Rankin/Bass Productions
 | |
| Industry | Film industry |
|---|---|
| Founded | September 14, 1960 |
| Defunct | 2002 |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
| Key people |
Arthur Rankin, Jr. Jules Bass |
| Products |
Television specials Television shows Feature films |
| Owner(s) |
DreamWorks Classics (pre-1974) Warner Bros. (post-1974) |
Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. (also called Videocraft International, Ltd.) was an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop-motion animation. The pre-1974 library is owned by DreamWorks Classics, while the post-1974 library is owned by Warner Bros.. Rankin/Bass stop-motion features are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts, and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called "Animagic." Often, traditional cel animation scenes of falling snow would be projected over the action to create the effect of a snowfall.
History
The company was founded by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass on September 14, 1960, as Videocraft International. The majority of Rankin/Bass' work, including all of their "Animagic" stop-motion productions, were created in Japan. Throughout the 1960s, the Animagic productions were headed by Japanese stop-motion animator Tadahito Mochinaga.
Their traditionally cel-animated works were animated by Toei Animation, Crawley Films, and Mushi Production, and since the 1970s, they were animated by the Japanese studio Topcraft, which was formed in 1972 as an offshoot of Toei Animation. Many Topcraft staffers, including the studio's founder Toru Hara (who was credited in some of Rankin/Bass' specials), would go on to join its successor Studio Ghibli and work on Hayao Miyazaki's feature films, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and My Neighbor Totoro.
In addition to the "name" talent that provided the narration for the specials, Rankin/Bass had its own company of voice actors. For the studio's early work, this group was based in Toronto, Ontario, where recording was supervised by veteran CBC announcer Bernard Cowan. This group included actors such as Paul Soles, Larry D. Mann, and Paul Kligman.
Later, the most notable voice was Paul Frees, who provided the voices for, among many others, the three wise men (The Little Drummer Boy), Burgermeister Meisterburger (Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town), the traffic cop (Frosty The Snowman), Jack Frost (Frosty's Winter Wonderland), and even Santa Claus himself (both Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph's Shiny New Year). Other Rankin/Bass voice actors have included Andy Griffith, Burl Ives, Casey Kasem, Frank Gorshin, Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye, Boris Karloff, Jimmy Durante, Danny Thomas, Ethel Merman, Vincent Price, Bob McFadden, Robie Lester, Linda Gary, Mickey Rooney, Keenan Wynn, Morey Amsterdam, Marlo Thomas, Greer Garson, Angela Lansbury, June Foray, Don Messick, Jackie Vernon, Allen Swift, Robert Morse, Mia Farrow, Shirley Booth, Dick Shawn, and Shelley Winters. Outside of the holiday specials, Larry Kenney had been with Rankin/Bass for years, doing characters on ThunderCats (notably as Lion-O) and SilverHawks.
Maury Laws has served as musical director for almost all of the animated films. Romeo Muller was another consistent contributor, serving as screenwriter for many of Rankin/Bass's best-known productions including Rudolph, The Little Drummer Boy, and Frosty the Snowman.
Output
One of Videocraft's first projects was an independently produced series based on the character Pinocchio. It was done using "Animagic", a stop motion animation process using figurines (a process already pioneered by George Pal's "Puppetoons" and Art Clokey's Gumby and Davey and Goliath). This was followed by another independently produced series using more traditional cel animation and based on already established characters, Tales of the Wizard of Oz in 1961.
Rudolph
One of the mainstays of the business was holiday themed animated specials for airing on American television. In 1964, the company produced a special for NBC and sponsor (and later owner of NBC) General Electric. It was a stop-motion animated adaptation of the Johnny Marks song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (which had been made into a cartoon by Dave Fleischer, brother & former partner with Max Fleischer, as a traditional animated short for the Jam Handy Film Company almost two decades before). This features Billie Mae Richards as the voice of the title character.
With narrator Burl Ives in the role of Sam the Snowman and an original orchestral score composed by Marks himself, Rudolph became one of the most popular and longest-running Christmas specials in television history: it remained with NBC until around 1972, and currently runs several times during the Christmas season on CBS. The special contained seven original songs. In 1965, a new song was filmed in replacement of "We're A Couple Of Misfits", "Fame and Fortune."
