Originally designed to celebrate lifetime or career contributions to animation, the award has been given to individual works since 1992.

The 48th and 49th Annie Awards ceremonies were held virtually on April 16, 2021, and March 12, 2022, respectively, due to the then ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The first ceremony was held at the banquet room of Sportsmen's Lodge in Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, Los Angeles, California.

[4][5] According to Foray, her husband Hobart Donavan suggested that the awards be called "Annie", because they are presented for excellence in animation.

ASIFA acknowledged this error over a week later, at which point all the votes were reportedly thrown out and the balloting system was reset.

[8] Even though ASIFA apologized to Hertzfeldt, they took no further action and carried on with the event, awarding the prize to the Pixar short, Your Friend the Rat.

ASIFA-Hollywood head Antran Manoogian also said that Annie voters would in the future have to be approved by a committee and non-professionals would now be ineligible to vote.

[9] That was not enough for Disney president Ed Catmull, who had called for an advisory committee of relevant executives representing each studio to recommend rule changes to the ASIFA board.