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June Foray created the Annie Awards to honor Max Fleischer
How one of the greatest voice actresses created an awards show!
In 1972, the animation industry was a cornerstone of Hollywood, but it did not have its own awards ceremony. At the time, most of the major awards shows had animation categories for short films, feature-length films, and children's television. But the animation genre is far more than just a category, but a whole industry in and of itself. June Foray, the Meryl Streep of voice acting, felt that it was high time that the people who worked in cartoons got their own awards show. What inspired her? The death of her friend and colleague, Max Fleischer.
Foray recalled, "Everyone else has awards, but animation doesn't. Max Fleischer had just died, and of course he was such a founder of animation, creating Betty Boop and Olive Oyl and Popeye and so forth, and he invented rotoscoping. And so, I thought it was a splendid idea to honor him and Dave Fleischer..."
Freshly inspired, she went to the president of ASIFA-Hollywood, a branch of the International Animated Film Association, and asked for permission to organize an awards ceremony by cartoon people for cartoon people. Once permission was granted, Foray found the location and a host, but the awards ceremony still needed a name.
"My husband said," Foray recalled, "As long as it's an animation award, why not call it Annie?"
Thus, the Annies were born! But as things fell into place, Foray became anxious. What if no one showed up? Then, suddenly, over 400 RSVPs came in, and what started as a tribute to a friend had now grown into a big industry event. The first Annie Awards were covered on television and quickly became the go-to animation event of the year.
The second Annie Awards honoree was Walter Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker, and he was the first to be given a real trophy. The Annie Awards trophy is a brass model of a zoetrope, one of the earliest animation devices. Committed to the bit, Foray made sure that the award rotated like a real zoetrope, which led to a humorous blunder.
"I think Walter Lantz dropped his, the top came off and it broke." Foray recalled, "A lot of people weren't aware and we should have warned them that the rotating part of the zoetrope was removable. So they carried it offstage and WHAM!"
To this day, the Annies are a yearly event, the 53rd Annie Awards scheduled for February 21, 2026. Since its founding, the Annie Awards have given out prizes for 37 categories, including the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contributions to the art of animation, the Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancements to animation, and the June Foray Award for those who have made significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the animation industry.