The success of Rudolph led to numerous other Christmas specials. the first of which was The Cricket on the Hearth (introduced in a live-action prologue by Danny Thomas), in 1967, followed by a Thanksgiving special, Mouse on the Mayflower (told by Tennessee Ernie Ford), in 1968.
Other holiday specials
Many of their other specials, like Rudolph, were based on popular Christmas songs. In 1968, Greer Garson provided dramatic narration for The Little Drummer Boy, based on the traditional song and set during the birth of the baby Jesus. That year, Videocraft (whose logo dominated the Rankin/Bass logo in the closing credit sequences), changed its name to Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc., and adopted a new logo, retaining a Videocraft byline in their closing credits until 1971.
The following year in 1969, Jimmy Durante sang and told the story of Frosty the Snowman, with Jackie Vernon voicing the title character.
1970 brought another Christmas special, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town. Rankin/Bass enlisted Fred Astaire as narrator S.D. (Special Delivery) Kluger, a mailman answering children's questions about Santa Claus and telling his origin story. The story involved young Kris Kringle (voiced by Mickey Rooney) and his nemesis the Burgermeister Meisterburger (voiced by Paul Frees). Kringle later marries the town's schoolteacher, Miss Jessica (voiced by Robie Lester).
In 1971, Rankin/Bass produced the Easter special Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with the voices of narrator Danny Kaye, Vincent Price, and Casey Kasem (as the title character). It was based not on the title song, but on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich titled The Easter Bunny That Overslept. In 1977, Fred Astaire returned as mailman narrator Kruger in The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, telling the tale of the Easter Bunny's origins.
In 1974, Rankin/Bass produced another Christmas special, The Year Without a Santa Claus, featuring Shirley Booth (voicing narrator Mrs. Claus), Mickey Rooney (returning as the voice of Santa Claus), and supporting characters Snow Miser and Heat Miser. The Miser Brothers are unusual fictional characters in the annals of television;[citation needed] several of their fans have devoted entire websites to them.[citation needed] It was remade as a poorly received live action TV movie shown on NBC in 2006 starring Delta Burke and John Goodman as Mrs. Claus and Santa.[1]
Throughout the 1970s, Rankin/Bass continued to produce animated sequels to its classic specials, including the teaming of Rudolph and Frosty in 1979's Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, with the voice of Ethel Merman as the ringmistress of a seaside circus, and Rooney again returning as Santa. The special features cameos by characters from several other Rankin-Bass holiday specials, including Big Ben from Rudolph's Shiny New Year and Jack Frost. Jack appeared in his own special later that year. Jack Frost, narrated by Buddy Hackett, tells the story of the winter sprite's love for a mortal woman menaced by the evil Cossack King, Kubla Kraus (Paul Frees, in addition to Kubla, voiced Jack Frost's overlord, Father Winter himself).
Among Rankin/Bass's original specials was 1975's The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, featuring the voice of Angela Lansbury as the narrating and singing nun, and the Irving Berlin Christmas classic White Christmas. Though only a half-hour long (as opposed to the standard hour time slot), it was critically acclaimed, telling the story of a blind shepherd boy who longs to experience Christmas.
Their final stop-motion style Christmas story was The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, taken from the L. Frank Baum story of the same name and released in 1985. In this story, the Great Ak summons a council of the Immortals to bestow upon a dying Claus the Mantle of Immortality. To make his case, the Great Ak tells Claus's life story, from his discovery as a foundling in the magical forest and his raising by Immortals, through his education by the Great Ak in the harsh realities of the human world and his acceptance of his destiny to struggle to bring joy to children.[2] This special has recently been released as part of the Warner Brothers Archive Collection on a double-feature disc that also contains Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.
Many of these specials are still shown seasonally on American television, and some have been released to video and DVD. The specials The Gift of Winter (1974) and Witch's Night Out (1978), sometimes mistakenly attributed to Rankin/Bass, were actually produced by John Leach and Jean Rankin (unrelated to Arthur Rankin, Jr.) for CBC Television.
Non-holiday output
Throughout the 1960s, Videocraft produced other stop motion and traditional animation specials and films, some of which were non-holiday stories. 1965 saw production of Rankin/Bass's first theatrical film, Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, the first of four films produced in association with Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures. 1966 brought The Ballad of Smokey the Bear (narrated by James Cagney), the story of the famous forest fire-fighting animal seen in numerous public service announcements.
