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Writing my book(s), Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows, I didn’t want to exclusively focus on the Oscars. It was my goal for this project to be just as much about animation’s history at the Emmys and Annie Awards. In the latter’s case, this is the first book to provide a deep dive into the Annies, the premier animation award show. My research went far beyond a Google search. To get into specifics about each Annie ceremony, it tracked down numerous newspaper articles, animation fanzines, and even Annie programs. I’ll be sharing these research materials on this site in an ongoing series called The Annie Awards Archive.

One of the first major pieces of physical media I came across in my research was a program for the 5^th Annie Awards held in 1976. The programs for other years I’d later uncover averaged around thirty pages. Conversely, the program for 1976 is much thinner. It’s essentially a folio, a sheet of paper folded into four pages. It looks more like a menu. In fact, it lists what guests ate at that year’s ceremony: mixed green salad with sour cream dressing, roast prime ribs of beef au jus, string beans almondine, small whole potatoes, ice cream cake with raspberry sauce, and coffee.

The inside, while only two pages, does provide some insight into the ceremony, which was held at the Sportsman’s Lodge. The master of ceremonies was Bullwinkle himself, voice actor Bill Scott, not Woody Allen, as Wikipedia falsely claims. Stan Freberg presented the Winsor McCay Award to Ward Kimball with a segment from The Three Caballeros being played. Annies were also given to Hugh Harman, Rudolph Isling, Mike Maltese, George Pal, and the late Bobe Cannon.

Michael Harman gave out Harman’s Annie, with a presentation of 1939’s Peace on Earth. Mel Shaw spoke for Isling, showing the Oscar-winning 1940’s The Milky Way. Chuck Jones honored Maltese, introducing 1951’s A Bear for Punishment. Forrest Ackerman paid tribute to Pal, playing 1942’s Tulips Shall Grow. Alan Zazlov remembered Cannon, capped off with 1952’s Willie the Kid. A bicentennial award was also given to Lyn[n] Joy Kroeger, apparently for a film called That’s The Spirit. Couldn’t find much info on the latter.

The program includes biographies for the honorees as well. Take a look below:

In addition to the program, I found this Variety article about the 1976 ceremony. It includes brief quotes from Harman, Shaw, Freberg, and Jones. It also notes that Cannon’s widow, Martha, accepted his Annie from Zazlov. Read below:

View our previous Annie Awards retrospectives for the following years:

 1972 & 1973

1992

1997

Nick Spake is the Author of Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Available Now!