A Look at the Best Animated Shorts Nominees

With the Oscars now mere hours away, I finally share my thoughts on the nominees for Best Animated Short shortly follow (my thoughts on Best Live Action can be found here). Again I apologize for the delay, but due to many conflicts, it proved to be a little challenging to find them all. This is notably due to schedule conflicts and Shorts HD deciding to pull all of them off of Youtube after they crippled theater attendances. No known package exists of this year's nominees unfortunately. However, after some Googling and short cuts, I have seen all five nominees, and like the Best Live Action Shorts, I have plenty to say. Read more after the jump.

Want to check out the Oscar Nominated Short Films? There's is a way to do it!

Fresh Guacamole

One of the challenges of every Oscar season is the smaller categories. True, everyone has probably seen Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook by now, but nobody ever really seems to know about the other categories. The ones that films of these statures are not even up for. I am of course talking about the Best Short Films, whether they be animated or live action. Until 2006, you  would be out of luck in seeing most of them outside of the shorts precluding Pixar's latest. However, thanks to Shorts HD, there is a way to see these brilliant pieces of work. 

Will "The Simpsons" Finally Win an Oscar for Animated Short?

It is possible that one of the overlooked categories is Best Animated Short. Besides the shorts that appear before Pixar and Disney films, they are often reserved for obscure films that result in majority of the nominations being unpredictable. However, there is looking to be one contender this year that you may have heard about this past summer, especially if you saw Ice Age 4. The short film based on the long running TV show The Simpsons called The Longest Daycare has made it to the final 10 contenders and looks to get an actual nomination? Can this help the show add another honor to its mantle?