 | |
| Formerly | Videocraft International (1960–1968, officially 1960–1974) Rankin/Bass Productions (1968–1983) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Film |
| Predecessor | Arthur Rankin Jr. Associates |
| Founded | September 14, 1960; 64 years ago (1960-09-14) |
| Founders | Arthur Rankin Jr. Jules Bass |
| Defunct | 1987; 38 years ago (1987) (Studio) December 2001; 23 years ago (2001-12) (Partnership) |
| Fate | Folded intoLorimar-Telepictures (Studio) Dissolved (Partnership) |
| Successors | Library: Universal Studios (throughDreamWorks Animation viaClassic Media) (pre-September 1974) Warner Bros. Discovery (throughTelepictures) (post-September 1974) |
| Headquarters | , U.S./United States |
| Products | Television specials Television series Feature films |
| Parent | Tomorrow Entertainment (1971–1974) Telepictures (1983–1987) Lorimar-Telepictures (1987–1989) Warner Bros. Entertainment (1989-2001) |
Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known asVideocraft International, Ltd. andRankin/Bass Productions, Inc.) was an Americanproduction company located inNew York City. It was known for its seasonal television specials, usually done instop motion animation. Rankin/Bass's stop-motion productions are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called Animagic.
Nearly all of the studio's animation wasoutsourced to Japanese animation companies such asToei Animation, MOM Production,Mushi Productions andTopcraft.[1][2] Rankin/Bass was one of the first western studios to outsource their low-budget animated television and film productions to animation studios in foreign countries; the others that already practicedanimation outsourcing includeTotal Television andKing Features Syndicate TV in New York City; andHanna-Barbera andJay Ward Productions in Los Angeles, California.
The company was founded in New York City byArthur Rankin Jr. andJules Bass on September 14, 1960, asVideocraft International, Ltd. The majority of Rankin/Bass' work, including all of their "Animagic" stop-motion productions (which they were well known for), were created in Tokyo, Japan. Throughout the 1960s, the Animagic productions were headed by Japanese stop-motion animatorTadahito Mochinaga at his studio, MOM Production. He was credited for his supervision as "Tad Mochinaga".
Rankin/Bass' traditional animation output was done by several animation studios such asToei Animation,Eiken (formerly known as TCJ),Dentsu,Mushi Production, and especiallyTopcraft, which was formed on February 1, 1972, by Toei animator Toru Hara (who was credited as an animation supervisor in some of Rankin/Bass' specials). While several of Topcraft's staff, including Hara and industry legends such asHayao Miyazaki, would go on to formStudio Ghibli in the wake of Topcraft's closure, others formed another studio:Pacific Animation Corporation, which continued working on Rankin/Bass' titles until it was bought by Disney in 1988.
In addition to the "name" talent that provided the narration for the specials, Rankin/Bass had its own company of voice actors. For the studio's early work, this group was based inToronto, Ontario where recording was supervised by veteranCBC announcerBernard Cowan. The Canadian group included actors such asPaul Soles,Larry D. Mann,Billie Mae Richards andCarl Banas.
Maury Laws served as musical director for almost all of the animated films and television programs.Romeo Muller was another consistent contributor, serving as screenwriter for many of Rankin/Bass' best-known productions includingRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964),The Little Drummer Boy (1968), andFrosty the Snowman (1969).
One of Videocraft's first projects was an independently produced television series in 1960,The New Adventures of Pinocchio, based on the Italian authorCarlo Collodi's 1883 novelThe Adventures of Pinocchio and featuring "Animagic", astop motion animation process using figurines or puppets (a process already pioneered byGeorge Pal's "Puppetoons" andArt Clokey'sGumby andDavey and Goliath), managed by Mochinaga and his MOM Production staffers for Videocraft withDentsu. This was followed by another independently produced series in 1961,Tales of the Wizard of Oz, Videocraft's adaptation of the 1900 novelThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz byL. Frank Baum, as well as their first production to use traditional cel animation. Unlike many of Rankin/Bass' works,Tales of the Wizard of Oz was animated by Crawley Films inOttawa, headed byF. R. Crawley.
