Best Short Film, 1948

Awards presented March 24, 1949

And the nominees were ...
(Cartoon)

• The Little Orphan, Fred Quimby, producer 
• Mickey and the Seal, Walt Disney, producer 
• Mouse Wreckers, Edward Selzer, producer 
• Robin Hoodlum, United Productions of America 
• Tea for Two Hundred, Walt Disney, producer 

(One-reel)

• Annie Was a Wonder, Herbert Moulton, producer 
• Cinderella Horse, Gordon Hollingshead, producer 
• So You Want to Be on the Radio, Gordon Hollingshead, producer 
• Symphony of a City, Edmund H. Reek, producer 
• You Can't Win, Pete Smith, producer 

(Two-reel)

• Calgary Stampede, Gordon Hollingshead, producer 
• Going to Blazes, Herbert Morgan, producer 
• Samba-Mania, Harry Grey, producer 
• Seal Island, Walt Disney, producer 
• Snow Capers, Thomas Mead, producer 

And the Oscar went to ...
(Cartoon)
The Little Orphan, Fred Quimby, producer.

Jerry plays host to an orphan on Thanksgiving day, which turns into a colossal food fight when Tom tries to prevent the mice from raiding the feast that has been set out. The usual mayhem from writer-directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.


(One-reel)
Symphony of a City, Edmund H. Reek, producer.

An image from Arne Sucksdorff's Symphony of a City

The city is Stockholm in this Swedish short, originally titled Människor i stad, which was written, directed and filmed by Arne Sucksdorff. It was the first of three short-film Oscars for Reek, producer of the version released in the United States; he had been nominated three times before.

(Two-reel)
Seal Island, Walt Disney, producer.

Disney's experience making training and propaganda films during World War II had spurred a new interest in live-action films. There was also a streak of the didactic in him, and he was flattered by the attention he received from educators. Animator Ben Sharpsteen introduced him to wildlife photographers Alfred and Elma Milotte, who spent a year documenting the lives of fur seals in the Pribilof Islands. The copious footage was edited down to twenty-seven minutes, with a narration by Winston Hibler and music by Oliver Wallace, then shown at a preview screening in Pasadena in December 1948. The audience was enthusiastic, and the weeklong run of the short qualified it for the Oscar that it won a few months later. Thus was born the Disney "True-Life Adventures" series -- a highly anthropomorphic treatment of animals that Disney thought of as educational but entertaining, while critics complained that the education was scanted in favor of the entertainment.

Best Short Film, 1942

Awards presented March 4, 1943

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• All Out for "V," 20th Century-Fox 
• Blitz Wolf, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Der Fuehrer's Face, Walt Disney, producer 
• Juke Box Jamboree, Walter Lantz, producer 
• Pigs in a Polka, Leon Schlesinger, producer 
• Tulips Shall Grow, George Pal, producer 

(One-Reel) 

• Desert Wonderland, 20th Century-Fox 
• Marines in the Making, Pete Smith, producer 
• Speaking of Animals and Their Families, Paramount 
• United States Marine Band, Warner Bros. 

(Two-Reel) 

• Beyond the Line of Duty, Warner Bros. 
• Don't Talk, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Private Smith of the U.S.A., RKO Radio 

And the Oscar went to ... 
(Cartoon) 
Der Fuehrer's Face, Walt Disney, producer.

Donald Duck has a nightmare in which he's a citizen of "Nutzi Land," forced to work in a munitions factory and to continually salute pictures of Adolf Hitler. The only Donald Duck cartoon to win an Oscar, it was withdrawn from circulation after World War II, and not released on video until 2004. 




(One-Reel) 
Speaking of Animals and Their Families, Paramount. 

The "Speaking of Animals" series was conceived by Warner Bros. animator Tex Avery as a series of comedy shorts combining live action and animation in which animals would appear to talk. Avery was unable to persuade Leon Schlesinger, the Warner Bros. cartoon producer, to develop the series, so he took it to Jerry Fairbanks, a producer of short subjects at Paramount. Avery worked on the first three before leaving Paramount for MGM. 

(Two-Reel) 
Beyond the Line of Duty, Warner Bros.

Ronald Reagan narrates the story of Hewitt T. Wheeless, a Texan who joined the Army Air Force in 1935 and led an attack on the Japanese a week after Pearl Harbor for which he received the Distinguished Service Cross. 

Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, 1941

Awards presented February 26, 1942

Walt Disney

Honorary Awards, 1941

Awards presented February 26, 1942

To Rey Scott for his extraordinary achievement in producing Kukan, the film record of China's struggle, including its photography with a 16 mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions. 

Rey Scott pretends to film Li Ling-Ai, who helped produce Kukan: The Battle Cry of China. Scott, a freelance filmmaker and correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, shot his documentary about Chinese resistance to the invading Japanese using his hand-held camera. The film concluded with an aerial bombing attack on the city of Chongqing that Scott filmed from the roof of the United States Embassy. Despite its honorary Academy Award, the film was lost for many years until Hawaiian filmmaker Robin Lung discovered a print, which is now being restored by the Academy.

To the British Ministry of Information for its vivid and dramatic presentation of the heroism of the RAF in the documentary film Target for Tonight. 

Original American theatrical poster for Target for Tonight

To Leopold Stokowski and his associates for their unique achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music in Walt Disney's production, Fantasia, thereby widening the scope of the motion picture as entertainment and as an art form.

Leopold Stokowski with Disney sound engineer William Garity

To Walt Disney, William Garity, John N.A. Hawkins, and the RCA Manufacturing Company for their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia.

Best Short Film, 1941

Awards presented February 26, 1942

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B, Walter Lantz, producer
• Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, Leon Schlesinger, producer 
• How War Came, Columbia 
• Lend a Paw, Walt Disney, producer 
• The Night Before Christmas, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Rhapsody in Rivets, Leon Schlesinger, producer 
• Rhythm in the Ranks, George Pal, producer 
• The Rookie Bear, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Superman, Max Fleischer, producer 
• Truant Officer Donald, Walt Disney, producer 

(One-Reel) 

• Army Champions, Pete Smith, producer
• Beauty and the Beach, Paramount 
• Down on the Farm, Paramount 
• Forty Boys and a Song, Warner Bros. 
• Kings of the Turf, Warner Bros. 
• Of Pups and Puzzles, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Sagebrush and Silver, 20th Century-Fox 

(Two-Reel) 

• Alive in the Deep, Woodard Productions Inc. 
• Forbidden Passage, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• The Gay Parisian, Warner Bros. 
• Main Street on the March! Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• The Tanks Are Coming, United States Army 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Cartoon) 

Lend a Paw, Walt Disney, producer. 

Pluto wins an Oscar. He unwittingly rescues a kitten from drowning, but to his disgust it follows him home, where Mickey adopts it. The cartoon is dedicated to an animal welfare organization, and begins with the rather disturbing image of the kitten in a sack tied to a flatiron, a reminder that drowning unwanted kittens or puppies was once a common practice. 

(One-Reel) 

Of Pups and Puzzles, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Psychological testing by personnel offices was once a novelty. This short, directed by George Sidney, demonstrates how psychologists develop tests for screening job applicants, trying out new ideas on dogs and monkeys. In a rather unsettling sequence, the tester fires a gun while applicants are working on a math problem to see which one shows the most resilience from the unexpected disturbance. Try that one in your HR office today and see what happens. 

(Two-Reel) 

Main Street on the March! Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 

Conceived before Pearl Harbor as a documentary about how then-neutral Americans were responding to the possibility of going to war, it was rewritten and re-edited once the United States joined the conflict. 

Best Short Films, 1939

Awards presented February 29, 1940

And the nominees were ...
(Cartoon)

• Detouring America, Warner Bros.
• Peace on Earth, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer  
• The Pointer, Walt Disney, producer 
• The Ugly Duckling, Walt Disney, producer 

(One-Reel) 

• Busy Little Bears, Paramount 
• Information Please, RKO Radio 
• Prophet Without Honor, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Sword Fishing, Warner Bros. 

(Two-Reel) 

• Drunk Driving, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Five Times Five, RKO Radio 
• Sons of Liberty, Warner Bros. 

And the Oscar went to ... 

The Ugly Duckling, Walt Disney, producer. 

The Disney version of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the cygnet scorned by his fellow "ducklings" until he's revealed to be a swan. 

(One-Reel)
Busy Little Bears, Paramount.

