Best Short Film, 1940

Awards presented February 27, 1941

The nominees were ... 

(Cartoon) 
(One-Reel) 
(Two-Reel) 
And the Oscar went to ... 
(Cartoon) 
The Milky Way, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

For the first time since the short film category was established, there was no Walt Disney cartoon nominee. The winner is a rather cutesy Rudolf Ising cartoon in which the three little kittens who lost their mittens sail off to the Milky Way in search of the milk they've been denied as punishment. It's worth noting that it beat not only the first Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare, but also the first cartoon to feature Tom and Jerry, Puss Gets the Boot. The Disney cartoon hegemony had ended.



(One-Reel) 
Quicker 'N a WinkPete Smith, producer

MIT professor Harold Edgerton demonstrates stroboscopic photography in this short directed by George Sidney, with the usual wise-ass narration and lame gags by Smith. The nominees London Can Take It and Siege (about the siege of Warsaw by the Nazis) demonstrate how close Hollywood was to going to war, but the Academy chose distraction over confrontation. 


(Two-Reel) 
Teddy, the Rough Rider, Warner Bros. 

Sidney Blackmer plays Theodore Roosevelt in this Technicolor short directed by Ray Enright and photographed by Ray Rennahan. Although the winner is the most removed historically from the coming conflict, all of the two-reel nominees reflect the imminence of World War II. 

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