“Cars” won the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s inaugural “animated feature” award Monday evening. Pixar’s John Lasseter accepted the award. Lasseter is the new chief director of both Pixar and Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios. When Lasseter accepted this award, he thanked his family, voters, Pixar buddies, the voice actors Tony Shalhoub and Paul Newman, producer Darla Anderson, and creative partner Joe Ranft (recently deceased), as well as a few others, but he seemed to have forgotten to thank Disney! Hopefully, this was an inadvertent mistake made by a new chief creative director who was a bundle of joyous nerves that night!
John Lasseter oversees the Burbank division of Disney, and has worked there two to three days per week since Disney acquired Pixar. Burbank is Disney’s historic cartoon division, and is where Lasseter got his start as a young animator, back in the early 1980’s. Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was seated right in the audience, was also left off of the lengthy list of thank you’s doled out by John Lasseter. His last line: “This is for everybody at Pixar! Hooray!”
John Lasseter was also nominated in December for an Annie award for best director, and the film won the Broadcast Film Critics Association award for Best Animated Feature. Cars garnered a Best Animated Feature Golden Globe award, Animation of the Year Hollywood Film Award, and got a Grammy nomination for the soundtrack, and won a World Soundtrack award.
Personally, I think this was a huge faux pas on Lasseter’s part. Cars was a great little movie, I loved it, but I don’t really think the movie would have been all that it was had it not been for the power of Disney behind it. Without the Disney push, without the massive advertising and merchandising campaigns before, during, and after the film’s debut, do you think it would have been as huge as it was?