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1940 Animated Short Oscar Analysis

1940 was a pretty mild year when it comes to the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film category. I am baffled as to why there were only three nominees at the height of the classical era for animated shorts, but I still liked all three of these nominees, even if none of them are true classics. This is actually a groundbreaking year for this category as it is the very first one where not only Disney did not win, but they weren’t even nominated. What we got instead are two MGM entries and one Warner Bros. short. Two of those are historically very important.

My Ranking of the Nominees:

3. The Milky Way

Although definitely not substantial enough and lacking any plot to it whatsoever, The Milky Way is still an exceedingly charming, even too cute, MGM cartoon with gorgeous animation at display and lovable characters. Yes, it’s the weakest nominee thus year, but not by far actually as the film is pretty solid and endearing, if far from great. Most people fail to realize that the other two entries did not stand a chance to win the Oscar as their characters weren’t established yet so this cartoon easily swooped in and won.

2. Puss Gets the Boot

Yes, this short is a landmark moment in animation as the first ever Tom and Jerry cartoon. Having in mind that it’s the first one, it’s definitely very strong with well established characters from the get-go and strong action. The pacing is pretty bad as it starts out of nowhere and is at times prolonged, but the film is still exciting and a lot of fun. It’s also very funny with the highlight being Mammy hitting Tom and Jerry hysterically laughing. Those kinds of moments are always the standouts in this series.

1. A Wild Hare

Although not as amazing or as hilarious as his future movies would be, this is still a great first entry for Bugs Bunny and thus another highly important animated film. He was present before, but here he got his signature screwy, manipulative personality and Elmer is also perfectly established here for the first time. The action and humor are both excellent here as well as the interactions between the two classic characters. Thus, the film easily is the best of these three nominees and it should have won undoubtedly.

Films That Should Have Been Nominated:

You Ought to Be in Pictures – By far, no question asked, the finest animated film from 1940 is actually this live-action/animated hybrid from Warner Bros. It’s a highly influential, hilarious and incredibly inventive film which is not only impressive technically speaking, but also very well plotted and hilarious with Daffy being so conniving. It was seriously snubbed.

The Bear’s Tale – Although it mixes two fairy tales in one film, the end result isn’t too disparate and it’s actually rather inventive. This is another very impressive Warner Bros. achievement this year which is a perfect fairy tale parody filled with a lot of hilarious moments. The highlight was the mix of traditional storytelling and modern humor and contraptions.

Wimmin Hadn’t Oughta Drive – The title itself says it all. This is a highly sexist, but still hilarious Popeye the Sailor entry where he tries to teach Olive how to drive to hilarious results. Maybe the PC viewers today may find it offensive, but to me it’s another shining example of their great, amusing relationship.

Females Is Fickle – Although the underwater sequences aren’t the best in execution, they are still intriguing as a rare example where Popeye goes in the deep and thus the film is very authentic and interesting. I also really liked the humor here and both Olive and Popeye are quite amusing here.

Popeye Presents Eugene the Jeep – It is ridiculous to me how the Academy ignored the Popeye series when it was so strong during this period and they only nominated three films during great 1940. This is another strong Popeye film which actually uses Eugene so well and Popeye’s frustrations are the comedic highlights here.