Three bear cubs explore the Sierra Nevada forest and come upon a house, which they proceed to trash. A live-action film, somewhat anthropomorphized, with narration by Joe Laurie Jr.

(Two-Reel)
Sons of Liberty, Warner Bros.

Claude Rains in Sons of Liberty

One of Warners' series of patriotic shorts, for which Harry Warner had been given an honorary award a year earlier. This one was given a somewhat bigger budget and better cast than the earlier ones: Directed by Michael Curtiz, it stars Claude Rains as Haym Salomon, who helped fund the American Revolution. Gale Sondergaard plays his wife, Rachel. The cinematography is by Sol Polito and Ray Rennahan.

Honorary Awards, 1938

Awards presented February 23, 1939

To Deanna Durbin and Mickey Rooney for their significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and as juvenile players setting a high standard of ability and achievement. 

Deanna Durbin

Mickey Rooney

When Durbin died this year at the age of ninety-one, there were featured obits in the larger newspapers, but most people alive today have never seen a Durbin movie. One reason may be that her light-classical soprano repertoire has long since gone out of style. Another may be that the sweet teenager she played in her most successful films has also gone out of style. In 1935 she had signed a contract option at MGM and made a short, Every Sunday, in 1936 alongside Judy Garland. But when the option expired, she accepted an offer from Universal to star in a feature, Three Smart Girls. The movie was a hit, and the series of Durbin girl-next-door musicals in the last years of the 1930s were so successful that Durbin is sometimes credited with having saved Universal from bankruptcy. In 1941, Joe Pasternak, who had produced Durbin's movies, left Universal for MGM, and Durbin, now in her 20s, began to battle with the studio over the direction of her career. Her attempts to break away from the ingenue roles, such as the oddly mistitled film noir Christmas Holiday in 1944, were not well-received by her musical fans. She made her last movies in 1948, and moved to France with her third husband.

Rooney has suffered no such career eclipse. A performer almost from birth, the son of vaudevillian Joseph Yule, he started making movies in 1926, starring in a series of dozens of shorts as Mickey McGuire, moving from silents into talkies. He signed a contract with MGM in 1934, the year in which he played the young Blackie Gallagher (the grownup character was played by Clark Gable) in Manhattan Melodrama. On loan-out to Warner Bros., he gave a remarkable performance as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935, and in 1937 he became Andy Hardy in the film A Family Affair, a role that would recur through thirteen more movies. A career that would earn him four Oscar nominations, and in 1983 a second honorary award, was just beginning. The Internet Movie Database credits Rooney with appearances in 337 films.

To Harry M. Warner in recognition of patriotic service
 in the production of historical short subjects
 presenting significant episodes in the early struggle
of the American people for liberty.
(Warner Bros.' Declaration of Independence
won the Oscar for best two-reel short of 1938.)

To Walt Disney for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon.

Shirley Temple presents Walt Disney the honorary award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: a full-size Oscar and seven miniatures

To Oliver Marsh and Allen Davey for the color cinematography of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, Sweethearts.

Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald in Sweethearts. This was the last time an honorary award for color cinematography would be presented. Beginning with the 1939 awards, the cinematography awards would be divided into color and black-and-white categories.

For outstanding achievement in creating Special Photographic and Sound Effects in the Paramount production, Spawn of the North. Special Effects by Gordon Jennings, assisted by Jan Domela, Dev Jennings, Irmin Roberts and Art Smith. Transparencies by Farciot Edouart, assisted by Loyal Griggs. Sound Effects by Loren Ryder, assisted by Harry Mills, Louis H. Mesenkop and Walter Oberst.

George Raft, right, in Spawn of the North
An "Engineering Effects" award had been presented at the first Academy Awards, but outstanding special effects had not been regularly honored until this special award. Beginning with the 1939 Oscars, special effects would become a regular competitive category.  

To J. Arthur Ball for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of color in Motion Picture Photography. 

J. Arthur Ball with the Technicolor camera he devised. Ball, a pioneering color cinematographer, was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Best Short Film, 1938

Awards presented February 23, 1939

The "Color" category was eliminated as unnecessary since so many short films were being made in color.

