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Rankin/Bass Productions: Difference between revisions
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{{creator|page=Rankin/Bass Productions}}
[[File:RankinBassProductions.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|''Just in the Christmas special subgenre alone, Rankin/Bass made 18 specials, of varying length and ambition, between 1964 and 1985. Nearly all of these films revolve around the performance of some Christmas song or another. Nearly all of them deal with the crippling scars of childhood shame.''
''And nearly all of them are completely off-the-rails insane.''
|Emily Todd VanDerWerff|vox.com, [https://www.vox.com/2014/12/24/7446181/worst-christmas-specials The makers of Rudolph also created some of the most off-the-wall Christmas specials ever]}}
If you had a childhood (in an English-speaking country during the middle-late 20th century, at least), you know '''Rankin/Bass Productions'''. Founded by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass as Videocraft International, the company is responsible for a series of (usually) [[Stop Motion]] puppet animated (called "Animagic") holiday specials that are virtual fixtures of seasonal television programming. Works such as ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]'', ''[[Santa Claus is Comin' to Town]]'', ''[[Frosty the Snowman]]'' and ''[[Here Comes Peter Cottontail]]'' have been airing almost continuously since the early 1960s, when they were first produced. Many subsequent holiday specials produced by other companies will contain salutes to these shows.
The general formula of these holiday specials was to take one or more classic holiday songs and to build a script (usually by staff writer Romeo Muller) around the music, featuring a celebrity narrator as an [[Ink Suit Actor]] in the story and interspersing it with original songs with music by Maury Laws and lyrics by co-producer Jules Bass. Very likely a majority of the characters will be voiced by [[Paul Frees (Creator)|Paul Frees]].
Rankin/Bass also produced non-holiday [[Animated Shows]]. Best known is probably ''[[
Its most ambitious projects were animated adaptations of [[J. R. R.
Along with ''[[The Last Unicorn (animation)|The Last Unicorn]]'' and ''[[The Flight of Dragons]]'', these films were the first major [[Animesque|U.S.-Japanese]] animation production crossovers. Many of the animators of ''The Hobbit'' went on to work for [[Studio Ghibli]].
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Now dormant, the company still exists. In 2001, it released its latest holiday project, ''Santa, Baby!'', which featured a mostly black cast. Nonetheless, Rankin/Bass will forever be remembered for virtually defining the concept of specialized holiday programming.
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▲''TV Specials'' (with Narrator)
* ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]'' (1964) Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman
* ''The Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Show'' (1965)
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* ''[[Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey]]'' (1977) Roger Miller as Speiltoe, Santa's Donkey
* ''The Stingiest Man in Town'' (1978) Tom Bosley as B.A.H. Humbug
* ''[[Jack Frost (animation)
* ''Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July'' (1979) Red Buttons as Milton
* ''Pinocchio's Christmas'' (1980)
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* ''Santa, Baby!'' (2001)
* ''The New Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1960)
* ''Tales of The Wizard of Oz'' (1961)
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* ''Kid Power'' (1972)
* ''Festival of Family Classics'' (1972)
* ''[[
* ''[[Silverhawks]]'' (1986)
* ''[[The Comic Strip]]'' (1987)
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** Street Frogs
* ''Return to Oz'' (TV; no relation to Disney's 1985 live-action film) (1964)
* ''Willy McBean and his Magic Machine'' (1965)
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[[Category:Prime Time Cartoon]]
[[Category:Wang Film Productions]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Western Animation]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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