One of the mainstays of the business was holiday-themed animated specials for airing on American television. In 1964, the company produced a special forNBC and sponsorGeneral Electric, later owner of NBC. It was a stop motion animated adaptation ofRobert L. May's 1939 story "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the 1949 song it inspired, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", written by May's brother-in-law,Johnny Marks. Almost two decades earlier, in 1948, it had been made into a cartoon byMax Fleischer, brother and former partner ofDave Fleischer, as a traditional cel animated short for the Jam Handy Film Company.
With the American actorBurl Ives in the role of Sam the snowman, the narrator, Canadian actressBillie Mae Richards as the voice of the main title character, Rudolph, and an original orchestral score composed by Marks himself,Rudolph became one of the most popular, and longest-running Christmas specials in television history: it remained withNBC until around 1972 when it moved toCBS. In 2019, for its 55th anniversary, the special was also aired onFreeform as part of its "25 Days of Christmas" programming block, although it continued to air onCBS under a separate license with Universal, but in 2024, it came back toNBC for its 60th anniversary.[3]
The special contained seven original songs. In 1965, a new song was filmed in "Animagic" to replace "We're a Couple of Misfits", titled "Fame and Fortune".
The success ofRudolph led to numerous other Christmas specials. The first wasThe Cricket on the Hearth in 1967, with two live-action announcements byDanny Thomas, continuity and character designs by Don Duga andPaul Coker, and animation by Jiro Yanase'sTCJ, followed by the 1968Thanksgiving specialThe Mouse on the Mayflower, told byTennessee Ernie Ford and animated byKenzo Masaoka, Sanae Yamamoto, and Yasuji Murata'sToei Animation. Paul Coker Jr. would go on to design characters and production for more than 40 Rankin-Bass specials and episodes.
Many of their other specials, likeRudolph, were based on popular Christmas songs. In 1968, the British-American actressGreer Garson provided dramatic narration forThe Little Drummer Boy, based onthe traditional song and set during the birth of the babyJesus Christ, and starring thePuerto Rican actorJosé Ferrer as the voice of Ben Haramed. During that year, Videocraft International, Ltd. (whose logo dominated the Rankin/Bass logo in the closing credit sequences) changed its name to Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc., and adopted a new logo, retaining a Videocraft byline in their closing credits until 1971 when Tomorrow Entertainment, a unit of theGeneral Electric Company, acquired the production company. The "Animagic" process forThe Little Drummer Boy took place at MOM Production, which was renamed Video Tokyo Production after Tadahito Mochinaga left Japan for his return trip to China following the completion of the animation forMad Monster Party?, thus ending his collaboration with Rankin/Bass. Takeo Nakamura, the director ofSanrio's 1979 stop motion featureNutcracker Fantasy,[4][5] was among the "Animagic" team, but he was never credited as a supervisor.
The following year, in 1969,Jimmy Durante sang and told the story ofFrosty the Snowman, withJackie Vernon voicing Frosty.[6] It was based onSteve Nelson andJack Rollins' 1950 songof the same name, and also introducedBilly De Wolfe as the voice of Professor Hinkle, a greedy magician who tries to steal away the magic hat that brought Frosty to life to become a billionaire.Mushi Production, an animation studio founded in 1961 and formerly led by the manga artistOsamu Tezuka (creator ofAstro Boy,Kimba the White Lion andAmbassador Magma), handled the animation for the special with supervision by Yusaku "Steve" Nakagawa, a layout artist and character designer fromHanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California.
The year 1970 brought another Christmas special,Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.[7] Rankin/Bass enlistedFred Astaire as narrator S.D. (Special Delivery) Kluger, a mailman answering children's questions aboutSanta Claus and telling hisorigin story. The story involved young Kris Kringle, voiced byMickey Rooney, and the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger, voiced byPaul Frees. Kringle later marries the town's schoolteacher, Miss Jessica, voiced byRobie Lester. Kizo Nagashima, the associate director of Rankin/Bass' previous productions, was credited as a production supervisor.