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• Brave Little Tailor, Walt Disney, producer
• Ferdinand the Bull, Walt Disney, producer 
• Good Scouts, Walt Disney, producer 
• Hunky and Spunky, Paramount 
• Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, Walt Disney, producer 

(One-Reel)  

• The Great Heart, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• That Mothers Might Live, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Timber Toppers, 20th Century-Fox

(Two-Reel) 

• Declaration of Independence, Warner Bros. 
• Swingtime in the Movies, Warner Bros. 
• They're Always Caught, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Cartoon) 

Ferdinand the Bull, Walt Disney, producer.

An adaptation of a story by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, with narration by Don Wilson. 

(One-Reel) 

That Mothers Might Live, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The story of Ignaz Semmelweis, the nineteenth-century Hungarian physician who stressed cleanliness in the delivery room as a way to reduce puerperal fever, which frequently killed women who had just given birth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, with Shepperd Strudwick as Semmelweis. 

(Two-Reel) 

Declaration of Independence, Warner Bros. 

A dramatization of the signing of the Declaration, with John Litel as Thomas Jefferson and Ted Osborne as Caesar Rodney, who cast the deciding vote in favor of revolution. 

  

Best Short Films, 1937

Awards presented March 10, 1938

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• Educated Fish, Paramount 
• The Little Match Girl, Charles Mintz, producer 
• The Old Mill, Walt Disney, producer 

(Color) 

• The Man Without a Country, Warner Bros. 
• Penny Wisdom, Pete Smith, producer 
• Popular Science J-7-1, Paramount 

(One-reel) 

• A Night at the Movies, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• The Private Life of the Gannets, Skibo Productions 
• Romance of Radium, Pete Smith, producer 

(Two-reel) 

• Deep South, RKO Radio 
• Should Wives Work? RKO Radio 
• Torture Money, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 

And the Oscar went to ... 
(Cartoon) 
The Old Mill, Walt Disney, producer. 
One of the most celebrated of the Disney Silly Symphonies, The Old Mill was in part a test of the Disney Studios' multiplane camera, which was designed to move layers of images at differing speeds to provide a three-dimensional effect. Directed by Wilfred Jackson, with a score by Leigh Harline. 



(Color) 
Penny Wisdom, Pete Smith, producer. 

Produced and narrated by Smith, this tale of the kitchen mishaps of a housewife called on at the last minute to cook dinner for her husband's boss features Hearst newspaper columnist "Prudence Penny" (real name: Leona Malek), who saves the day. Directed by David Miller, who would eventually graduate to such feature films as Sudden Fear and Lonely Are the Brave.  

(One-reel) 
The Private Life of the Gannets, Skibo Productions.
Originally produced in Great Britain in 1934 and directed by biologist Julian Huxley, this documentary short received an award at the Venice International Film Festival in 1935 and was picked up by 20th Century-Fox for American distribution.




(Two-reel) 
Torture Money, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 
An entry in the MGM "Crime Does Not Pay" series dealing with insurance fraud. The cast is made up of many familiar character actors, including King Baggot, Raymond Hatton, and Jason Robards -- the father of the Oscar winner. 

Best Short Films, 1936

Awards presented March 4, 1937

The changes in the short film categories reveal several things about what's going on in the film industry. The obvious one is the arrival of color as a major filmmaking tool. In a few years, the Academy would yield to the pressure to divide the cinematography and art direction (and eventually costuming) categories into black-and-white and color, a division that would last until color became so ubiquitous that black-and-white would be used only for artistic reasons, as in Raging Bull, Schindler's List, and The Artist. A live action color film, La Cucaracha, had already won the award for short film "Novelty" in 1934, and cartoons were almost always in color. The other is that the division of short films into "Comedy" and "Novelty" categories seemed somehow arbitrary. All of the "Novelties" so far had been documentary shorts, but there was no category for documentaries yet, and makers of short musical and dramatic films protested at being put into competition with them. The result was to create categories for "one-reel" (about eleven minutes) and "two-reel" (about twenty to twenty-four minutes) shorts. Two-reelers would begin to fall out of favor once the double feature became popular.     

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• The Country Cousin, Walt Disney, producer 
• Old Mill Pond, Harman-Ising 
• Sinbad the Sailor, Paramount [Note: Although the Academy Web site lists the title as Sinbad the Sailor, the nominated cartoon appears to be the one released by Paramount as Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor.]