Often mistakenly referred to as Videocraft's foray into the Halloween genre, the theatrical feature film Mad Monster Party saw theatrical release in the Spring of 1967. Featuring one of the last performances of Boris Karloff, no reference is made to the October holiday. The film features affectionate send-ups of classic movie monsters and their locales. With the exception of some "Beatle"-wigged skeletons, who are inserted as a send-up of the era's pop bands, Mad Monster Party features none of the characters which share an historical association with the October 31st tradition.
In 1971, Rankin/Bass produced the 6 Finger Hand opening for Chiller Theatre, a local horror movie program on WPIX in New York City. In 1972 and 1973, Rankin/Bass produced four animated TV-movies for The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie: The Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters, Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid, The Red Baron, and That Girl in Wonderland.
In 1977, Rankin/Bass produced an animated version of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. It was followed in 1980 by an animated version of The Return of the King. (The animation rights to the first two volumes were held by Saul Zaentz, producer of Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation The Lord of the Rings.) Other books adapted include The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (a rare theatrical release) and Peter Dickinson's The Flight of Dragons.
In addition to their prime time specials, Rankin/Bass produced several regular cartoon series, including The King Kong Show, The Jackson 5ive (co-produced with Motown Productions), and The Osmonds. Perhaps the best-remembered of these was ThunderCats (1985), a cartoon and related line of toys. It was followed by two similar cartoons about humanoid animals, SilverHawks (1986), and TigerSharks (as part of the series The Comic Strip in 1987) which never enjoyed the same commercial success.
Rankin/Bass also attempted live-action productions, such as 1967's sequel King Kong Escapes, a co-production with Toho; 1976's The Last Dinosaur; 1978's The Bermuda Depths; and 1983's The Sins of Dorian Gray. With the exception of King Kong Escapes, all were made for television.
Rankin/Bass today
After its last series output, Rankin/Bass shut down its production arm on March 4, 1987.
Arthur Rankin, Jr. would split his time between New York City, where the company still has its offices, and his home in Bermuda. He formed Rankin Productions to produce a few cartoons, such as the remake of Krazy Kat; that company was later absorbed in 1990. Rankin died at Harrington Sound, Bermuda on January 30, 2014 at the age of 89.[3] Jules Bass commuted between New York and Paris. Bass became a vegetarian; a decade later, he wrote Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon,[4] the first children's book character developed specifically to explore moral issues related to vegetarianism. The original story and a follow-up cookbook became bestsellers for independent publishing house Barefoot Books.
In 1999, Rankin/Bass joined forces with James G. Robinson's Morgan Creek Productions and Nest Entertainment, creators of the animated trilogy The Swan Princess, for the first and only animated adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I, based on a treatment by Rankin. Distributed by Warner Bros., the film flopped at the U.S. box office and many U.S. film critics took it to task for its depictions of "offensive ethnic stereotyping."[citation needed]
In 2001, Fox aired Rankin/Bass's first new original Christmas special in sixteen years,Santa Baby! which like most of Rankin/Bass's other specials was based on a popular, similarly-titled Christmas song. Santa Baby! was different from its predecessors by its use of African-American characters and voices performers, among them Eartha Kitt, Patti LaBelle, and Gregory Hines;[5] it also employed sound effects created by an outside company, Hanna-Barbera. Santa Baby! turned out to be the final Rankin/Bass-produced special; the Rankin/Bass partnership was dissolved shortly after, with most of its remaining assets acquired by Warner Bros. Television.
Many of Rankin/Bass' films are shown on ABC Family during their December "25 Days of Christmas" seasonal period, though several are heavily edited, with scenes shortened and entire songs removed. Both Rankin and Bass were involved in the new ThunderCats series on Cartoon Network until its cancellation. In the series, a magical item called the Forever Bag was activated by the word "Rankin-Bass".
Library and rights
The Rankin/Bass library is now in the hands of other companies. General Electric's Tomorrow Entertainment acquired the original Videocraft International in 1971. The pre-1974 library (including the "classic four" Christmas specials) remained under the ownership of GE. In 1988, Lorne Michaels' production company Broadway Video acquired the rights to the pre-1974 Rankin/Bass television material from GE. In 1995, Broadway Video's children's division became Golden Books Family Entertainment, and in turn became Classic Media. In 2012, the classic Rankin/Bass library was sold yet again to DreamWorks Animation.
