The Milky Way

The Milky Way is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres with the film The Captain Is a Lady in 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The short (produced and directed by Rudolf Ising and co-produced by Fred Quimby with the voice of Bernice Hansen as the kittens and their mother, and musical supervision by Scott Bradley) explores the adventures of the "three little kittens who lost their mittens", as they explore a dreamland where space is made up entirely of dairy products (for example, the Milky Way is made of milk and the Moon is made of green cheese). The short won the 1940 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, and was the first non-Disney film to do so. Other shorts nominated in 1940 included A Wild Hare by Warner Bros., introducing Bugs Bunny, and another MGM cartoon Puss Gets the Boot, with Jasper & Jinx, the prototype for Tom and Jerry. This makes 1940 the first time a Disney film wasn’t even nominated for the award. It was added as a bonus feature in the Marx Bros. DVD release of Go West (1940) and Warner Archive Blu-ray release of Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940).