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If you had a childhood (in an English-speaking country, 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.
Rankin/Bass also produced non-holiday Animated Shows. Best known is probably Thundercats; its other series included King Kong, The Jackson 5ive and The Osmonds. The popularity of Thundercats resulted in two follow-up series, Silverhawks and Tigersharks (the third appearing along with three other shows as The Comic Strip.
Its most ambitious projects were animated adaptations of JRR Tolkien's books, with The Hobbit and Return of the King. (Not to be confused with Ralph Bakshi's ill-fated attempt, which bridged the series.)
Along with The Last Unicorn and The Flight of Dragons, these films were the first major U.S.-Japanese animation production crossovers. Many of the animators of The Hobbit went on to work for Studio Ghibli.
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.
Shows Produced or Distributed by Rankin/Bass
TV Specials (with Narrator)
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman
- The Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Show (1965)
- The Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1966) Jimmy Cagney
- Cricket on the Hearth (1967)
- The Mouse on the Mayflower (1968) Tennessee Ernie Ford
- The Little Drummer Boy (1968) Greer Garson as Our Storyteller
- Frosty the Snowman (1969) Jimmy Durante
- The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970)
- Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) Fred Astaire as S.D. ("Special Delivery") Kluger
- Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971) Danny Kaye as Seymour S. Sassafras
- The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye (1972)
- 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) George Gobel as Father Mouse
- The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) Shirley Booth as Mrs. Claus
- The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975) Angela Lansbury as Sister Theresa
- The First Easter Rabbit (1976) Burl Ives as the older Stuffy the Rabbit
- Frosty's Winter Wonderland (1976) Andy Griffith
- Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) Red Skelton as Father Time
- The Little Drummer Boy, Book II (1976) Greer Garson as Our Storyteller
- The Easter Bunny is Comin' To Town (1977) Fred Astaire as S.D. Kluger
- 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 (1979) Buddy Hackett as "Pardon-Me" Pete the Groundhog
- Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979) Red Buttons as Milton
- Pinocchio's Christmas (1980)
- The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold (1981) Art Carney as Blarney Kilarney
- The Coneheads (1983)
- Wind in The Willows (1985)
- The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985)
- Santa, Baby! (2001)
TV Series
- The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1960)
- Tales of The Wizard of Oz (1961)
- The King Kong Show (1966)
- The Smokey Bear Show (1969)
- The Tomfoolery Show (1970)
- The Reluctant Dragon and Mr. Toad Show (1970)
- The Jackson 5ive Show (1971)
- The Osmonds (1972)
- Kid Power (1972)
- Festival of Family Classics (1972)
- Thundercats (1985)
- Silverhawks (1986)
- The Comic Strip (1987)
- TigerSharks
- The Mini-Monsters
- Karate Kat
- Street Frogs
Films
- Return to Oz (TV; no relation to Disney's 1985 live-action film) (1964)
- Willy McBean and his Magic Machine (1965)
- The Daydreamer (1966)
- Wacky World of Mother Goose (1966)
- Mad Monster Party (1967)
- King Kong Escapes (1968)
- The Red Baron (TV) (1972)
- Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid (TV) (1972)
- Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters (TV) (1972)
- That Girl in Wonderland (TV) (1974)
- Marco (Live Action) (1973)
- The Last Dinosaur (Live Action) (1976)
- The Hobbit (TV) (1977)
- The Bermuda Depths (Live Action) (1977) — In which Burl Ives is eaten by a Giant Turtle
- The Bushido Blade (Live Action) (1979)
- The Return of the King (TV) (1980)
- The Ivory Ape (Live Action) (1980)
- The Last Unicorn (1982)
- The Sins of Dorian Gray (Live Action) (1983)
- The Flight of Dragons (TV) (1986)