Industry | Animation |
---|---|
Founded | 1948 |
Founder | Jay Ward |
Headquarters | , U.S. |
Key people | Tiffany Ward (president) |
Subsidiaries |
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Jay Ward Productions, Inc. (sometimes shortened to Ward Productions) is an American animation studio based in Costa Mesa, California. It was founded in 1948 by American animator Jay Ward. As of 2022, the studio was headed by Ward's daughter, Tiffany Ward, and granddaughter, vice president Amber Ward.
Before 2022, when the studio signed a distribution deal with WildBrain, the Jay Ward catalogue was managed by Bullwinkle Studios, a joint venture between Jay Ward Productions and the DreamWorks Animation subsidiary of NBCUniversal.
The company was based on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, across Sunset Boulevard from the Chateau Marmont. [3]
By 2002, Jay Ward Productions had formed Bullwinkle Studios LLC, a joint venture with Classic Media (then an Entertainment Rights subsidiary), to manage the Jay Ward characters. Bullwinkle Studios's first production was George of the Jungle with Studio B Productions, a unit of DHX Media. The series was broadcast on Teletoon, then added to Cartoon Network. Jay Ward's daughter, Tiffany Ward, is the president of Ward Productions and Bullwinkle Studios. [2] [4] Classic Media was acquired in 2012 by DreamWorks Animation, [5] which was later purchased by the Comcast-owned NBCUniversal in 2016. [6]
On February 3, 2022, Jay Ward Productions signed a deal with WildBrain to produce new content based on its portfolio. [7] The agreement also includes distribution rights to the entire Jay Ward Productions library. However, DreamWorks retains the distribution rights to its co-productions. [8]
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic flying squirrel Rocket J. ("Rocky") Squirrel and moose Bullwinkle J. Moose. The main antagonists in most of their adventures are the two Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, both working for the Nazi-like dictator Fearless Leader. Supporting segments include "Dudley Do-Right", "Peabody's Improbable History", and "Fractured Fairy Tales", among others. The current blanket title was imposed for home video releases more than 40 years after the series originally aired and was never used when the show was televised; television airings of the show were broadcast under the titles of Rocky and His Friends from 1959 to 1961 on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons on ABC, The Bullwinkle Show from 1961 to 1964 on Sunday evening and then late Sunday afternoon on NBC, and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show as repeats from 1964-73 on Sunday mornings on ABC and in syndication following this.
Joseph Ward Cohen Jr., also known as Jay Ward, was an American creator and producer of animated TV cartoon shows. He produced animated series based on such characters as Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick, and Super Chicken. His own company, Jay Ward Productions, designed the trademark characters for the Cap'n Crunch, Quisp, and Quake breakfast cereals and it made TV commercials for those products. Ward produced the non-animated series Fractured Flickers (1963) that featured comedic redubbing of silent films.
Dudley Do-Right is a fictional character created by Alex Anderson, Chris Hayward, Allan Burns, Jay Ward, and Bill Scott, who appears as the main protagonist of "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties", a segment on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
Hoppity Hooper is an American animated television series produced by Jay Ward, and sponsored by General Mills, originally broadcast on ABC from September 12, 1964, until 1967. It is one of the earliest Saturday morning cartoons and the Jay Ward's first original one for this schedule. The series was produced in Hollywood by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, with animation done in Mexico City by Gamma Productions.
Quisp is a sugar-sweetened breakfast cereal from the Quaker Oats Company. It was introduced in 1965 and continued as a mass-market grocery item until the late 1970s. Subsequently, the Quaker Oats Company marketed Quisp sporadically, and with the advent of the Internet, began selling it primarily online. Quisp made its return to supermarkets as a mass-market grocery item in late 2012.
Walter Tetley was an American actor specializing in child impersonation during radio's classic era. He had regular roles as Leroy Forrester on The Great Gildersleeve and Julius Abbruzzio on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, as well as continuing as a voice-over artist in animated cartoons, commercials, and spoken-word record albums. He is perhaps best known as the voice of Sherman in the Jay Ward-Bill Scott Mr. Peabody TV cartoons.
