Best Animated Short - 1970 (NSFW)

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a highly turbulent time in American history. It was a time of political and social unrest. There were demonstrations and riots over the Vietnam War, whose public support eroded in the light of the Tet Offensive, and over civil rights issues, especially after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. There were protests and riots at the Democratic National Convention. This culminated in 1970 when students at Kent State University were shot during a demonstration over the invasion of Cambodia, killing four.

Films tend to reflect the society in which they were made, and this era was no exception. There were films about the alienation of our country's youth, such as Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. There were films about war, such as M*A*S*H and Patton. Yet the highest grossing film of the year was a more conventional film, Love Story. The romantic tragedy about love and loss barely beat out the ensemble disaster film Airport in box office receipt

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Best Animated Short - 1972 (NSFW)

Well, it doesn't seem like it'll ever get here, but we are on our 40th review. That means we are officially halfway done with reviewing these Oscar nominated shorts! Sure, it took eight months, but it sure as heck doesn't feel that long. And guess what? We still have pitiful page views! Hooray! I'd like to thank my loyal readers, all three of them that I know of: my sisters (one of whom says she mostly skims the reviews) and Christopher Sobieniak. Man, I suck at advertising my blog. I tell people about it but they don't read it.

Meh, but we're halfway through the reviews. We've gone too far to just give up! So let's keep forging on. We are now at 1972, which is a significant year because it saw the introduction of one of the monumental films in American cinematic history...The Godfather

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Best Animated Short - 1979 (NSFW)

We have arrived in the 1970s in our trip through the Best Animated Short Oscar. The 1970s, as you know, are a decade full of crisis and turmoil. Another source of crisis and turmoil for this blog is our ever-lengthening introductions. Originally I had trouble putting enough substance in my intros, but for the past four reviews I've noticed that my introductions are getting longer than my reviews. This probably came about from when I started adding baseball stories for that particular year. I love baseball and have the tendency to ramble when it comes to baseball. And I can go off on Oscars stuff as well. Frankly I love doing these things more than coming up with historical events for that year, but if you have any suggestions as to what I should to please leave it in the comments. I've only gotten one comment so far, and it wasn't even in any of the reviews.

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The List: Top 5 Animated Nuclear Explosions (NSFW)

One thing that I like to do is making lists, especially ranked lists. Countdowns are one of the joys in my life. Well, one thing I can do on this blog is make countdowns based on topics in animation. I've already been doing some of this through my rankings of my favorite Oscar nominated films every ten years, and I'll do things on other animation-related topics from time to time. And this first one is something that had been bouncing around in my head since I saw The Big Snit for the first time back in 2007: the top five animated atomic explosions.

And yes, in case you hadn't seen it before, NSFW means Not Safe For Work. Even though these next scenes are animated, there are still images that are quite graphic. You have been warned.

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