In 1971, Rankin/Bass produced their first Easter television special,Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with the voices ofDanny Kaye as the narrator Seymour S. Sassafrass,Vincent Price as the evil rabbit January Q. Irontail, andCasey Kasem from Hanna-Barbera'sScooby-Doo franchise as the title character Peter Cottontail. It was not based uponthe title song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, but on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich titledThe Easter Bunny That Overslept. This was the second and final "Animagic" production to be supervised by Kizo Nagashima. Steve Nakagawa was also involved in this special as a continuity designer. In 1977, Fred Astaire returned as S. D. Kluger inThe Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, telling the tale of theEaster Bunny's origins. From there, Rankin/Bass used Masaki Iizuka as an associate producer, and Akikazu Kono as an "Animagic" supervisor. Back in 1973, Iizuka was the production assistant ofMarco—a live-action musical film based on the biography of Italian merchant, explorer, and writerMarco Polo, filmed atToho Company in Tokyo and on location throughout East Asia, and featuring Kono's "Animagic" sequence of the Tree People. Previously, he was met by Rankin during the animation production of the Halloween television specialMad, Mad, Mad Monsters at Mushi Production in 1972, and became an integral part of Rankin/Bass for many years.
In 1974, Rankin/Bass Productions was relaunched once again as an independent production company and produced another Christmas special for television,The Year Without a Santa Claus, featuringShirley Booth, voicing narrator Mrs. Claus; Mickey Rooney, returning as the voice of Santa Claus; and supporting charactersSnow Miser (voiced byDick Shawn) andHeat Miser (voiced byGeorge S. Irving). It was the first Rankin/Bass "Animagic" production on which Akikazu Kono and puppet maker Ichiro Komuro share in the production supervision. It wasremade as a poorly receivedlive-action/special effects TV movie shown onNBC in 2006 starringDelta Burke andJohn Goodman as Mrs. Claus and Santa.[8]
Throughout the 1970s, Rankin/Bass, with Video Tokyo and the former Toei Animation employee Toru Hara'sTopcraft, continued to produce animated sequels to its classic specials, including the teaming of Rudolph and Frosty in 1979'sRudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, with the voice ofEthel Merman as Lilly Loraine, theringmistress of a seasidecircus, and Rooney again returning as Santa. The special features cameos by characters from several other Rankin/Bass holiday specials, including Big Ben the Clockwork Whale fromRudolph's Shiny New Year andJack Frost fromFrosty's Winter Wonderland. Later that year, Jack appeared in his own special,Jack Frost. Narrated byBuddy Hackett, it tells the story of the winter sprite's love for a mortal woman menaced by the evilCossack king, Kubla Kraus (Paul Frees, in addition to Kubla, voiced Jack Frost's overlord, Father Winter). In this special, Jack's voice was performed byRobert Morse, who previously voiced Stuffy in 1976'sThe First Easter Rabbit (loosely based on Margery Williams'The Velveteen Rabbit), and youngEbenezer Scrooge in 1978'sThe Stingiest Man in Town (based on Charles Dickens'A Christmas Carol).
Among Rankin/Bass' original specials was 1975'sThe First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, featuring the voice ofAngela Lansbury (who also starred in the 1982 adaptation ofThe Last Unicorn) as the narrating and singing nun, Sister Theresa, andIrving Berlin's Christmas classic "White Christmas".
Their final stop-motion style Christmas story wasThe Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, taken from the L. Frank Baum storyof the same name and released in 1985. In this story, the Great Ak (voiced byAlfred Drake) summons a council of the Immortals to bestow upon a dying Claus (voiced byEarl Hammond, withJ.D. Roth voicing the young Claus) the Mantle of Immortality. To make his case, the Great Ak tells Claus's life story, from his discovery as a foundling in the magical forest and his raising by Immortals, through his education by the Great Ak in the harsh realities of the human world, and his acceptance of his destiny to struggle to bring joy to children.[9] This special has recently been released as part ofWarner Bros. Home Entertainment'sWarner Archive Collection, on a double-feature disc that also containsNestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey which is often paired withThe First Christmas on holiday broadcasts.
