UPDATE: We’re live-tweeting the event on Cartoon Brew’s Twitter.

Get your popcorn ready, put on some clean underwear, and settle down. It’s the animation world’s biggest night—the ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards—and it’s being livestreamed for the first time ever! The live stream will begin at 7pm PST (10pm EST):

Click HERE to view the 64-page ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards Program Book as a PDF file. The complete list of all Annie Award winners will be posted here following the the live event.

Brad Bird will host a special screening and on-stage discussion with the filmmakers of the 2011 animated and live-action shorts on Tuesday night February 21st at the Academy’s Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills. The program, called Shorts!, will include all five animated short nominees and their respective directors: Patrick Doyon (Dimanche/Sunday), William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg (The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore), Enrico Casarosa (La Luna), Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe (A Morning Stroll) and Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby (Wild Life). The program will begin at 7:30pm. For ticket information click here.

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The now traditional Academy Animated Feature Symposium will be held on Thursday February 23rd at 7:30pm. Actor/comedian Patton Oswalt will host a panel featuring the 2011 Oscar nominees in the Animated Feature Film category. The nominees (schedules permitting) include Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli (A Cat in Paris), Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (Chico & Rita), Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda 2), Chris Miller (Puss in Boots) and Gore Verbinski (Rango). The panelists will discuss their films’ development and their creative processes as well as present clips illustrating their techniques.

Both events will take place at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, in Beverly Hills, CA, and will begin at 7:30pm. $5 general admission/$3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID (limit 2 at the discounted price). Tickets will be available online and by mail on a first-come, first-served basis beginning Friday, February 3 at 9:01 a.m. To order tickets click here.

On February 1st, indie animation rockstar Don Hertzfeldt kicks off a coast-to-coast 13-state US tour. The main event is the debut of It’s Such A Beautiful Day, which completes his ambitious trilogy about a mysterious man named Bill. Head to BitterFilms.com for ticket info, and go there quick because tickets have already sold out for a number of the cities.

Actor/comedian Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille) will host the 39th Annual Annie Awards on Saturday, February 4th at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The annual event will begin with a pre-reception at 5 p.m. followed by the Annie Awards ceremony at 7 p.m. and an after-party celebration immediately following the ceremony. All events will be held at Royce Hall. And for the first time ever, Cartoon Brew will live stream the event!

This year’s Winsor McCay recipients are Walt Peregoy, Borge Ring and Ronald Searle. Searle’s award will be posthumous, as he passed late last year at the age of 91. Other animation luminaries and voice actors scheduled to present awards include Ty Burrell, JK Simmons, James Hong, Jib Jab founders Greg and Evan Spiridellis, Tara Strong, Daran Norris, Dee Bradley Baker and animation legend June Foray – among others to be announced.

For complete ticket information and up-to-the minute details on the 39th Annual Annie Awards, please visit www.annieawards.org or the new Annie Awards Facebook page. And remember, if you can’t be there in person, Cartoon Brew will live-stream the ceremony from 7pm PST (10pm EST). Now you have no excuse to miss this event!

With no clear frontrunners in either the Best Animated Feature or Short categories, it’s time to call upon the wisdom of the animation masses. Tell us what films you think SHOULD win the animation Oscars this year. We’ll keep the survey open for a week until everyone has had a chance to make their voice heard.

GO TO THE SURVEY PAGE >>>
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The Oscar nominations were announced this morning.

Nominated for BEST ANIMATED FEATURE were:

A CAT IN PARIS – Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol
CHICO AND RITA – Tono Errando, Javier Mariscal.
KUNG FU PANDA 2 – Jennifer Yuh Nelson
PUSS IN BOOTS – Chris Miller
RANGO – Gore Verbinski

THE SCORE: It’s “2″ for Dreamworks and “0″ for Disney/Pixar. “2″ for International independent films, and “1″ for a live-action director making his animated feature debut (and that director isn’t Spielberg). And a big “zero” for Mo-Cap.

It’s not a complete loss for TINTIN – the film was nominated for Best Music (Original Score). And RIO got a nod for Best Original Song. A complete list of nominees in all categories is posted here. The Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday February 26th at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

As many of you know, every month (on the fourth Monday evening) I co-produce a live comedy/cartoon show, Cartoon Dump, at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. If you are in the area next Monday (1/23), this will be a great one to drop in on. In addition to our regulars, Frank Conniff (MST3K) and Erica Doering, our special comedy guest is once again Patton Oswalt. I’ll be there, showing an extra helping of really horrible cartoons. Showtime is 8pm. Ticket info is posted here. Check out the new FaceBook page for more information and updates.

The Chuck Jones Experience opens Thursday at Circus Circus in Las Vegas. Just in time, too, considering that one out of three Americans don’t know who Bugs Bunny is, and nearly half (44%) don’t recognize Daffy Duck. If you’ve ever watched this or this or this, you’d understand why the American public is trying to forget these once-great characters.