Christmas Two Step is a 1975 live-action/animated Canadian television special co-produced by Nelvana Limited, and broadcast on the CBC. A follow-up to the studio's earlier Small Star Cinema series, it tells the story of a girl who wants to be a lead dancer at a Christmas pageant. The production of the special brought in a handful of animators into the Nelvana crew.
Nelvana Limited is a Canadian animation studio and entertainment production company owned by Corus Entertainment since 2000. Founded in July 1971 by Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert, and Clive A. Smith, it was named after Nelvana of the Northern Lights, the first Canadian national superhero, who was created by Adrian Dingle. The company's production logo is a polar bear looking at Polaris, the North Star.
Franklin is an animated preschool educational children's television series, based on the Franklin the Turtle books by Brenda Clark and Paulette Bourgeois, and co-produced by Nelvana Limited. It was followed up by a CGI adaptation, Franklin and Friends.
The Care Bears Movie is a 1985 animated musical fantasy film directed by Arna Selznick from a screenplay by Peter Sauder. It was the second feature film from the Canadian animation studio Nelvana after the 1983 film Rock & Rule, in addition to being one of the first films based directly on a toy line and the first based on Care Bears. It introduced the Care Bears characters and their companions, the Care Bear Cousins. The voice cast includes Mickey Rooney, Georgia Engel, Jackie Burroughs and Cree Summer. In the film, an orphanage owner tells a story about the Care Bears, who live in a cloud-filled land called Care-a-Lot. While traveling across Earth, the Bears help two lonely children named Kim and Jason, who lost their parents in a car accident, and also save Nicholas, a young magician's apprentice, from an evil spirit's influence. Deep within a place called the Forest of Feelings, Kim, Jason and their friends soon meet another group of creatures known as the Care Bear Cousins.
Patrick Loubert is one of the founders of the Canadian animation studio, Nelvana Limited, along with Clive A. Smith and Michael Hirsh. He has produced, and executive-produced, much of the company's most memorable fare.
Clive A. Smith is a British expatriate director and animator who, along with Michael Hirsh and Patrick Loubert, founded Canadian animation studio Nelvana in 1971.
Michael Hirsh (born April 7, 1948) is a Belgian-born Canadian producer, TV executive, entrepreneur, and author. He has been attributed to building from the ground up the Canadian animation industry and, more specifically, award-winning children's programming since the 1980s. He co-founded Nelvana, a Canadian based animation and entertainment studio in 1971 with partners Patrick Loubert and Clive A. Smith producing numerous cartoons that established Nelvana as a leader in the industry including Little Bear, Franklin, Babar, Max & Ruby, The Magic School Bus, Care Bears, The Adventures of Tintin, Inspector Gadget, Droids and Ewoks, among many, many others. After Corus Entertainment's acquisition of Nelvana, Hirsh became the CEO of Cookie Jar Entertainment, which created numerous highly popular children's shows, among them Arthur, Johnny Test, and Strawberry Shortcake. When Cookie Jar was acquired by DHX Media Hirsh became the Executive Chairman of the company, the largest supplier of kids programming to online streaming services as well as a leader in production and licensing and merchandising for children. Three years after the acquisition by DHX Media, Hirsh left the company to serve as CEO and chairman of WOW! Unlimited Media from 2015 to December 2023.
The Devil and Daniel Mouse is a 1978 Canadian animated Halloween television special, based on the 1936 short tale The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benét. The Devil and Daniel Mouse is the second television special co-produced by the Canadian animation firm Nelvana Ltd.
Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd. is one of the oldest and most prolific Taiwanese-American animation studios since 1978. The company, based in Xindian, Taipei and Los Angeles, California, has done traditional hand-drawn 2D animation/ink and paint for various TV shows and films for studios across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
John Callahan's Quads! is an adult animated television series produced by Nelvana. It was created by and based upon the work of John Callahan, who also created another Nelvana-produced cartoon, Pelswick. The show aired on Teletoon's Adult Block in Canada, SBS in Australia, and in Latin America on Locomotion and Adult Swim. The show never aired in the United States; however, the series was released on YouTube in 2018. This was one of the first shows animated completely using the Macromedia Flash software.
Natalie Turner is a Canadian animator, effects animator, and animation professor.
Charles Bonifacio is a Canadian animator who worked on Nelvana productions such as Rock and Rule, Inspector Gadget, Star Wars: Ewoks, the Care Bears television series and the first two Care Bears movies of the 1980s. He was director of animation on The Care Bears Movie and on Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation. In the 1990s, he worked on FernGully: The Last Rainforest and Disney's Mulan.
Care Bears Nutcracker Suite is an animated television film featuring the Care Bears characters. Produced by the Canadian animation studio Nelvana in 1988, it is loosely based on the 1892 Nutcracker ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The film was directed by Joseph Sherman and Laura Shepherd, and produced by Nelvana's founders: Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert and Clive A. Smith. It serves as the series finale to the The Care Bears Family animated series.
Small Star Cinema is a series of live-action/animated shorts broadcast on CBC Television from April 12, 1974, to May 24, 1975, as part of their Bagatelle, Camera Twelve and Children's Cinema series. It was produced by Michael Hirsh and Patrick Loubert, and starred Clive A. Smith. Each short began with a small animated character purposefully walking into a spotlight. The series was then followed by the 1975 Christmas special Christmas Two Step also made for the CBC that has a similar premise.
Atkinson Film-Arts was an animation studio based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The company is best known for producing the first two Care Bears television specials – The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings and The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine – and the four syndicated specials that inspired The Raccoons. Atkinson also produced the Christmas specials The Little Brown Burro, Tukiki and His Search for a Merry Christmas and The Trolls and the Christmas Express and the 1986–87 series The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin.
Babar is an animated television series co-produced by Canadian animation studio Nelvana Limited and The Clifford Ross Company. It premiered in 1989 on CBC in Canada, and on HBO in the United States. The series is based on Jean de Brunhoff's original Babar books, and was Nelvana's first international co-production. The show has been dubbed in 30 languages in over 150 countries.
A Cosmic Christmas is a 1977 American-Canadian Christmas animated television special, premiering on CBC in Canada and in syndication in the United States on 4 December 1977. A Cosmic Christmas is the first special in the 1977 to 1980 series of television specials produced by Nelvana Ltd. and was also the first animated production from the studio. It premiered on 4 December 1977 on CBC Television. It was submitted for the Best Animated Short Academy Award.
Hong Ying Animation Co., Ltd. is a Chinese animation studio founded in 1986. The studio has worked on several American and other foreign cartoons.
Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends, sometimes shortened to Miss Spider or Sunny Patch, is an animated television series produced by Nelvana in association with AbsoluteDigital Pictures and Callaway Arts & Entertainment as a follow-up to the television special Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids. Created by David Kirk and developed by Nadine van der Velde, it was based on Kirk's Sunny Patch brand and the accompanying Miss Spider book series. In Canada, the show aired on Teletoon before moving over to Treehouse TV. In the United States, it aired on Nick Jr. 40 episodes were produced.
Intergalactic Thanksgiving, sometimes known as Please Don't Eat The Planet, is a 1979 Canadian Thanksgiving animated television special that premiered on CBC and in the United States in syndication on November 22, 1979. Intergalactic Thanksgiving was the fourth television special produced by Nelvana in their 1977 to 1980 series of specials, A Cosmic Christmas, The Devil and Daniel Mouse and Romie-0 and Julie-8, all premiering in 1977, 1978 and 1979.