8th Annual UltimateDisney/DVDizzy Forum Awards - CEREMONY

[SpringHeelJack]

And SpringHeelJack, that is one lovely MS Paint portait.

Thanks! I mean, I guess your hand-drawn acknowledgement shows some sort of artistic talent also, but it's hardly the equal to a two-minute paint portrait, amirite guys?

[Sotiris]

Big thanks to everyone who voted for me!

Congratulations to all the other winners! Well deserved!

[Dr Frankenollie]

-

[Sotiris]

@UmbrellaFish: I loved your speech! It was very funny!

[SpringHeelJack]

And welcome back for the evening, internet nerds! Tonight we'll be dishing out awards to the freshest and fresher meat in our midst, then some special awards to make all who win them feel even better about themselves, then the plum acknowledgement of the show, this memento of momentousness, the Golden Mickey for Member of the Year! Let's kick off the night with the recognition of this year's New Member!

As much as we value the members we have had for some time, we also acknowledge the contribution of the new people who have joined our board this year. As we all know, whenever an existing member posts so often that they essentially become a predictable parody of their former selves, a new member is born. And we have had several new members this year, in fact, no less than five (I have not done the math)! Let's now see what new members we have honored this year with a nomination, then see which is the member who best exemplifies the word "new."

New Member

Christopher_TCUIH
Disney Geek
Dr. Frankenollie
Horned_King
Monorail91

AND THE GOLDEN MICKEY GOES TO...

























<center>Christopher_TCUIH


Christopher_TCUIH still has that fabled "new member" smell.</center>

Way to be fresh, Christopher_TCUIH!

[Sotiris]

Congratulations!

[SpringHeelJack]

Following our natural order of progression, we honor our Super Sophomore, someone who's not quite a New Member but too much of a tot to be considered for our Jolly Junior or Sans Pareil Senior awards, which only exist in my head anyway (and yes, I did win both, thanks for asking). We can still remember when these nominees joined, but we tend to overlook them sometimes, because the new members are so cute, and look at the way they dump spaghetti on their heads and fingerpaint! Anyhow, let's give those metaphorical red-headed stepchildren some recognition, shall we then?

Super Sophomore

DisneyDude2010
Heartless
Jay
jpanimation
Kraken Guard
Linden
Scarred4Life

AND THE GOLDEN MICKEY GOES TO...

























<center>jpanimation


jpanimation resents the implication of inferiority to the New Member nominees, so the Super Sophomore trophy will be filled with Skittles to compensate.</center>

Way to keep your youthful good looks, jpanimation!

[Goliath]

Wow, I won an award?!

And it's an honor to be tied with enigmawing.

Thanks to those who voted for me.

And of course: congratulations to enigmawing, Sotiris, Christopher and jpanimation!

@ enigma: COOL drawing! Awesome!

[Christopher_TCUIH]

Whoa I won?

Well in that case... I'd like to thank my mom for having me, my cat for just being, my brother for being my only sibling, my second grade teacher Ms. Chu who always believed I'd win a forum award, and oh! of course, all of you (;

This forum rocks and it's my first!

Thank you all and congratulations to all of the nominees and winners! :3

[SpringHeelJack]

And now, time for one of the patented surprise awards! Yes, this award will come as a total shock to all of you unless you were here last year or read last year's, in which case it was pretty obvious this was coming...

<center>The Jiminy Cricket Spirit Award</center>

To give you some background information, I'm including Albert's speech introducing this award from last year:

As of this ceremony, we have over 6800 registered forum members, 6854 to be exact. It's not possible to determine how many are regular readers, how many stop by once in awhile, and how many have simply forgotten they have an account. But among those 6854 members, we have a small amount who are forum regulars in both reading and in posting. And unfortunately, as fun and exciting as the UltimateDisney.com/DVDizzy.com Forum Awards are, very few get to be nominated, and even fewer win.

As first-time host, I want to bring notice to a special UD forum member who has been around for years, who has offered their opinion on various Disney and non-Disney topics, shared what DVDs or Blu-Rays they bought, is an active player in Polls & Games, and helped in nominating and voting for the Forum Awards. They hardly have anything mean to say, and often have posts that are positive and contribute to the topic at hand. However, like most of the regulars, this poster was not recognized in any categories for the Forum Awards, something that I consider a real shame.

As such, I'm introducing the Jiminy Cricket Spirit Award. Why Jiminy Cricket? Because like the helpful cricket, we may overlook these members or take them for granted. And like Jiminy, they offer words that we may not often listen to or quote, but we still have heard/read what they've said. These members are part of the heart and soul of the forums, and while they're not as politically charged as Goliath or as self-proclaimingly awesome as Super Aurora or as outspoken and passionate as (insert anyone), they are still a part of this community.

