Animated Movie Scores

Animated movies are everywhere – they seem to open every weekend.  Thanks to the classic Disney movies, the music is often just as well known as the films themselves.  The best part is most people don’t know the composers of those films (George Bruns, Oliver Wallace etc).  Since the Disney “renaissance” starting with The Little Mermaid in 1989, songs and composers have been extremely important to the films.  Big name composers have been working on animated films since then. 
 
Looking at the all time box office US domestic grosses, animated movies show up numerous times.  As of June 2011, these films are in the top 100:
5. Shrek 2
9. Toy Story 3
18. Finding Nemo
22. The Lion King
23. Shrek the Third
40. Up
50. Shrek
52. The Incredibles
58. Monsters, Inc.
59. Despicable Me
64. Toy Story 2
65. Cars
70.  Shrek Forever After

To see who worked on animated films, I’ve made some handy graphs for the main studios working now.  We have Disney (1989-), Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky.  I didn't include Studio Ghibli because it wouldn't be an interesting graph.  (Joe Hisaishi composed them all).  So here are the fancy graphs:

Animated movie scores have been nominated for Academy Awards a ton (especially during the Musical/Drama split in the 90's).  Winners include:
Pinocchio, Dumbo, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Up.

Of course Best Original Song winners have come from animated movies.  They include: Pinocchio, Song of the South, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Prince of Egypt, Tarzan, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story 3.