Ucla - Princess & The Frog And Prep & Landing Lead Annie Awards Nominations

Disney animators are back on top of the cartoon world after dominating nominations for the 37th annual Annie Awards.

The family film studio's The Princess & the Frog landed eight nods and upcoming festive TV special Prep & Landing claimed nine in the TV awards categories.

The Princess & the Frog will compete with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Secret of Kells and Up for the Annie Awards' top honour, Best Film, while The Simpsons will be the major competition for Prep & Landing in the Best Animated TV Production category.

The coveted Best Animated Television Production for Children prize will be fought for by Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, SpongeBob Squarepants, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, The Mighty B! and The Penguins of Madagascar.

Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox), Pete Docter (Up), Christopher Miller and Phil Lord (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs), Hayao Miyazaki (Ponyo) and Henry Selick (Coraline) will compete for the Best Director award. Anderson and writing partner Noah Baumbach are also favourites to land the writing award for Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Meanwhile, John Leguizamo (Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaur), Dawn French (Coraline), Hugh Laurie (Monsters Vs. Aliens), Jennifer Lewis and Jen Cody (both The Princess & the Frog) are the nominees for the Voice Acting in a Feature Production category.

The Annie Awards will be presented by the International Animated Film Society at Royce Hall at UCLA in Los Angeles in February (10).