Many of these specials are still shown seasonally on American television, and some have been released on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
Throughout the 1960s, Videocraft produced otherstop motion andtraditional animation specials and films, some of which were non-holiday stories. 1965 saw the production of Rankin/Bass' first theatrical film,Willy McBean and His Magic Machine, another joint venture between Videocraft and Dentsu. 1966 broughtThe Daydreamer, the first of three films to be produced in association with executive producerJoseph E. Levine'sEmbassy Pictures in Los Angeles, California, and the film adaptation of the stories and characters by the Danish authorHans Christian Andersen, which combines live-action, special effects and "Animagic"; andThe Ballad of Smokey the Bear, the story of the famous forest fire-fighting bear seen in numerous public service announcements, narrated byJames Cagney.[10]
The theatrical feature filmMad Monster Party? saw theatrical release in the spring of 1967, featuring one of the last performances by the British actorBoris Karloff. The film features affectionate send-ups of classic movie monsters and their locales, adding "Beatle"-wigged skeletons as a send-up of the era's pop bands, and a writing staff borrowed fromMad magazine, including the cartoonistJack Davis, who designed the characters of this film. It is also the last "Animagic" project that Tadahito Mochinaga supervised.
In 1972 and 1973, Rankin/Bass produced four animated TV movies forThe ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series:Mad Mad Mad Monsters (with the animation by Mushi),Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid,The Red Baron, andThat Girl in Wonderland (all featuring the animation by Topcraft).
In 1977, Rankin/Bass produced an animated version ofJ. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Hobbit. It was followed in 1980 by an animated version ofThe Return of the King (the animation rights to the first two volumes were held bySaul Zaentz, producer ofRalph Bakshi's animated adaptationThe Lord of the Rings). Other books adapted includeThe Last Unicorn byPeter S. Beagle, a rare theatrical release that was co-produced withITC Entertainment in London, England,Peter Dickinson'sThe Flight of Dragons andKenneth Grahame'sThe Wind in the Willows which was animated by the second overseas animation unit of Hanna-Barbera, James Wang's Cuckoo's Nest Studios (nowWang Film Productions) in Taipei, Taiwan.
In addition to their prime time specials, Rankin/Bass produced several regular television shows in traditional animation, includingThe King Kong Show (1966),The Smokey Bear Show (1969), animated byToei Animation,The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show (1970), animated byMushi Production,The Tomfoolery Show (1970) animated by Halas and Batchelor Animation, Ltd.,The Jackson 5ive in 1971 (the latter co-produced withMotown Productions), andKid Power andThe Osmonds in 1972. The most successful of these wasTed Wolf'sThunderCats in 1985, an action-adventure series based on his related line of toys. It was followed by two similar TV shows about humanoid animals,SilverHawks in 1986, andTigerSharks, as part of the seriesThe Comic Strip in 1987. Each of those four series was mainly animated by former Topcraft employees' Pacific Animation Corporation, with production management by Masaki Iizuka, just before the studio was bought byDisney and renamedWalt Disney Animation Japan in 1988. Neither one enjoyed the same commercial success asThunderCats did, however.
Rankin/Bass also attempted live-action productions, such as 1967'sKing Kong Escapes, a co-production withToho; 1976'sThe Last Dinosaur; 1978'sThe Bermuda Depths; 1980'sThe Ivory Ape (all co-produced withTsuburaya Productions, the creators of theUltra Series); and 1983'sThe Sins of Dorian Gray. With the exception ofKing Kong Escapes, all were made-for-television films.
The studio closed in 1987 as a result of TV show failures likeThe Comic Strip, and its partnership was officially dissolved in 2001 after the production of the studio's last Christmas specialSanta, Baby!.
