Looking Back on Twenty-Twelve

2012 was quite a year for animation, wasn't it? As we are now in a new year, let's pause and remember the best of last year...

- Rango, Gore Verbinski's incredibly risky animated Western tale, rightfully took home many accolades and proved to the industry that you can in fact pull off big risks.

- Rich Ross, the controversial man who was the Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, got the boot. The seasoned and film-savvy Alan Horn took his place. Disney is back on track after a relatively downer period.

- The year had three animated films that grossed $200 million at the domestic box office. While the quality of some of the films are debatable, it's still good to see animation doing fine.

- Three impressive stop-motion films graced the silver screen: Aardman's The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Laika's ParaNorman and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.

- Pixar proved to critics that one film couldn't stop them. Brave, despite getting a good number of negative reviews, was still a well-received film.

- Pixar also announced many new things: Two untitled upcoming films (one of which is being directed by Teddy Newton), the title of Bob Peterson's dinosaur film and Lee Unkrich's upcoming "Dia De Los Muertos" film.

- Wreck-It Ralph became another runaway success for Disney, showing that Tangled wouldn't be their only big hit. They are here to stay.

- Paperman, the ethereal short film attached to Wreck-It Ralph, certainly made quite a splash. It was a six-minute miracle of innovation and technological breakthrough in the medium. That's what Disney is known for, right?

- Disney also seemed enthusiastic about the upcoming films for Walt Disney Animation Studios, such as Big Hero 6 and Ron Clements and John Musker's untitled hand-drawn project.

- Many good animated television shows continued to run successfully, and impressive new entries came in as well.

- DreamWorks kept releasing critically acclaimed films, and also scoring their first big box office blockbuster domestically (in over two years) with Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted.

- Paramount announced more plans with their in-house animation studio, and are very enthusiastic about competing with the heavies.

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Well, with all that being said... Happy New Year everyone! What was your favorite animation moment of 2012?