Lightning McQueen may have four Piston Cups under his belt, but it's looking increasingly improbable that Cars 2 will receive any honors this awards season beyond a handful of nominations.

The Annies may have been the best shot for Cars 2 to rack up some wins with its seven nominations, but it wasn't to be when the awards show took place Saturday night.

Pixar's short, La Luna was thought to have a significant shot at an Annie, but was beat out by Adam and Dog by Minkyu Lee. Unlike La Luna, however, Adam and Dog is not nominated for an Oscar.

One more interesting Annie Award twist: This is the first awards program this season that awarded Rango with Best Animated Feature where Tintin was also nominated.

The Annie Awards, one of the few major awards shows dedicated only to animation, will stream live on their website this Saturday night. The ceremony will stream from the UCLA Royce Hall at 7pm Pacific Time.

Last year, Pixar refused to participate in the Annies, calling for change in the leadership and voting procedures from the International Animated Film Society (though Toy Story 3 was still granted 3 nominations). Corruption was suspected, as DreamWorks affiliates are heavy supporters of the Annies. For two consecutive years, the DreamWorks nominee took home 10 awards, while the Pixar film took home none, but the Pixar film always went on to win Best Animated Picture at the Oscars. There have since been significant changes to Annie award voting procedures and the president was replaced. Pixar ended its boycott and is again officially participating in the awards.

This year, Pixar films are nominated for a total of 8 awards.

ShortsHD has teamed up with Magnolia Pictures to release La Luna in public theaters, along with all of the other Oscar nominated shorts.

Starting February 10th, the short films will be screened to the public in over 200 theaters nation-wide. There will be 3 separate shows, one for each category: Animation, Live Action and Documentary.

The press release also makes mention of an iTunes release of the films set for February 21st. Pixar typically doesn't release its shorts on iTunes until the Blu-ray release of whichever feature film it's attached to. In fact, neither Hawaiian Vacation nor Small Fry, which debuted with Cars 2 and The Muppets, respectively, have been released on iTunes to this point. So there is still some uncertainty around an iTunes release for La Luna on the 21st.

ShortsHD's ad for the screenings seems to have a bit of a familiar flavor . . .

UPDATE: Both Hawaiian Vacation and Small Fry are now available to download on iTunes.