Marvel Productions

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First production logo used after Marvel acquired DePatie-Freleng Enterprises

The 1980's Spiderman Marvel logo used when New World bought Marvel. Famous for being seen at the end of Muppet Babies.

Third production logo used in the 1990s when New World Entertainment bought Marvel from Cadence Industries

Marvel Productions Ltd. was a television and motion picture studio based in Los Angeles, California. Originally an animation studio, Marvel produced such notable animated TV series as GI Joe, Incredible Hulk, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, Spider-Man, The Transformers, Defenders of the Earth, Also movies and specials include GI Joe: The Movie, Transformers: The Movie, Pink At First Sight and The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat.

The company began in 1963 as DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and was sold to Marvel Comics Group in 1981 after DFE founder and company executive Friz Freleng retired. Freleng's business partner and DFE co-founder David H. DePatie continued to work for the company under the Marvel banner for several years until his retirement.

Over the years Marvel Productions' parent company Marvel Comics went through several ownership changes. Owned from 1968 by Cadence Industries Corporation, it was sold in 1986 to New World Entertainment (which was eventually acquired, in 1997, as part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation/Fox Group). New World Comm, in 1988/1989, sold it to MacAndrews and Forbes, owned by Revlon executive Ronald Perelman, who lost control of Marvel after it went into bankruptcy. In 1997, Isaac Perlmutter (owner of the Marvel subsidiary Toy Biz), who purchased Marvel and Marvel Productions Ltd. out of bankruptcy, decided to cut costs by selling Marvel Productions' back catalog to Saban Entertainment and he the closed the animation studio altogether opting to contract out all future animated projects to third party studios.

Saban's catalog is now owned by The Walt Disney Company, following Disney's purchase of Fox Family, Saban's succesor. As a result, Disney now holds the home video and broadcast rights to virtually all Marvel animated programs produced during the 1980s and 1990s, excepting those involving characters and trademarks owned by other companies such as GI Joe and The Transformers, both owned by the Hasbro toy company.

Studio executives including Margaret Loesch, Lee Gunther, Joe Bacal and Tom Griffin moved to other animation studios while Stan Lee signed a new lifetime non-exclusive contract with Marvel in 1998, enabling him for the first time in his 50 year career with Marvel to establish his own company. In October, 1998, Stan Lee founded Stan Lee Media, which went public in 1999 but was out of business by the end of 2000. Lee then created a series of comic books, "What if Stan Lee created..." for comic rival DC Comics.