2013 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation: Parent's Guide

The Oscar Nominated Shorts Programs are a rare opportunity to see some of the short form films nominated for Academy Awards on the big screen. Last year I was really excited to take my kids to see the Animated selections but I couldn't find a single helpful resource online providing information on content since the packages are unrated. So hopefully, this post will reach at least one parent in a similar situation. I took a chance again this year and took my kids to the 2013 program and it really is a delight for the whole family.

The show this year consists of 8 shorts and some host segments. Seven of the cartoons are dialogue free - which makes the host segments a nice filler of sound in an otherwise quite theater. There is no bad language in any of the shorts, one of the hosts says hell or damn in an off-cuff remark. There are no gory or violent images in any of the shorts either.

Two of the films contain brief/tasteful nudity. Of course, it's cartoon nudity and it's not graphic or sexual in any way. The second film on the lineup, Adam & Dog, features Adam & Eve of Bible fame. Adam is seen nude throughout most of the picture. He's drawn in a cartoony style and even though he is seen from the front quite a bit, his man parts are only vaguely drawn. It looks more like he's wearing long underwear. Eve is seen nude in one scene, from a slight distance. She is sitting down so you only see her top half, the caricature reminded me of how a girl is drawn in one of those silly Playboy magazine comics. If you explain to your kids going in, that the man and woman are Adam & Eve none of it is shocking, inappropriate, or profane. Since the cartoon has no dialogue it's a little hard for kids to pick up that it's supposed to be Adam & Eve.

Dripped is the seventh film in the collection. The short centers on an art thief who eats the paintings he steals and takes on characteristics of the paintings. At one point he eats a painting of angels, at which point he spouts wings. His clothes shed off, with a very brief glimpse of his cartoon pee-pee and cartoon behind. It's super quick and not graphic at all.

In the end, the 2013 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts is really a fun treat for kids. The two films that bookend the program are the most kid appealing: Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare and The Graffalo's Child. Also featured is Paperman which was seen by many before Wreck-It Ralph this past holiday season. Besides The Simpsons short, which is really funny and really sweet, My 7 year old enjoyed Adam & Dog the most. He's a big sucker for dog stories. My 9 year old singled out Fresh Guacamole as his favorite - a stop motion film using everyday items to represent food.

It's a fun night out at the movies and a way to introduce your kids to other types on animation besides Ice Age and Spongebob.

2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation: A Quick Parent's Guide

Just wanted to do a quick post regarding the package of animated shorts that is playing in theaters this week. For years I've wanted to see the annual collection of Oscar worthy toons and take my kids to expose them to different styles of animation. And year after year, I can never find any information regarding the content of the short films. Just because they are cartoons doesn't mean they aren't chock full of sex, violence and profanity. I've stayed away from the toon feat in the past but this year I made a somewhat more aggressive attempt to find out if the Oscar package was child friendly.

The studio was nice enough to quickly answer my query on Facebook and said it was "family friendly and full of laughs". So I took the kids last night and found the proceedings to be the equivalent of a PG rating.

There's actually very little dialogue in the 8 shorts featured and besides one use of "hell" there is no objectionable language. What you will find is an old man flipping the middle finger, another guy mooning the old man - pressing his butt cheeks up against a car window, and a cute fish getting his head chopped off. There is a startling scene where a zombie jumps out at the camera and a brief chase leads to a small bloodbath. My 6 year old was very off put by the zombie and spent the rest of the night worrying that there would be more scary parts.

But in the end, the kids and I greatly enjoyed the eight films. Only one of them is very dry and drags on a bit. The rest are a mix of charming, funny and thought provoking.