(Color) 

• Give Me Liberty, Warner Bros. 
• La Fiesta de Santa Barbara, Lewis Lewyn, producer 
• Popular Science J-6-2, Paramount 

(One-reel) 

• Bored of Education, Hal Roach, producer 
• Moscow Moods, Paramount 
• Wanted, a Master, Pete Smith, producer 

(Two-reel) 

• Double or Nothing, Warner Bros.  
• Dummy Ache, RKO Radio 
• The Public Pays, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Cartoon) 

The Country Cousin, Walt Disney, producer.
Abner the Mouse visits his cousin Morty in the big city.

(Color)
Give Me Liberty, Warner Bros.
A two-reel short, centered on Patrick Henry's 1775 speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses. The film invents some tension between Henry (John Litel) and his wife (Nedda Harrigan) over whether he will speak. Directed by B. Reeves (Breezy) Eason, a well-known second-unit director who also filmed the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind.



(One-reel)
Bored of Education, Hal Roach, producer.
The Our Gang kids contrive a way to get out of going to school.



(Two-reel)
The Public Pays, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
No. 8 in the Crime Does Not Pay series, a drama about a protection racket aimed at milk producers.  

Best Short Films, 1935

Awards presented March 5, 1936

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• The Calico Dragon, Harman-Ising [3rd place] 
• Three Orphan Kittens, Walt Disney, producer 
• Who Killed Cock Robin? Walt Disney, producer [2nd place] 

(Comedy) 

• How to Sleep, Jack Chertok, producer 
• Oh, My Nerves, Jules White, producer [2nd place]
• Tit for Tat, Hal Roach, producer [3rd place] 

(Novelty) 

• Audioscopiks, Pete Smith, producer [tied for 2nd] 
• Camera Thrills, Universal [tied for 2nd] 
• Wings Over Mt. Everest, Gaumont British and Skibo Productions

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Cartoon)

Three Orphan Kittens, Walt Disney, producer.

(Comedy) 

How to Sleep, Jack Chertok, producer. 

The first in a series of "how to" shorts made at MGM by humorist Robert Benchley. It was so well-received that the studio launched a series in which Benchley demonstrated his mock expertise. 

(Novelty) 

Wings Over Mt. Everest, Gaumont British and Skibo Productions.

This British-made documentary short is about the 1933 flight by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, then Lord Clydesdale, over the summit of Mount Everest. Prints of it are hard to locate today.  

Best Short Film, 1934

Awards presented February 27, 1935  

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• Holiday Land, Charles Mintz, producer 
• Jolly Little Elves, Walter Lantz, producer
• The Tortoise and the Hare, Walt Disney, producer 

(Comedy) 

• La Cucaracha, Kenneth Macgowan, producer 
• Men in Black, Jules White, producer 
• What, No Men! Warner Bros. 

(Novelty) 

• Bosom Friends, Skibo Productions 
• City of Wax, Stacy Woodard and Horace Woodard, producers
• Strikes and Spares, Pete Smith, producer

And the Oscar went to ...  

(Cartoon) 

The Tortoise and the Hare, Walt Disney, producer.

(Comedy) 

La Cucaracha, Kenneth Macgowan, producer

Kenneth Macgowan

Macgowan had been a drama critic and one of the producers at the Provincetown Playhouse, where he formed a close friendship with Eugene O'Neill. He came to Hollywood in 1928 as a story editor and moved into producing in 1932. Among his films are the 1933 Little Women with Katharine Hepburn, Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) with Henry Fonda, and Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). In 1947 he left Hollywood for the University of California at Berkeley, where he founded and became the chairman of the Department of Theater Arts. La Cucaracha was one of the first -- if not the first, for there's a dispute about this -- live action films the three-strip Technicolor. He also produced the first full-length three-strip Technicolor feature, Becky Sharp (1935).


(Novelty) 

City of Wax, Stacy Woodard and Horace Woodard, producers.   
The Woodard brothers, Stacy and Howard, produced a series of nature films under the rubric "Struggle to Live." This one, about the life cycle of a bee, is hard to locate today.  

Best Short Film, 1932-33

Awards presented March 16, 1934
(Films released from August 1, 1932 through December 31, 1933 were eligible.)

