Oscar noms in acting for vocal performance/non-traditional performance
The Academy should've created a new category for this film alone.
Robby Benson's vocal performance as The Beast in this was Oscar Worthy
Agreed that Robby's performance is a real standout. It's almost amazing if you've ever seen the clip of him trying out for Luke (!) in the Star Wars auditions that that is the same guy. '70s teen idol type. No sign of the thundering voice yet.
Best Actor 1992 was always going to go to Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, though.
Sometimes an actor's best performance isn't the one they actually get an Oscar for. Robin Williams was clearly put in the wrong category when it was clear he was Best Supporting Actor for Dead Poets Society (better than his performance in Good Will Hunting, though the fact that Robin managed to overcome Mork in the eyes of the Academy is a wonder in itself, because the Academy isn't often forgiving of a history of comedy and children's films) and lost to Daniel Day Lewis because he was wrongly placed in the Best Actor category. Wrong category has snubbed a number of great performances from awards they should have won.
But if there was ever a time to test out a Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor nomination for an animated film, Robin was probably the time to attempt that and have it actually stand a legitimate chance. Beauty and the Beast was already pushing the envelope just with its Best Picture nomination. Disney films are always in the Animated and Best Score categories. If the Aladdin production had included Robin as an honorary writer (Best Screenplay was rejected because of his nearly 16 hours of improv ad-libbing wasn't part of the actual screenplay), they might not have gotten rejected.
Maybe when they're 90, the likes of Harrison Ford (The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Blade Runner are iconic genre films that no matter how beloved would never get a serious nomination outside of technical awards--he had the misfortune of going up against William Hurt when it came to Witness) might get a Lifetime Achievement Award. Even Peter O'Toole never won an Oscar, despite his career being long in Oscar nominations. Harrison is an obvious Hollywood darling and frequent presenter, but his history in action-adventure fantasy films always killed his chances.
Granted, the In Memoriam segment makes awkward omissions every year. You wonder which dimwit overlooked those. Joan Rivers obviously got snubbed for political reasons, just as Maya Angelou was honored for political reasons despite having NOTHING to do with the film industry (meanwhile, if authors are going to be included, Tom Clancy was left out). Michael Gough (this one is unconscionable), Ann Rutherford, Larry Hagman, Andy Griffith, Phyllis Diller and Farrah Fawcett are just a few more names who got snubbed. It's also thought that for political reasons, Phillip Seymour Hoffman (despite being a drug overdose) was given status above legend Shirley Temple, which is an unbelievable snub in itself.
And looking back, there are so many years where Best Picture winners have been completely forgotten or don't hold up at all to the test of time. Some are actually awful films that are painful to watch now (Annie Hall and The Graduate really don't hold up well--plenty of people genuinely think Star Wars was more deserving than Annie Hall). A lot of the political choices end up aging horribly and went down like a lead balloon at the box office even at the time. There is a long list of snubbed films that stood the test of time as iconic classics and now just make the Academy look dumber than a box of rocks.
Comedies, sci-fi, fantasy, horror and animated films are routinely written off as beneath the Academy, however. And actors who started careers in such things often get repeated lifetime snubs unless they become a pet favorite of the intelligentsia. They pretty much only care about political messages, minority quotas and disability performances now. Occasionally, they throw a bone to the genres they snub, but not often. It's always the infamous technical awards given to the films the Academy deems beneath the dignity of acting or directorial awards, regardless of how quality those things really are.