Disney animated characters are no strangers to the Academy Awards, sometimes even attending them “in person” to hand out prizes.
Their presence has, at times, added a welcome bit of levity to the proceedings. Other times, things felt almost nepotistic, like when Disney-Pixar characters Woody and Buzz Lightyear announced that Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out had won best animated feature in 2016.
And in 1988, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck engaged in a slapstick spat that felt awkward and incongruous when Mickey then announced that Frédéric Back’s The Man Who Planted Trees, an ethereal tale about a shepherd trying to reforest a barren valley, had won the award for best animated short.