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon)

• Building a Building, Walt Disney, producer
• The Merry Old Soul, Walter Lantz, producer
• The Three Little Pigs, Walt Disney, producer

(Comedy) 

• Mister Mugg, Warren Doane, producer
• A Preferred List, Louis Brock, producer
• So This Is Harris! Louis Brock, producer

(Novelty) 

• Krakatoa, Joe Rock, producer
• Menu, Pete Smith, producer
• The Sea, Educational

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Cartoon) 

The Three Little Pigs, Walt Disney, producer. 

One of the most popular Disney cartoons of the 1930s, The Three Little Pigs, and particularly Frank Churchill's song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf," was widely viewed as a parable about the Depression and the attitude needed to survive it.

(Comedy)
So This is Harris! Louis Brock, producer.



This pre-Code short, featuring some near-nudity, stars Phil Harris and Walter Catlett as themselves. Catlett hates to hear Harris sing, and goes out of his way to try to stop him. Brock, an RKO producer, oversaw the first teaming of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, in Flying Down to Rio (1933), but most of his work was focused on short films. The director of So This Is Harris!, Mark Sandrich, would go on to direct Astaire and Rogers in The Gay Divorcee, Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, Shall We Dance, and Carefree.

(Novelty)
Krakatoa, Joe Rock, producer.

Joe Rock

Rock, né Joe Simburg, had been a stunt man and comedian in movies as early as 1915, but he turned producer, signing Stan Laurel (pre-Hardy) to a series of twelve two-reel comedies in 1924 and 1925, and producing a series called "A Ton of Fun," featuring three comedians padded into obesity and known as The Three Fatties. In 1933, he formed a separate production company to film a serious documentary, Krakatoa, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the explosion of the Indonesian island. It was distributed by Fox Film Corporation, and won him an Oscar. But he was out of the country when the award was announced, and by the time he returned his production company had gone out of business and he couldn't locate the documents that would establish his right to the award. Shortly before his death in 1984 he came across the necessary documents and the Academy gave him his Oscar.

Honorary Award, 1931-32

Awards presented November 18, 1932
(Films released from August 1, 1931 through July 31, 1932 were eligible.)

Walt Disney, for the creation of Mickey Mouse

Best Short Film, 1931-32

Awards presented November 18, 1932
(Films released from August 1, 1931 through July 31, 1932 were eligible.)

Almost annually now, someone calls for the abolition of the short film category, though it's usually in the context of thinking up ways to shorten the televised awards ceremony. That didn't matter so much when, in its fifth Awards year, the Academy decided to honor short films -- or "short subjects" as they were called -- before it had even got around to honoring music, or film editing, or costume design, or makeup. Short films today are often the work of students aiming for their first feature job and short animated films are sometimes hors d'oeuvres from the spare time of animators at Pixar or Dreamworks, designed to whet our appetites for the next full-length feature. It's hard for us today, when the only other things besides the feature that you're likely to see on the screen are commercials and trailers, how central short films once were to the movie-going experience. A few of us remember the buzz of enthusiasm when a Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny cartoon began to appear on the screen -- or the mutters of disappointment when the short turned out to be an "as the sun sets slowly, we take our leave of" travelogue.  

The nominees were ... 
(Cartoon) 

• Flowers and Trees, Walt Disney, producer
• It's Got Me Again, Leon Schlesinger, producer 
• Mickey's Orphans, Walt Disney, producer 

(Comedy) 

• The Loud Mouth, Mack Sennett, producer 
• The Music Box, Hal Roach, producer 
• Scratch-As-Catch-Can, RKO Radio 

(Novelty) 

• Screen Souvenirs, Paramount Publix 
• Swing High, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Wrestling Swordfish, Mack Sennett, producer 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Cartoon) 

Flowers and Trees, Walt Disney, producer. 

Lillian Disney holds her husband's first Oscar

(Comedy)

The Music Box, Hal Roach, producer.

Oliver Hardy, Hal Roach, and Stan Laurel 

(Novelty) 

Wrestling Swordfish, Mack Sennett, producer. 

Mack Sennett

The names of the winners were no secret in those days, so when Sennett learned that his short had lost by only three votes to Swing High, he protested: The Academy's rules indicated that a three-vote margin was a tie. So the Academy put it to a second vote, and Sennett's short, the second in a series called "Cannibals of the Deep," was the winner. Prints of it, however, seem to be unlocatable today.