Rankin/Bass

Formerly known as Videocraft International Ltd., Rankin/Bass is an American production company that has been producing TV shows. Its work in seasonal TV specials, especially in stop motion animation is what it’s been known for. It was founded by Jules Bass with Arthur Rankin Jr. on the 14th of September in the year 1960, in New York. Their doll-like representation of the character’s spheroid body part was quite characteristic of this production company. Their use of “Animagic”, an animation technique that looked like powdery snow everywhere, was quite popular. To mimic the action of snow falling from the sky, the transitional cel-animation was projected over the action sequence. The production company outsourced almost all of their animation to Japanese companies, one of the most notable of whom was Topcraft. Rankin/Bass was responsible for the production of The Hobbit in 1977 and the animated edition of The Return of the King. Both the films were made as family-oriented TV musicals, in Animagic. For the Hobbit, a picture book for kids was also made. A part of the library is also owned by Entertainment Rights Classic Media for content that was produced before 1974 and Warner Bros. for content that was produced after 1974.

Traditionally the company produced television series independently. Among many others, their most remarkable movie, in 1960, was the one based on the life of Pinocchio and his new adventures. The creation was based on Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio and was made using Animagic. When Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin, Jr. set up the company in 1960, they did not know that ultimately the production house would be known for Animagic - an animation technique that used puppets or figurines to create stop motion animation. The production gained even more popularity when they created in 1961, the Tales of the Wizard of Oz. Their business was largely supported by the airing of holiday-themed animated specials on American television. They had produced a special for NBC back in 1964, which was then being sponsored by General Electric. Later General Electric ended up owning NBC.

The popular Christmas TV special was the story of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" that had been inspired by Robert L. May's 1939 story "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer". Johnny Marks wrote the song who was the brother-in-law of May. It was so popular that by the summer of 1948 it was also made into a cartoon! Max Fleischer, former partner & brother of Dave Fleischer, created for the Jam Handy Film Company, an animated short story. The voice of the main character Rudolph was Billie Mae Richards, an actress from Canada, and the stop motion animated adaptation captured Burl Ives from the US, who played the Snowman, Sam. Rudolph went to be known as some of the most popular & the longest-running animated musicals during Christman in the history of television. NBC featured it till 1972 after which CBS got the rights for it. 2019 was the 55th anniversary of the special & it was celebrated by airing it on Freeform as a part of their “25 Days of Christmas” franchise. But 2019 was just an exception as the production will continue to be aired on CBS as part of their licensing with Universal. Rudolph could be attributed to the start of Christmas TV specials. It was so successful that there were a lot of Christmas specials created after it. The Thanksgiving episode, “The Cricket on the Hearth,” and “Mouse on the Mayflower” all followed “Rudolph” as successful productions. The Rudolph special had originally seven songs, but later when it was owned by General Electric, they added another song in 1965 - "Fame And Fortune".

The craze of the holiday specials really caught on and like Rudolph, a lot of them were based on Christmas songs that were popular with people. A production of The Little Drummer Boy, featured British-American actress Greer Garson who was the narrator & starred Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer as the voice-over artist. The song was based on the traditional Nativity scene during the birth of Jesus Christ. It was after this that Rankin/Bass achieved what it has today. Shortly, it became Videocraft International, Ltd. They changed their logo but retained a part of the Videocraft International, Ltd. byline in the closing credit of their production till 1971. When Tomorrow Entertainment acquired them, the byline was removed.

The animation for The Little Drummer Boy was created using the Animagic process at MOM Production which later got to be known as Video Tokyo Production. Tadahito Mochinaga was at that time working on the animation of Mad Monster Party and when he decided to leave Japan for China, their collaboration with Rankin/ Bass came to an end. The 1960s was a popular time for the creation of a lot of other Christmas specials. Based on Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins' 1950 song the story of Frosty the Snowman, was sung & told by Jimmy Durante in 1969. Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production created the animation & Jackie Vernon gave the voice-over for Frosty. Then in 1970 Rankin/Bass registered Fred Astaire as a narrator for Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, another Christmas special that involved a mailman named Kluger, who answered kids’ questions regarding Santa Claus, and explained to them how Santa came to be.

The characters of the children were voiced over by Mickey Rooney, who came to be known as the young Kris Kringle. The villain was played by Burgermeister Meisterburger, and he was voiced over by Paul Frees. In the production, Kringle grew up to be a handsome young lad and married Miss Jessica, the schoolteacher, whose voice was provided by Robie Lester. Kizon Nagashima is the production supervisor in this creation and he used to be Animagic’s associate director, still with Rankin/Bass. The popularity of the Christmas specials grew so much that Rankin/Bass decided to go ahead with an Easter special. The narrators were Seymour Sassafrass and Danny Kaye, the rabbit was voiced by Vince Price and Casey Kasem and January Irontali were Peter Cottontail. “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” became immensely popular too. It was based on a 1957 novel called “The Easter Bunny That Overslept” whose authors are Otto and Priscilla Friedrich. It was the last Animagic production that Kizo Nagashima supervised. In The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, produced in 1977, Fred Astaire made a comeback and portrayed S.D. Kluger.

