In honor of the Academy Awards, I have decided to devote an entire post linking the most famous American award show to a 43-square-mile patch of Florida swampland.

Here are the nominees and winners of the Oscars, Walt Disney World style.

Maybe we’ll go in a different direction.  How about Angela Lansbury, nominated twice for Supporting Actress, but starring in her own stage show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios as a foam tea pot.  And she has a Magic Kingdom snack stand named after her character.  Come on, she’s the favorite, right?

Honorary Awards

James Baskett received an honorary Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Remus in Song of the South.  This movie actually got a major E-Ticket log flume at the Magic Kingdom, but Uncle Remus, was nowhere to be found.

That leaves Walt Disney himself.  He famously received an honorary Oscar statuette and seven smaller ones for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  Replicas of these are currently on view in the Magic of Disney Animation, and the movie itself has its own ride at the Magic Kingdom.  The ride is decidedly not Oscar material (but does have an awesome dancing frog).

Hosts

Oscar hosts are well-represented at Walt Disney World.  Steve Martin may have worked at the Magic Shop at Disneyland, but long time host Johnny Carson scored a segment of SuperStar Television back when Disney MGM Studios first opened.  Another major host, Bob Hope, gave the speech that opened the Contemporary Resort.

Will Rogers is a rare host with his own Audio Animatronic figure.  He hosted the Oscars in 1934, and landed a spot in the American Adventure nearly 50 years later.

The now-defunct Monster Sound Show had multiple Oscar hosts.  David Letterman starred in the original preshow.  Chevy Chase starred in the main attraction.

But with Chevy’s show now replaced by Drew Carrey (who has never before been mentioned in the same sentence as Oscar), only one host is left with her own attraction.  That would be Ellen Degeneres, who hosted in 2006.  Ellen’s Energy Adventure is still going strong in Future World.

Best Song

This category is riddled with Disney songs.  Even when we focus on just the winners, the category is overflowing with park references everywhere you look, er, listen.  Under the Sea, Beauty and the Beast, and Can You Feel the Love Tonight still have their own show-stopping production numbers in various stage productions around property.  Colors of the Wind and You’ll Be In My Heart used to.  Chim Chim Cher-ee has its own segment in the Great Movie Ride, and Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah has a rollicking finale to Splash Mountain.  But When You Wish Upon A Star is something of a Disney anthem by now, and brightens the Magic Kingdom sky with fireworks every night.  It wins hands down.

Best Cinematography

The camera loves Walt Disney World, but the choices for this award are surprisingly short.  I can’t even include a winner on the list.  I’m tempted to include Sunset Boulevard as a nominee, since it has its own land in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with the movie.  At first blush, Who Framed Roger Rabbit looks like most represented movie in the parks… until you reflect that Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated also.  And while Roger may have his own ride at Disneyland, Indy gets his own massive stunt amphitheater.

Best Actor

This category is loaded with actors who have appeared in prominent park attractions.  We’ve already touched on Robin Williams (Best Actor nod for Dead Poets’ Society), but what about the obligatory Great Movie Ride figures?  Seems like there’s a Best Actor in every scene.  James Cagney, followed by John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and Humphrey Bogart (who really was nominated for Casablanca).

Here’s a weird one:  Tom Hulce.  He was nominated for Amadeus, but is better known to park fans as the voice of Quasimodo, who had his own Hunchback stage show in the Backlot theater.  And can we really ignore Tom Hanks, nominated a bunch of times and a two-time winner?  He voices Woody from Toy Story, and that means that the animated version of himself is all over the place, especially in the major attraction Toy Story Mania.

Nominee Johnny Depp’s performance as Jack Sparrow was so iconic, they added him to the classic Magic Kingdom attraction Pirates of the Caribbean.  He appears in three separate scenes in the ride, which means he has one more Audio Animatronic figure than he has Oscar nominations.

But one man stands apart.  Jeremy Irons is not only an Oscar winner, but he has influenced no less than three attractions.  His voicing of Scar in the Lion King gave rise to songs and characters that appear in Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom (and the short-lived Lion King puppet show at the Magic Kingdom).  He played H.G. Wells in the Timekeeper Circle-Vision movie in Tomorrowland.  And he gave a memorable narration to Epcot’s Spaceship Earth.  He touched three separate parks, and ironically, none of them were the movie park.