Best Animated Short - 1982

Well, we have finally reached the 30 year mark. Sure it's taken us almost six months, and part of that time was spent at a rate of two reviews a week, but we're making our way slowly but surely. At this rate we'll probably be looking at finishing less than a year from now! Huzzah!

So it's kind of hard to believe that 1982 is thirty years ago. I mean, it was before I was born, but not much earlier. There are people that I went to high school with born in 1982. Sure, they were juniors or seniors when I was a freshman, but that still doesn't change the fact that, well, I'm getting old. And yet I'm still watching animated shorts and reading comics like "Amelia Rules." But you know what? There's no shame in that! Especially since all of these has much better storytelling and entertainment value than some of the more "adult" things out there!

Best Animated Short - 1983

In recent entries we have moved into the era where I've had infantile amnesia, and now we're all the way out to the years preceding my birth. That's why these introductions have been less my anecdotes and more an overview of what happened that year. Normally I can come up with a few items off the top of my head, but 1983 is such a non-descript year for me (other than the fact that a couple of my good friends were born this year) that I just can't think of anything. So it's off to Wikipedia I go. Hmm. Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in South America. Bjorn Borg retires from tennis. The last episode of M*A*S*H airs to great ratings. The EPA evacuates Times Beach, MO for dioxin contamination. Nintendo's Famicom (short for Family Computer) launches in Japan. Those are interesting news items, I suppose.

Maybe I should stick with the things I know without having to look stuff up: baseball and the Oscars.

Best Animated Short - 1984

Whew. It feels as though we got through some harrowing times, what with the special countdown post. It would be easy to say that it would also be because of my second COMLEX board exam, which happened the day before, but in reality I'm writing these posts far before they actually go up. For example, right now I am writing this on June 24, three weeks before my board exam. So I can't really use that as a reason why I'm so mentally drained, but I did finish that countdown post earlier today, and I just power-washed my parent's driveway, so I guess I do have a reason to be exhausted. Nevertheless, we must press on!

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.

Best Animated Short - 1985

And we have now arrived at 1985, the year of my birth. Now I'm sure anybody would be biased towards their year of birth, but I do think 1985 was something special. For example, it was the year of "We are the World" and the Live Aid concerts, which raised millions of aid for the famine in Ethiopia. The NES launched in October, lifting console gaming from the Atari Crash and making it the profitable industry it is today. Calvin and Hobbes debuts in newspapers, beginning a 10-year run where they become an integral part of pop culture. And that was the year the Kansas City Royals, the team I grew up watching, ended years of playoff futility by winning the World Series.

Yeah, there were a few dark sides of 1985. There was the New Coke fiasco. There was the hijacking of TWA flight 847, which resulted in only one death, and the crash of Japan Airlines flight 123, which resulted in 520. And the Royals have gone on an even longer 27-year streak where they never even made the post-season. Nevertheless, 1985 was a pretty good year.

Best Animated Short - 1986

We are now at 1986, which was a fairly interesting year, although most of the major events were tragedies. It began with a literal bang with the Challenger disaster, which killed six astronauts and a schoolteacher in their prime. Then in April came the Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear accident in history, and one that still resonates in popular culture 26 years later. Thousands were killed in Cameroon in August as Lake Nyos released a large cloud of carbon dioxide. It was an up and down year for Boston sports. Roger Clemens put his stamp in baseball history for the first time with his 20-strikeout game, and then the Celtics won the NBA finals. And then they went on to draft Maryland basketball star Len Bias, seemingly ensuring a Celtics dynasty. Yet it all came crashing down only two days later when Bias died from a fatal cardiac arrhythmia after trying cocaine for the first time. The Red Sox seemed to make up for the tragedy by getting only one out away from their first World Series since 1918, but then Bob Stanley allowed the game-tying run with a wild pitch (or a passed ball depending on who you want to believe), and then the game-winning run scored when an over-eager Bill Buckner rushed to field a grounder so quickly that the intertia closed the glove, letting the ball slip between his legs.