Rankin/Bass Productions was an American production company, best known for its animated seasonal television specials. Television series and films pre-1974 are owned by NBCUniversal through DreamWorks Animation and post-September 1974 are owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Title | Year | Directed by | Written by | Music | Animation Production | Style |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Willy McBean and His Magic Machine | 1965 | Arthur Rankin Jr. | Arthur Rankin Jr. | Edward Thomas | MOM Production | Stop-motion |
The Daydreamer | 1966 | Jules Bass | Maury Laws | |||
Mad Monster Party? | 1967 | Len Korobkin Harvey Kurtzman | ||||
The Wacky World of Mother Goose | Romeo Muller | George Wilkins | TCJ Animation Center | Traditional | ||
The Last Unicorn | 1982 | Arthur Rankin Jr. Jules Bass | Peter S. Beagle | Jimmy Webb | Topcraft | |
The King and I | 1999 | Richard Rich | Peter Bakalian Jacqueline Feather David Seidler | William Kidd | Rich Animation Studios |
With the exception of The New Adventures of Pinocchio (stop-motion), all of the TV shows were traditionally animated.
Title | Year | Animation Production | Network | No. of episodes |
---|---|---|---|---|
The New Adventures of Pinocchio | 1960 | MOM Production | Syndication | 130 |
Tales of the Wizard of Oz | 1961 | Crawley Films | 110 | |
The King Kong Show | 1966 | Toei Animation | ABC | 26 |
The Smokey Bear Show | 1969 | 17 | ||
The Tomfoolery Show | 1970 | Halas and Batchelor | NBC | |
The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show | Mushi Production | ABC | ||
Jackson 5ive | 1971 | Halas and Batchelor Pegbar Production | 23 | |
The Osmonds | 1972 | Halas and Batchelor | 17 | |
Kid Power | Topcraft | |||
Festival of Family Classics | Mushi Production (17 episodes) Topcraft (3 episodes) | Syndication | 20 | |
ThunderCats | 1985 | Pacific Animation Corporation | 130 | |
SilverHawks | 1986 | 65 | ||
The Comic Strip | 1987 |
Title | Year | Directed by | Written by | Music | Distribution |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
King Kong Escapes | 1967 | Ishirō Honda | Takeshi Kimura | Akira Ifukube | Universal Pictures (theatrical) |
Marco | 1973 | Seymour Robbie | Romeo Muller | Maury Laws | Cinerama Releasing Corporation (theatrical) |
The Last Dinosaur | 1977 | Alexander Grasshoff Shusei Kotani | William Overgard | ABC (television) | |
The Bermuda Depths | 1978 | Tom Kotani | |||
The Ivory Ape | 1980 | Bernard Hoffer Maury Laws | |||
The Bushido Blade | 1981 | Maury Laws | Aquarius Releasing (theatrical) | ||
The Sins of Dorian Gray | 1983 | Tony Maylam | Ken August Peter Lawrence | Bernard Hoffer | ABC (television) |
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer created by Robert L. May. Rudolph is usually depicted as the ninth and youngest of Santa Claus's reindeer, using his luminous red nose to lead the reindeer team and guide Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. Though he initially receives ridicule for his nose as a fawn, the brightness of his nose is so powerful that it illuminates the team's path through harsh winter weather. Ronald D. Lankford, Jr., described Rudolph's story as "the fantasy story made to order for American children: each child has the need to express and receive approval for his or her individuality and/or special qualities. Rudolph's story embodies the American Dream for the child, writ large because of the cultural significance of Christmas."
Solomon Hersh Frees, better known as Paul Frees, was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during the Golden Age of Animation, and for providing the voice of Boris Badenov in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Frees was known as "The Man of a Thousand Voices", though the appellation was more commonly bestowed on Mel Blanc.
Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment was an American production company located in New York City. It was known for its seasonal television specials, usually done in stop 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.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a 1964 stop motion Christmas animated television special produced by Videocraft International, Ltd. It first aired December 6, 1964, on the NBC television network in the United States and was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour. The special was based on the 1949 Johnny Marks song "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which was itself based on the poem of the same name written in 1939 by Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May. NBC began airing the special annually in 2024, having previously done so until 1971. From 1972 to 2023, the special aired on CBS, which unveiled a high-definition, digitally remastered version of the program in 2005, re-scanned frame-by-frame from the original 35 mm film elements.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas is a 1974 animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions that features Clement Clarke Moore's famous 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, the opening line of which is the source of the title of this animated special. The special first originally aired on CBS on December 8, 1974, and the network aired it annually until 1994, when The Family Channel took over its syndication rights. AMC took over syndication rights for the special in 2018.
