episode: 205 – “Homecoming”
DreamWorks Animation Television
Bruno Chiou, Yi-Fan Cho, Kevin Jong , Chun-Jung
Chu
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Character Animation – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
John Chun Chiu Lee
It’s Coco’s world — are we even living in it?
Coco character animation team John Chun, Chiu Lee: Chun accepts the award, thanks Pixar. “Such an honor to work on this project…animation is just so hard, and you guys just pushed me to the limits of what (animation) can achieve.”
WINNER
Outstanding
Achievement, Production Design – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCIII
Adult Swim
Scott Wills
Scott Wills out of town for his award.
Samurai Jack has more three Annies tonight, adding to its half-dozen previous wins.
WINNER
Outstanding Achievement, Production Design – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studio
Harley Jessup, Danielle Feinberg, Bryn Imagire, Nathaniel McLaughlin, Ernesto Nemesio
Harley Jessup calls “Coco: a labor of love, and thanks “the beauty, the history, Aand especially the people of Mexico.” And since Coco honors the dead, he thanked “all the beautiful spirits” out there
WINNER
Best Animated Special
Production
REVOLTING RHYMES
Magic Light Pictures
WINNER
Best Animated Television/Broadcast Commercial
JUNE
Broad Reach Pictures/Chromosphere/Lyft
The Winson McCay Awards are next. This year’s honorees are James Baxter, SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg and Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis.
James Baxter said that after 30 years in animation, when he sits down to animate he feels “a huge stress relief”
SpongeBob voice actor and Annies perennial Tom Kenny presenting the award to Hillenburg.
“Twenty years ago, I got a call to see a moan about a sponge,” Kenny says.
Lots of great old clips of Hillenburg’s work — to which Kenny gave a “Trumpian clap into the microphone.” First mention of that guy tonight.
Kenny calls Hillenburg “sensei, teacher, artist.” Hillenburg stands but stays in the audience.
“Still looks the same as the first time I met him. Those glandular injections are working.”
Jaime Bolio introduces clips from the work of Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. The women said they were “astonished, gobsmacked” by their award. They described their method of working together as being like Dr. Doolittle’s two-headed Push Me Pull You character.
Presenter Jorge Gutierrez on his silver, black and red headwear: To liven things up, always “bring out a fat Mexican in a wrestling mask”
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Voice Acting – TV/Broadcast Production
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
Nickelodeon
Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants
The very animated Tom Kenny, back onstage to receive his award for voice acting, did the voice of his 87-year-old mother, who told him over the phone: “Those Annie people really knw what they’re doing…you need to go to the Emmy offoice, bring that Annie trophy with you, put it down on their desk and say hi!” Added Kenny: “You Emmy people need to pull your heads out of your asses…and nominate me for an Emmy, I am long overdue!”
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Voice Acting – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel
Gonzalez introduced as “a future legend.”
Coco was his first feature.
Winner Anthony Gonzalez cracks up the audience by thanking, God, his parents, the Coco team, then adding: Hi, Angelina Jolie!”
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Writing – TV/Broadcast Production
RICK AND MORTY
Episode: 307 – “The Ricklantis Mixup”
Williams Street Productions
Ryan Ridley, Dan Guterman
Every time I bust my 10-year-old watching Rick and Morty, I feign anger and storm out with an unseen smile on my face.
Gutierrez still wearing his wrestler mask to present the award to Ridley and Guterman. It’s a look…
WINNER
Outstanding
Achievement, Writing – Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Adrian Molina, Matthew Aldrich
Matthew Aldrich on winning an Annie at UCLA: “This is crazy, I went to school here!
WINNER
Best Animated
Television/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children
OCTONAUTS
Episode: Operation Deep Freeze
Vampire Squid Productions Limited, a Silvergate Media company, in association
with Brown Bag Films
WINNER
Best Animated
Television/Broadcast Production for Children
WE BARE BEARS
Episode: Panda’s Art
Cartoon Network Animation Studios
Presenters E.G.Daily and Debi DerryBerry describe themselves as “short animation goddesses”
WINNER
Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production
RICK AND MORTY
Episode: 303 – “Pickle Rick”
Williams Street Productions
That’s the big TV award of the night and makes two wins for Adult Swim’s Riock and Morty.
WINNER
Best Animated
Feature-Independent
THE BREADWINNER
Cartoon Saloon / Aircraft Pictures / Melusine Productions
Presenter Wendie Malick, for best Animated Feature-Independent: “What a wonderful world you guys have created.” The award goes to the wonderful world of The Breadwinner!
WINNER
Outstanding Achievement,
Directing – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!
Walt Disney Television Animation
Dave Wasson, Eddie Trigueros, Alonso Ramirez-Ramo
We’re down to the final feature awards — with directing up first.
WINNER
Outstanding
Achievement, Directing – Animated Feature Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina
A fun way to thank the family: Eddie Trigueros thanked his sons “for being complete maniacs and total sources of inspiration at all times.”
WINNER
Best Animated Feature
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Thanks for following Deadline’s live blog of the Annie Awards. Now it’s on to the Oscars for Coco.
Darla Anderson ends it on a lovely note, asking for a round of applause for all the nominees before saying of Coco: We cannot be more proud of this film and its success around the world.” She encouraged all to “continue to follow their dreams.” Just like one little boy in Mexico.
