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The Golden Toaster Awards are a fan-created, fan-operated annual awards show which was created by the posters on the official Scifi.com Battlestar Galactica messageboard, as well as other fansites.
Overview
Process
Over a period of several months leading up to the awards, nominations and categories were developed and put forward to the fan organizers of the event, who then issued an official award and nomination ballot on the messageboards. Voting then took place on a specially designed, official voting webpage.
Categories and nominations are made up entirely by the fans, and then agreed upon as an eligible category by consensus. For example, Season 1 had no "Best Battlestar" category because besides side references to other ships like Atlantia, Galactica was the one that was really showcased, so this would not really be a fair competition and thus was not made into a category. However, practically anything for which three or more eligible competitors can be found can be turned into a category, such as the "Best Usage of the Word "Frak" category. Different years might therefore have several new categories.
Presentation
Finally, the awards are "presented" in an "online awards show": in an official live Golden Toaster Awards message thread, several posters have been pre-selected as "presenters" for a certain category, and in the Awards message-thread they then introduce their assigned category. They introduce the category, give a short speech about it, and list the nominees (just like in any "live" awards show), and soon afterwards that person announces who won. Although it takes place on a messageboard, it occurs in real time, and the "show" lasts several hours. However, this event is not limited to only those fans who are presenting awards: anyone can post in the middle of the awards thread to chime in with their feelings, cheer on hopeful candidates, and opine.
Awards
First Golden Toaster Awards - Miniseries & Season One
The First Annual Golden Toaster Awards were held on October 14th, 2005. Considered a major event within the online fanbase, hundreds of ballots were cast. The first awards were held at GalacticaActual.com because the Scfi.com messageboards were being upgraded at the time to deal with hacker attacks, bandwidth and technical issues.
Carbon copies of the awards printed with the Golden Toaster Award art were mailed to the Battlestar Galactica production office, and they were handed out to all cast members at the season two wrap-party.
For the first awards, it was decided that Cylons who had distinct enough personalities should be considered separate characters, thus the Number Six who oversaw the Cylon experiment with Helo and got into a fight with Starbuck in "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II," Shelly Godfrey, and the copy that claimed to be a computer chip in Baltar's mind, were considered different characters and actually competed with each other. This convention was dropped after the first awards, because during the nominations process fans found it to be too confusing.
The first annual awards covered both the Miniseries and the 13 episode first season. All subsequent awards will cover one full 20-episode season (thus there are no awards for the first ten episodes of Season 2, then a separate set of awards for the final 10, but one comprehensive set of awards that includes all 20 episodes).
Second Golden Toaster Awards - Season Two
The Second Annual Golden Toaster Awards were held on June 30, 2006. Series creator Ron Moore and his wife Terry "Mrs.Ron" Moore were in attendance. Terry presented The Solium award, while Ron presented the Best Usage of the Word "Frak" and Best Episode awards. 890 votes were cast in the second GTA's, and affiliated sites stretched across the globe as German fansite www.Caprica-City.de joined in and contributed over 50 votes.
French Golden Toaster Awards
Overview
For the first time, the Golden Toaster Awards were adapted in another language, French. Since it was now in another country, the process had to be re-adapted. For instance, a special jury was created to deliberate on the nominations (between 4 to 6 per category). However, the voting is open to anyone, on a specially designed official voting webpage.
Categories also had to be renamed, like "The TOSser," renamed "La SOupe," and "Best Line" transformed into "Best Original Quote" (to fit with "Best French Quote"). But most of the original categories were retained, as well as some Anglophone categories such as "The Best Usage of the Word "Frak"" category.
The French Golden Toaster Awards are also held in an official live Golden Toaster Awards Ceremony message thread.
First French Golden Toaster Awards - Miniseries & Season One
The jury's deliberations on the nominations were held from September 15th to October 1st, 2006. There are 37 categories, each containing between 4 and 6 nominations. Nominations were announced during the month of November.
The official voting site was : www.fgta.fr It was opened during the night between December 23rd, 2006 and December 24th, 2006 and closed on February 10th, 2007.
The French Golden Toaster Awards ceremony was held on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 on the battlestar-galactica.fr board. It started with the Red Carpet at 6PM and was followed by the ceremony at 7:30PM (GMT+1).
External links
- SciFi.com post for the First Annual Golden Toaster Awards (the messageboard the first awards were on was destroyed, and the only record of them is the winners list. Barring another accident, the links to the second annual awards onwards will allow viewing of the entire message thread awards show, as if it was "taped").
- Hangar Deck 5's fullly recorded posting of the Second Annual Golden Toaster Awards
- The Official FGTA Voting Website
- The French Golden Toaster Awards threads on the battlestar-galactica.fr board