This won the Academy Award for Animated Short and it's easy to see why, even in a fairly strong field of nominees. The technical aspects alone would justify the award. It's a visually arresting cartoon. I've seen much less attention to detail in "set decoration" in feature-length live-action films! But the visuals are only part of the tale here-indeed, it is the tale itself that is at the heart of things here. The characters matter, the interactions make sense and the story is interesting to the viewer (although, at least in my opinion, the primary reason this won out over another nominee was the superior visual look and feel of Bunny and the race was close there, as well. Too bad they didn't end up tied) without becoming cloying at the end. Good to see this getting wider release on the DVD of the feature Ice Age, by the same studio. Let's hope features don't take up all their time and energy, so that they can occasionally give us a shorter marvel like this. Well worth watching. Most highly recommended.