Arthur Rankin Jr. would split his time between New York City, where the company still had its offices, and his home inBermuda. Rankin died atHarrington Sound, Bermuda on January 30, 2014, at the age of 89.[11] Bass became a vegetarian; a decade later, he wroteHerb, the Vegetarian Dragon,[12] the first children's book character developed specifically to explore moral issues related to vegetarianism. The original story and a follow-up cookbook became bestsellers for independent publishing houseBarefoot Books. Bass died on October 25, 2022, at the age of 87.[13]
In 1999, Rankin/Bass joined forces with James G. Robinson'sMorgan Creek Productions andNest Family Entertainment (creators ofThe Swan Princess franchise) for the first and onlyanimated adaptation ofRodgers and Hammerstein's musicalThe King and I, based on a treatment by Rankin. Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures with itsWarner Bros. Family Entertainment division, the film flopped at the American box office.Stephen Hunter, among several American film critics, criticized the film's depictions of "offensive ethnic stereotyping."[14]
In 2001,Fox aired the first new original Christmas special to be produced by both Rankin and Bass in 16 years,Santa, Baby!, which like most of their production company's other specials was based on apopular, similarly-titled Christmas song.Santa, Baby! stood out from its predecessors due to its use of African-American characters and voice performers, such asPatti LaBelle (the narrator),Eartha Kitt,Gregory Hines,Vanessa L. Williams andTom Joyner.[15] Although Pacific Animation Corporation was responsible for the overseas animation production of the special with the background art provided by Atelier BWCA and the See Throu Studio, some of the animation services were done at Steven Hahn'sHanho Heung-Up in Seoul, South Korea.Santa, Baby! turned out to be the final Rankin/Bass-produced special; the Rankin/Bass partnership was officially dissolved shortly after, with most of its remaining assets acquired byWarner Bros. Entertainment.
Currently, Rankin/Bass' pre-September 1974 library (including works from Videocraft International) is owned byUniversal Pictures, which acquiredDreamWorks Animation'sDreamWorks Classics portfolio, whileWarner Bros. Discovery owns the rights to the post-September 1974 library. Universal also retained the rights toKing Kong Escapes and also currently holds the rights toWilly McBean and his Magic Machine, again, via DreamWorks Classics.StudioCanal holds the rights to the films from Rankin/Bass that Embassy Pictures distributed, with U.S. distribution rights split betweenRialto Pictures andLionsgate (excludingThe Daydreamer, the U.S. distribution rights to which are with Scorpion Releasing) whileITV Studios currently holds the rights toThe Last Unicorn, with select distribution rights currently licensed toShout! Studios. The rights to the 1999 animated film adaptation ofThe King and I are currently held byMorgan Creek Entertainment, with distribution handled byRevolution Studios.
For over 20 years, most of Rankin/Bass' films were shown onFamily Channel, Fox Family, ABC Family, and Freeform, during the25 Days of Christmas seasonal period. Starting in 2018, the post-September 1974 specials moved toAMC, and aired during theBest Christmas Ever seasonal period, with Freeform retaining the pre-September 1974 specials' cable rights. The originalRudolph andFrosty specials currently air onNBC, the sister company of the pre-September 1974 specials' owner, DreamWorks Classics, withSanta airing onABC.
The specials of Rankin/Bass have been parodied by the likes of TV series fromSaturday Night Live[16] toSouth Park,[17] while non-holiday works likeThe Last Unicorn maintained acult following.[18][19] The look and style of the Christmas specials heavily influences more modern holiday classics such asElf (2003).[20]
Beginning in 2013, and for several years thereafter, the animation studioShadowMachine was hired by theSoCalHonda Dealers group (via Secret Weapon Marketing) to create stop-motion animated commercials in the style of Rankin/Bass's Christmas specials.[21][22]
RiffTrax, consisted of formerMystery Science Theater 3000 alumniKevin Murphy,Bill Corbett andMichael J. Nelson, spoofedNestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey on December 17, 2006 (this time with just Nelson himself riffing).[23][24]
In 2022, an agreement betweenWarner Bros. andNBCUniversal (which co-own Studio Distribution Services, LLC) was made to releaseThe Complete Rankin-Bass Christmas Collection as a nine-disc DVD box set with a 24-page booklet and special features. (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is the publisher of record for the set.) The box set features eighteen specials, comprising every stand-alone, Rankin-Bass produced Christmas special aside fromSanta, Baby![25] A Blu-ray version of the set was released in 2023.
| Title | Release date |
|---|---|
| Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer | 1964–1979 |
| The Little Drummer Boy | 1968–1976 |
| Frosty the Snowman | 1969–1979 |
| Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town | 1970–1979 |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
