You probably won’t see the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences getting into the catalog business anytime soon, given its recent experience with postal and parcel delivery.
First, on March 6, it was discovered that 4,000 – or 80% – of the Oscar ballots had not been received by the voters five days after they were brought to the post office. The academy had to reprint and remail all 4,000 forms. Two of the eight bags of missing ballots turned up on March 7; the U.S. Postal Service had erroneously marked them third class bulk mail rather than first class.
Then on March 10, a shipment of 55 Academy Award statuettes was reported missing from shipper Roadway Express’s loading dock in Southern California. Two Roadway employees were arrested a week later. The missing Oscars were discovered March 19 by a civilian rummaging though a supermarket dumpster in Los Angeles.
The 72nd Oscar ceremony finally went off without a hitch on March 26, but no doubt some of our industry suppliers are still reeling from embarrassment. Postal nondelivery, warehouse pilferage, loading-dock collusion – it sounds like a horror show to us. Make that an Academy Award-winning horror show.