So I must say, this is the time when I feel sort of weird doing the awards show. Like, really, I've been here for a shorter time period than many others here. Some of you people have met physically at various points, and I don't think I've ever met anyone here in person. Some of you are involved in other related activities outside of the boards, and the most I do is talk to some of you on IM or facebook. Needless to say, I've probably spent more time thinking about this award than any of the other ones. I've tried my best to make sure that the winners (yes, plural this year) best exemplify the qualities put forth by Albert, people whom we all know and remember but maybe don't get as much recognition as they ought to.

So, it is with great excitement and a little bit of nervousness that I announce to you the second and third winners ever of The Jiminy Cricket Spirit Award...




















































<center>
disneyboy20022


singerguy04


The The Jiminy Cricket Spirit Award is actually made of chocolate, so please, disneyboy20022 and singerguy04, don't leave these things in your cars.
</center>

Congratulations, disneyboy20022 and singerguy04, and again a special thanks to enigmawing for designing the award and Escapay for tweaking it around.

We've got three more awards to announce tonight, ladies and gents, so stick around!

[SpringHeelJack]

Now for the third to last award, this year's special award, Moderator of the Year! After opening up to suggestions, I decided to throw this one out here as a way to acknowledge the hard-working and often unsung men and women monitoring our boards, keeping discussions in checks, and preventing attacks from dark wizards. Or maybe not the last one, I'm actually a little vague on how much power you guys have. Anyhow, we gather here to pay tribute to our moderators, ironically by forcing them all to compete against each other for our love.

So, I would have liked to have made a special trophy for this, but then I remembered how awful I was at any sort of graphic design software, and while I could probably modify the Golden Mickey to carry an "M" or something, every time I tried to it just looked dumb. So, um, please accept this award that was slightly tinted to appear platinum-coated. In a couple years or so we'll probably upgrade to diamond, which will not be all it's cracked up to be, and then... well, we'll see where we go from there. Moving on, the redundantly-named Platinum Golden Mickey for Moderator of the Year goes to...









































































<center>CJ


Though I usually associate people with their avatars, in my head CJ resembles Allison Janney's character from "The West Wing." I can think of no greater compliment.</center>

Congratulations, CJ, and a special round of thanks and acknowledgement to all the Ultimate Disney / DVDizzy mods!

[SpringHeelJack]

And now, the penultimate award...

<center>UltimateDisney.com/DVDizzy.com Legacy Award: Outstanding Long-Term Contribution & Dedication to UltimateDisney.com</center>

Again, let's welcome Escapay to remind us all precisely what we're doing here:

The history of the Legacy Award actually begins at the very first UltimateDisney Forum Awards. The very first Special Award was given to Luke and named the Special Honor: Exemplary Dedication To UltimateDisney.com By A Board Member. Since then, the idea of awarding notable members for their continued contribution to the site and forums remained. The next year, a special award entitled Most Missed Member was given semi-posthumously to Jack, one of the forum's original members whose sudden absence (and subsequent explanation) was a surprise for the forum. In 2007, Disneykid and CJ received special awards during the ceremony. Disneykid received Outstanding Long-Term Contribution & Dedication to UltimateDisney.com while CJ was the recipient of Maintenance of the Happy Birthday Thread & Exemplary Forum Moderation. The accolades didn't stop there, and the following year, the awards celebrated disneyboy20022 with a special award for Recognition of Outstanding UD Community Membership Despite Many Medical Concerns at a Young Age.

Last year, we looked back on those awards, and retroactively assigned them to a new category: The Legacy Awards. The Legacy Awards will celebrate notable members of the website and forum community who have displayed a continued excellence in posting, forum activity, website activity, etc. not just in the past year, but in the entire existence of UltimateDisney.com and DVDizzy.com. This is not meant to supercede or replace the "Member of the Year" Award, but act as a companion, a "Lifetime Achievement" within the forum and site's history.

So again, I find myself in the weird place of thinking who the heck am to decide this, while knowing that there's many many people here who deserve acknowledgement, more than will actually get it in this ceremony. I wanted to acknowledge people who have been here for several years, but who are also more-or-less consistent in the time they spend here, which is often a taller order than it sounds.