He explained to the children the origins of the Easter Bunny. Masaki Iizuka was the associate producer for this special and Akikazu Kono was the "Animagic" supervisor. Iizuka was an experienced procurer. When he was working as a production assistant at the filming of Marco - a musical based on the life & travels of Marco Polo which was produced at Toho Company in Tokyo. It also featured the "Animagic" (the Tree People) sequence by Kono. Iizuka had met Rankin during the production of the Halloween TV special, Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters in 1972 at Mushi Productions, and he became an essential cog in the wheel of the Rankin/Bass vehicle. After Veidocraft stopped existing, Rankin/Bass was launched as an independent production house for launching another Christmas special known as The Year Without a Santa Claus. It featured Mrs. Claus played by Shirley Booth, Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus’s voice, and additional characters.

George Irving playing Heat Miser and Dick Shawn voicing Snow Miser. Akikazu Kono and puppet maker Ichiro Komuro shared the production supervision of this Animagic production & was unsuccessfully remade in 20016. The TV movie that was cast on NBC was quite badly received by the audience for its special effects. The idea behind the classic holiday specials to make them more commercial was to start the production of animated sequels to them. As the audience was already familiar with the characters of the holiday season there was a special sense of anticipation to these sequels & people actually waited for them more than the original holiday specials. This also brought in money for the production house during the rest of the year apart in front of the holiday season. One such example was the teaming up of Frosty and Rudolph in 1979. With the voiceover of Ethel Merman as Lilly Loraine, the ring mistress of a circus, & Rooney coming back as Santa, the cameos from other Rankin/ Bass productions included Jack Frost from Frosty's Winter Wonderland and Big Ben from Rudolph's Shiny New Year.

It was followed by a production of a Jack Frost special in which he appeared as himself. The story that was told by Buddy Hackett, comprised the story of Winter chasing his love for a woman who is a mortal. Evil Cossack king, Kubla Kraus did not approve of this love and thus the story of power, love & struggle continued. Jack’s voice-over was done by Robert Morse, who was well known for his work in The First Easter Rabbit & The Stingiest Man in Town. One of the most popular originals delivered by Rankin/ Bass was The Story of the First Christmas Snow. The voice-over was done by Angela Lansbury as Sister Theresa. She was known for her part in the 1982 adaptation of The Last Unicorn and Irving Berlin's classic "White Christmas". Their last Christmas story, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus which was adapted from L. Frank Baum’s story of a similar name was released in 1985. The story explained how the dying Santa Claus was granted the power of immortality by the Greek council. To support his cause the Great Ak explains the struggle of Santa Claus, who was born in a magic forest and raised by Immortals.

He goes on to defend Santa Claus by telling the council about the difficulties of human life, & Santa’s efforts to bring happiness to children around the world. The story was quite well received and was a recently released account of Warner Brothers Archive Collection. The collection is a disc that includes Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. If you’re a follower you might have seen the Christmas Donkey being aired on the first day of the holiday broadcasts. The specials made by them are still being shown during the holiday season on American TV and have even found their way to VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray.

Videocraft had come to be known for their holiday specials. They produced a lot of stop motion pictures & animated versions of traditional stories throughout the 1960s. In 1965 they attempted their theatrical film in a joint venture with Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures. The film was known as “Willy McBean and His Magic Machine,” and was the first one out of the four films created in this venture along with Dentsu. In 1966 James Cagney narrated a story of a bear that was made famous by his forest fire fighting endeavors. The Ballad of Smokey the Bear made Smokey famous & he was later seen in a lot of public announcements. When Boris Karloff was about to put an end to his acting career he took up the theatrical launch of the movie Mad Monster Party.

It was released in the summer season of 1967 & featured adorable creations of the most generic movie monsters, often inspired by the Beatles themes skeletons. They lit up the iconic portrayals of the era. The waiting staff for the theatrical release was borrowed from the Mad Mangine. This production also brought to n end the career of supervision of Tadahito Mochinaga After the successes, Rankin/Bass went to produce four more animated television series movies. This series created for “The Superstar Movie (ABC Saturday)” included That Girl in Wonderland, The Red Baron, Willie Mays, and the Say-Hey Kid and the Mad Mad Mad Monsters. An animation edition of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit was produced by Rankin/Bass In 1977.