Paul Coker Jr. was an American illustrator. He worked in many media, including Mad, character design for Rankin-Bass TV specials, greeting cards, and advertising.
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a 1902 children's book, written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark.
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a 1974 stop-motion animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. The story is based on Phyllis McGinley's 1956 book. It is narrated by Shirley Booth and stars the voices of Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn and George S. Irving. It was originally broadcast on December 10, 1974, on ABC.
Julius Caesar Bass was an American director, producer, lyricist, composer and author. Until 1960, he worked at a New York advertising agency, and then co-founded the film production company Videocraft International, later named Rankin/Bass Productions, with his friend, Arthur Rankin Jr. He joined ASCAP in 1963 and collaborated with Edward Thomas and James Polack at their music firm and as a songwriting team primarily with Maury Laws at Rankin/Bass.
Frosty's Winter Wonderland is a 1976 animated Christmas television special and a standalone sequel to the 1969 special Frosty the Snowman, produced by Rankin/Bass Productions and animated by Topcraft. It is the second television special featuring the character Frosty the Snowman. It returns writer Romeo Muller, character designer Paul Coker, Jr., music composer Maury Laws and actor Jackie Vernon as the voice of Frosty, while Andy Griffith stars as the narrator with the rest of the cast consisting of Shelley Winters, Dennis Day and Paul Frees. The special premiered on ABC on December 2, 1976.
Arthur Gardner Rankin Jr. was an American director, producer and screenwriter, who mostly worked in animation. Co-creator of Rankin/Bass Productions with his friend Jules Bass, he created stop-motion and traditional animation features such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, and the 1977 cartoon special of The Hobbit. He is credited on over 1,000 television programs.
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town is a 1970 American stop-motion Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions in New York, New York. The film is narrated by Fred Astaire and stars the voices of Mickey Rooney, Keenan Wynn, Robie Lester, Joan Gardner, and Paul Frees, as well as an assistant song performance by the Westminster Children's Choir. The film tells the story of how Santa Claus and several Claus-related Christmas traditions came to be. It is based on the hit Christmas song, "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", which was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie for Leo Feist, Inc. and introduced on radio by Eddie Cantor in 1934; and the story of Saint Nicholas.
Frosty the Snowman is a 1969 American animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It is the first television special featuring the character Frosty the Snowman. The special first aired on December 7, 1969, on the CBS television network in the United States, airing immediately after the fifth showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, both scored high ratings.The special aired annually for the network's Christmas and holiday season until 2023. In 2024, NBC acquired the broadcast rights to the special.
George S. Irving was an American actor known primarily for his character roles on Broadway and as the voice of Heat Miser in the American Christmas television specials The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) and A Miser Brothers' Christmas (2008).
Jack Frost is a 1979 Christmas, Winter and Groundhog Day stop motion animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It is directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr., written by Romeo Muller, narrated by Buddy Hackett, and starring the voices of Robert Morse, Debra Clinger and Paul Frees. The special premiered on NBC on December 13, 1979, and tells the tale of Jack Frost and his adventures as a human. It airs annually on AMC as part of its Best Christmas Ever programming block.
Maury Laws was an American television and film composer from Burlington, North Carolina.
Pinocchio's Christmas is a 1980 Christmas stop motion television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions that is a holiday adaptation of the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The special premiered on ABC on December 3, 1980. It aired annually during the Christmas season on Freeform and as of 2018 airs on AMC.
A Miser Brothers' Christmas is a 2008 Christmas stop motion spin-off special, based on the characters from the 1974 Rankin/Bass special The Year Without a Santa Claus. Distributed by Warner Bros. Animation under their Warner Premiere label and Toronto-based Cuppa Coffee Studios, the one-hour special premiered on ABC Family on Saturday, December 13, 2008, during the network's annual The 25 Days of Christmas programming.
J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), set in his fictional world of Middle-earth, have been the subject of numerous motion picture adaptations across film and television.
Best Christmas Ever is a seasonal program block on AMC, an American cable and satellite network. The block, launched in 2018, airs Christmas-themed television specials and feature films from late November until the day after Christmas.