So again after a lot of thought and some discussion with others outside of the boards, I've decided upon four names, which seemed like a nice even number. I didn't want to do more than five out of respect for the past ceremony, and three? Get serious. So, I'd like to welcome these four members to the stage at this time to accept their UltimateDisney.com/DVDizzy.com Legacy Award:










































<center>

Disney's Divinity


Escapay


Flanger-Hanger


PatrickvD
</center>

Congratulations to all the Legacy Award winners! We'll be back later tonight with the final award, the exciting Member of the Year!

[Sotiris]

Congratulations to all the winners so far!

On Sotiris's suggestion, I decided to throw this one out here as a way to acknowledge the hard-working and often unsung men and women monitoring our boards.

As much I would love to take credit for this, it wasn't actually me who suggested this category. I suggested the categories "Most Passionate/Devoted Disney Fan" and "Super Senior Award (members who registered before 2009)" but not this one!

[SpringHeelJack]

Congratulations to all the winners so far!

On Sotiris's suggestion, I decided to throw this one out here as a way to acknowledge the hard-working and often unsung men and women monitoring our boards.

As much I would love to take credit for this, it wasn't actually me who suggested this category. I suggested the categories "Most Passionate/Devoted Disney Fan" and "Super Senior Award (members who registered before 2009)" but not this one!

WHAAAAAAAA?!?!?!

Oops. My bad. Clearly, next year we will heed "Super Senior," which I was kicking around a lot, in fact. And my earlier jest "Jolly Junior" will probably find a place, albeit with a less dumb name.

[SpringHeelJack]

Well, it's getting late in the evening here on the Eastern Seaboard, and I'd rather not keep everyone up all night, so I suppose it's about time for the moment you've all been waiting for...



<center>Member of the Year</center>



Before I announce this one, I'd just like to say thanks to all of you for not heckling me off the stage. Hopefully I didn't ruin the event too badly, typos and Black Friday work schedules be damned. I'd also like to say that it really was quite an honor to take the reins from Escapay. I guess in some ways, it's like I've won the biggest award of all (not, but really, please vote for me more next year, okay?)!

I will say that it's also an honor to be included as a nominee with these five other people. I find myself in excellent, classy company, and it's quite a compliment to be included. Alas, alas, when the evening is over and the cheap champagne has all been polished off by you thieving sponges, there is only one who will known as the winner. Probably enigmawing. I haven't actually tallied the votes for this one yet, because I like not knowing this one and keeping the suspense going, so I'm going to sort that out now while I announce the nominees for the 8th Annual UltimateDisney/DVDizzy Forum Awards Member of the Year!

Member of the Year

CJ
Disneyboy20022
Enigmawing
Goliath
Super Aurora
SpringHeelJack

AND THE GOLDEN MICKEY GOES TO...









































































































<center>

It's a tie!

enigmawing


SpringHeelJack


SpringHeelJack would have felt like a total putz announcing his own name, so he's very glad indeed that enigmawing tied him for votes. Yes, he would much rather share the honor than be that guy.</center>

Team hug, enigmawing!

Thank you all for coming, and be sure to stay for the after-party! Super Aurora has graciously agreed to foot the bill. After that, see you all next year, if I feel like it!

...now where are those damned foot fish?

[tsom]

Congrats to all the winners and nominees.

[UmbrellaFish]

Great ceremony!

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees! Well deserved!

[Dr Frankenollie]

-

[dvdjunkie]

A very big 'Pat on the Back' to SpringHeel Jack' for his devotion to these awards. It takes a lot of time and effort, and a whole lot of cooperation for members to get this awards presented.

I personally want to thank SpringHeel Jack for not taking six to ten weeks to present these awards. That was the one sticking point for me in the past, that these were drawn out over weeks and weeks.

Kudos to all the winners, and let's hope that this experience will bring back these awards next year with the same host!!!!

[Elladorine]

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners! :pink::pink: It's been a bumpy road for many of us at UD this year and I'm just thankful the site has lived on to have these kinds of celebrations.

I so did not expect this last award, and it's awesome to share it with a member I've respected and admired for ages. I'm not sure I deserve any of this, but I'm sending out a special thanks to SpringHeelJack for taking the time to host the awards on such a busy schedule and for being my apparent partner in crime.



High-five for the Golden Mickey! Those special category awards were fun to make and even more fun to see being handed out, so if you guys ever need new little trophies for future ceremonies just let me know.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who thought to nominate and vote for me in any of these categories (you sure know how to make a girl feel special!), and to thank Goliath for being my other partner in crime.

Thanks again to all for everything, and hope to see you around the same time next near for more rounds of celebrations!

* * *

P.S. SpringHeelJack, I have a special gift just for you. Click here.