Because of its success, another animated movie, “The Return of the King,” was made in 1980. Peter Beagle’s “The Last Unicorn,” The Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson, and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame all made it to production after the success of the previous movies. Rankin/Bass produced many regular animated TV shows. The King Kong Show was produced in 1966, co-produced with Toei Animation, The Jackson Five (5ive) was produced in 1971, co-produced along with Motown Productions, & The Osmonds in 1972. The one that actually gained popularity the world over was ThunderCats in 1985. It was a series based on action & adventure & became so popular that the creation of toys was also made for it.

Following its success, several other productions were made - SilverHawks in 1986, TigerSharks in 1987. All of these shows were animated by Topcraft’s former employees - of the Pacific animation Corporation, with the production was supervised by Masaki Iizuka. Walt Disney acquired the studio and renamed it in 1988. This takeover did not result in a lot of successful series. In between, Rankin/Bass tried their hand at live animation productions. “King Kong Escapes” was a co-creation with Toho in 1967, “The Last Dinosaur” in 1976, The Bermuda Depths in 1978, and The Sins of Dorian Gray in 1983. All of these shows were created for television except for King Kong Escapes.

Although they got in well-known actors for the voice-overs of different parts of their productions, they also had a lot of actors who did voice-overs. Earlier when the studio started this group of artists worked in Toronto and the recording of the different characters was taken care of by CBC announcement maker Bernard Cowan. Paul Kligman, Larry D. Mann, and Paul Soles were part of this group of talented voice-over actors. However, the most noticeable voice-over was that of Paul Frees. he lent his voice to several popular characters such as the several wise men from Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, “The Little Drummer Boy,” even Santa Claus as well as Jack Frost from Frosty the Snowman and Frosty’s Winter Wonderland and also the traffic cop from Frosty the Snowman. Some more prominent factors include Robin Lester, Morey Amsterdam, Linda Gary, Bob McFadden, Mickey Rooney, June Foray, Jackie Vernon, Don Messick, Shelley Winters, and Larry Kenney. Larry Kenney was specifically known for his Lion-O character on Thundercats and silver hawks. A lot of talented names were associated with the production house and Maury Laws served as the music director for most of the films made by Rankin/Bass. No wonder the production house was so popular back in the sixties and seventies when some of the most popular names are associated with the popular known Productions. Romeo Miller was a screenwriter for a lot of the popularly known productions by Rankin/Bass including Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, and The Little Drummer Boy. Most of their Productions were animated in Japan including the Animagic motion productions as well. The animated productions were supervised by different directors at different points in time like in the 1960s they were led forth by Japanese animation creator Tadahito Mochinaga. Initially, their cel-animated Productions were taken care of by Mushi Production & Toei Animation. Topcraft was the result of a branch from Toei Animation. Topcraft took up most of the animation work in the 1970s and even afterward. The animators produced a really good name for themselves and went on to become a part of Studio Ghibli to work in Hayao Miyazaki’s films - including My Neighbor Totoro and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

The Rankin/Bass’s library has gone through many hands in the past. It was first acquired by General Electric when their branch Tomorrow Entertainment bought the Videocraft production house in 1971. Afterward, in 1988 the Lorne Michaels Company called Broadway video bought it. Dupree 1974 with General Electric but in 1995 the Children's Division Off-Broadway video came to be known as Golden Books Family Entertainment. It was named Classic media and they still own the rights to Viator the parent company of Entertainment Rights Group until today. Most of the feature film’s libraries were taken over by a French production company called StudioCanal. Frosty and Rudolph's Christmas in July is still part of the Rankin/Bass’s Library. The Last Unicorn had been taken over by the company Granada International. The rights of most of their production from the library in the US are owned by ABC Family and ABC apart from the original Frosty and Rudolph Christmas special which were sold to CBS.

The last production by Rankin/Bass [1] was made in 1987 and for a lot of years following, no new holiday specials were produced by them. The owners as of today, have split their time among New York, Paris, and Bermuda, for work, and leisure activities. Rankin collaborated with a few productions later but none of them were box office successes. When they were not able to get along together the partnership was dissolved amicably. Jules Bass turned his focus toward writing. He turned into a vegetarian and wrote one of the first characters which explored moral dilemmas concerned with vegetarianism. The book that was known as Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, a cookbook that led on to become one of the best sellers for Barefoot Books, that was the only publishing house. After 16 years of stopping production, Fox network in 2001 aired their first Christmas special, Santa Baby! It was distinct from the previous edition but was well-received by the holiday audience. They still broadcast the Christmas specials on the ABC Family show during The 25 Days of Christmas broadcasting, although they are edited too much.

1. ^Rankin/Bass fansite.