Written by Jim Denison
The Academy Awards are presented each February. The winners each receive something called an "Oscar," though no one knows why. One possible answer is that early on, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences librarian said the statuette represented her Uncle Oscar.
An Oscar weighs 8.5 pounds and stands 13.5 inches tall. It depicts a knight holding a crusader's sword, standing on a reel of film. It takes twelve people twenty hours to make one of the 50 statuettes produced each year. The Oscars are then shipped in unmarked cardboard boxes for security reasons. Security isn't always effective, however--a few years ago they were stolen and found nine days later next to a dumpster.