DreamWorks Classics is an American entertainment company owned by DreamWorks Animation, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded as Classic Media in 2000 by Eric Ellenbogen and John Engelman, The studio's library consists of acquired intellectual property catalogs and character brands, as well as the licensing rights for various third-party properties. In 2012, Boomerang Media sold Classic Media to DreamWorks Animation, who rebranded the company as DreamWorks Classics. DreamWorks Animation became a subsidiary of NBCUniversal in 2016.
Mr. Peabody is an anthropomorphic cartoon dog who appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s television animated series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, produced by Jay Ward. Peabody appeared in the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments created by Ted Key, and he was voiced by Bill Scott. In 2014, he was featured in the animated film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman. From 2015 to 2017, he appeared in a television series based on the film.
William John Scott was an American voice actor, writer and producer for animated cartoons, primarily associated with Jay Ward and UPA, as well as one of the founding members of ASIFA-Hollywood. He is probably best known as the head writer, co-producer and the voice of several characters from the popular programs Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show.
Bullwinkle J. Moose is a fictional character and one of the two main protagonists of the 1959–1964 animated television series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, often collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle, produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. When the show changed networks in 1961, the series moved to NBC and was retitled The Bullwinkle Show, where it stayed until 1964. It then returned to ABC, where it was in repeats for nine more years. It has been in syndication ever since.
The Wayback Machine or WABAC Machine is a fictional time machine and plot device from an American cartoon television series in the 1960s called The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. Each episode of the cartoon series included a short segment "Peabody's Improbable History" in which the Wayback Machine was used by the segment's main characters, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, to travel back in time to visit important events in human history. The term has acquired popular or idiomatic usage as a way to introduce events or things from the past.
Ponsonby Britt was the credited—but fictional—executive producer of the television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Fractured Flickers, Hoppity Hooper, and George of the Jungle.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman is a 2014 American animated science fiction comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation, PDI/DreamWorks, and Bullwinkle Studios, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film is based on characters from the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments of the animated television series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends produced by Jay Ward. It was directed by Rob Minkoff and produced by Alex Schwartz and Denise Nolan Cascino, from a screenplay by Craig Wright. Tiffany Ward, daughter of series co-creator Jay Ward, served as executive producer. Mr. Peabody & Sherman features the voices of Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Ariel Winter, Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, and Allison Janney. In the film, Mr. Peabody (Burrell) and his adoptive human son Sherman (Charles) use the WABAC to embark on time travel adventures. When Sherman accidentally rips a hole by taking the WABAC without permission to impress Penny Peterson (Winter), they must find themselves to repair history and save the future, while dealing with strict corrupt agent Ms. Grunion (Janney), who wants to take Sherman away from Mr. Peabody's custody.
Alexander Hume Anderson Jr. was an American cartoonist who created the characters of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right, as well as Crusader Rabbit. He was not directly involved in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, however.
The Dudley Do-Right Emporium was a small, eccentric gift shop named after the fictional Canadian Mountie Dudley Do-Right, located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California.
Shirley Silvey was an American animator, whose credits included Mr. Magoo, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Dudley Do-Right Show and George of the Jungle. Silvey was considered a pioneer in animation, as she was one of the first women to work in the field.
Rocky and Bullwinkle is a 2014 American animated direct-to-video short film based on the 1960s animated television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The short was directed by Gary Trousdale, while Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon were the writers. June Foray reprises her role as Rocky in her final voice role before her death on July 26, 2017, while Tom Kenny voices Bullwinkle. Originally planned as a theatrical short to accompany with Mr. Peabody & Sherman, it was released on October 14, 2014, on the Blu-ray 3D of the film.
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is an American animated sitcom produced by DreamWorks Animation Television which is a reboot of the 1959–64 animated television series of the same name. It debuted on May 11, 2018, on Amazon Prime Video, being DreamWorks Animation Television's first series to air on a streaming service other than Netflix. Like its preceding spin-off The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show, animation was outsourced by DHX Media's 2D animation studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The second and final "part" of the series was released on January 11, 2019.
Gamma Productions, or officially Producciones Animades Gamma SA, was a Mexican animation studio founded in 1957 as Val-Mar Productions by Gustavo Valdez and Jesus Martinez Gracia. It is notable as being one of the first animation studios in Mexico to accept work from American production companies.