Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usually done in stop motion animation. Rankin/Bass' 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.
In traditional festive legend and popular culture, Santa Claus's reindeer are said to pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to children on Christmas Eve.
Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too is a 1991 Christmas television special based on the Disney television series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, originally broadcast on December 14, 1991, on ABC and produced by Walt Disney Animation (France), S.A. and Walt Disney Television Animation.
Freeform's 25 Days of Christmas is an American annual seasonal event of Christmas programming broadcast during the month of December by the U.S. cable network Freeform. The event was first held in 1996, and has been an annual fixture of the channel through its various incarnations, including The Family Channel, Fox Family, ABC Family, and Freeform. The brand covers airings of classic holiday specials as well as new Christmas-themed television movies each year; generally few of the network's original series air during the time period, outside of Christmas-themed episodes. In 2006, the lineup has also included airings of general, family films that Freeform holds rights to, which included the Harry Potter films until January 2017, and other Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures films. In 2007, the block was extended to November with a Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas block. 25 Days of Christmas programming often attracts major surges in viewership for Freeform, with higher-profile film airings often attracting 3–4 million viewers or more.
The Stingiest Man in Town is a 1978 animated Christmas musical television special based on Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. It was created by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, and features traditional animation rather than the stop motion animation most often used by the company. It was an animated remake of a long-unseen, but quite well received, live-action musical special which had starred Basil Rathbone, Martyn Green, and Vic Damone. The live-action version had been telecast on December 23, 1956, on the NBC anthology series The Alcoa Hour, and was published on DVD in 2011, by VAI. The animated remake first aired December 23, 1978, in the United States on NBC, and was telecast in Japan the next day.
Stevie Wermers-Skelton is a Disney story artist and director. Together with Kevin Deters she co-directed the traditionally animated shorts How To Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007) and The Ballad of Nessie (2011), and the computer-animated television specials Prep & Landing (2009), Prep & Landing: Operation: Secret Santa (2010), and Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice (2011) for ABC. In 2011 it was reported that Wermers-Skelton is preparing a new Prep & Landing holiday special. However, as of 2023, it has not materialized.
Christmas Is Here Again is a 2007 American animated Christmas musical-comedy-fantasy-adventure film produced by Easy To Dream Productions, Renegade Animation, and 20th Century Fox Television, and distributed by 20th Television. The first feature film to be produced by Renegade Animation, it was co-written, co-produced and directed by Robert Zappia. Narrated by Jay Leno, the film features the voices of Edward Asner, Kathy Bates, Madison Davenport, Colin Ford, Brad Garrett, Andy Griffith, Shirley Jones, Norm Macdonald, and Daniel Roebuck, and marked Asner's fourth role in a Christmas-themed film after the 1977 film The Gathering, the 1999 film Olive, the Other Reindeer and the 2003 film Elf, though unlike the latter two films, he does not play Santa.
In English-speaking cultures, a Christmas elf is a diminutive elf that lives with Santa Claus at the North Pole and acts as his helper. Christmas elves are usually depicted as green- or red-clad, with large, pointy ears and wearing pointy hats. They are most often depicted as humanoids, but sometimes as furry mammals with tails. Santa's elves are often said to make the toys in Santa's workshop and take care of his reindeer, among other tasks.
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.
Santa Buddies, also known as Santa Buddies: The Legend of Santa Paws, is a 2009 American Christmas comedy film. It is the fourth installment of the Air Buddies spin-off series as well as the ninth film in the Air Bud franchise. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 24, 2009. Tom Bosley's appearance in the film was his final role before his death in 2010.
Merry Madagascar is a Christmas special first broadcast on the NBC network on November 17, 2009, which starred the characters from the film series Madagascar, and takes place sometime between the first and second film. It is the second DreamWorks Animation Christmas special, after Shrek the Halls.
"Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation" is a special Christmas-themed episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. The episode was originally broadcast on Disney XD on December 6, 2009. The special's narrative, set prior to the events of the series, follows protagonists Phineas and Ferb decorating their city for the arrival of Santa Claus. But when the evil mad scientist Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz uses a machine to ruin the holiday, Phineas and Ferb must find a way to fix it and save Christmas. The episode serves as the 37th broadcast episode of the second season, as well as the 84th broadcast episode overall.
Operation: Secret Santa — A Prep & Landing Stocking Stuffer is an American animated short film sequel to 2009's Christmas special Prep & Landing, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and directed by Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton. The short premiered on TV channel ABC on Tuesday, December 7, 2010. The second half-hour Christmas TV special, Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice aired on December 5, 2011, on ABC.
Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice is an American animated television special, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and directed by Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton. It aired on December 5, 2011, on the ABC TV channel. The special is the second and final half-hour Christmas special, and the fourth and final short film in the Prep & Landing series, after Prep & Landing, Tiny's BIG Adventure, and Operation: Secret Santa.
The 39th Annual Annie Awards honoring the best in animation of 2011 were held on February 4, 2012, at Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California.
Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas is a 2011 animated television special and part of the Ice Age franchise, produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Karen Disher. It premiered on November 24, 2011 on Fox in the United States and in the United Kingdom at Christmas on Channel 4 and E4 and it was released 2 days later to DVD and Blu-ray. This Christmas special takes place between Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Continental Drift.
A Fairly Odd Christmas is a 2012 American live-action/animated Christmas comedy television film. It is the sequel to the 2011 live-action TV film A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! and the second live-action adaptation of the Nickelodeon animated television series The Fairly OddParents.
Prep & Landing is a series of computer animated television specials produced by the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Voices of Dave Foley, Derek Richardson, Sarah Chalke and W. Morgan Sheppard are featured in the specials.
