Ever feel like watching 87 animated short films? Well, a reporter for New York magazine’s Vulture website has done it. In fact, Jeremy Fassler sat through all 87 films that won the Academy Award for animated short subject, starting with Walt Disney’s Flowers and Trees and ending with this year’s winner, Bao, from Pixar.

After Disney enjoyed an eight-year winning streak, M-G-M broke the monopoly, in 1940. Within a few years, UPA was the new favorite. The studio’s animated shorts were nominated fourteen times over ten years (1948 to 1957). UPA won the coveted statuette three times: Gerald McBoing Boing (1950), When Magoo Flew (1954), and Magoo’s Puddle Jumper (1956).

Now Vulture ranks UPA against its predecessors and successors. The two Mr. Magoo shorts fall rather low on the list, but Gerald McBoing Boing clocks in at an impressive No. 4. So UPA’s signature film, which established its reputation, still holds its own against decades of filmmaking. Fassler calls it “one of the most remarkable and influential cartoons ever produced.” The only Oscar winners that surpass Gerald, in the opinion of this reporter, are The Man Who Planted Trees (1987), The Cat Concerto (1946), and The Wrong Trousers (1993).

To view the original post, click here.