The Rankin/Bass theatrical feature film library (with the exception of Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July and The Last Unicorn) is now owned by French production company StudioCanal.
In 1978, Telepictures Corporation acquired all of the post-1974 Rankin/Bass library. All Rankin/Bass material from 1974-1989 (except The Last Unicorn) is now owned by Warner Bros. (through the studio's 1989 acquisition of Lorimar-Telepictures) and managed by its animation division. In 2008, Jack Frost (1979) was officially released on DVD by Warner Home Video (after several years of lax licensing to various low-cost distributors).
The Last Unicorn is owned by ITV Global Entertainment Ltd., with Lionsgate handling video distribution under ITV's license. Television rights to The Jackson 5ive are owned by CBS Television Distribution due to being the successor to Worldvision Enterprises. DreamWorks Animation does have ancillary rights, however.
Santa, Baby!, the final Rankin/Bass special is owned by The Coca-Cola Company.
Television rights to most of the Rankin/Bass library are held in the United States by ABC and ABC Family, with the exceptions of the original Rudolph and Frosty specials, which are held by CBS.
In 2012, Warner Home Video dropped the property rights to The Flight of Dragons. As a result, the rights were reverted to the owners of the original material the production was based on. However, a live-action film license was granted to Seatte-based production company Trico Films LLC in early 2013, but the project has since been halted with no affirmed continuation date.
Filmography
Feature films
Stop-motion
- Willy McBean and his Magic Machine (1965)
- The Daydreamer (1966)
- Mad Monster Party (1967)
- Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979, Mickey Rooney)
Traditional Animation
- The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967)
- The Hobbit (1977) (TV movie)
- The Return of the King (1980) (TV movie)
- The Last Unicorn (1982)
- The Flight of Dragons (1982) (TV movie)
- The Wind in the Willows (1987) (TV movie)
Live-action
- King Kong Escapes (1968)
- Marco (1973)
- The Last Dinosaur (1977)
- The Bermuda Depths (1977) (TV-Movie)
- The Ivory Ape (1980)
- The Bushido Blade (1981)
- The Sins of Dorian Gray (1983)
Animated TV specials
- Return to Oz (1964) (produced as Videocraft)
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964, Burl Ives) (produced as Videocraft)
- The Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Show (1965)
- The Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1966; James Cagney)
- The Cricket on the Hearth (1967, Danny Thomas & Roddy MacDowall)
- Mouse on the Mayflower (1968, Tennessee Ernie Ford)
- The Little Drummer Boy (1968, Greer Garson)
- Frosty the Snowman (1969, Jimmy Durante)
- The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970)
- Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (1970, Fred Astaire)
- Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971, Danny Kaye)
- The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes (1972) (produced as a division of Tomorrow Entertainment)
- Puss in Boots (1972 TV special)[6]
- 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974, Joel Grey & George Gobel)
- The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974, Shirley Booth)
- The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975, Angela Lansbury)
- The First Easter Rabbit (1976, Burl Ives)
- Frosty's Winter Wonderland (1976, Andy Griffith)
- Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976, Red Skelton)
- The Little Drummer Boy, Book II (1976, Greer Garson)
- The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town (1977, Fred Astaire)
- Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977, Roger Miller)
- The Stingiest Man in Town (1978, Tom Bosley)
- Jack Frost (1979, Buddy Hackett)
- Pinocchio's Christmas (1980)
- The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold (1981, Art Carney)
- Coneheads (1983)
- The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985)
- Santa, Baby! (2001, Patti LaBelle)
Episodes of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie
- Mad Mad Mad Monsters (1972)
- Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid (1972)
- Red Baron (1972)
- That Girl in Wonderland (1973)
Animated series
- The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1960)
- Tales of the Wizard of Oz (1961)
- The King Kong Show (1966–1969)
- The Smokey Bear Show (1969)
- The Tomfoolery Show (1970-1976)
- The Reluctant Dragon and Mr. Toad Show (1970)
- The Jackson 5ive (1971)
- The Osmonds (1972)
- Kid Power (1972)
- Festival of Family Classics (1972)
- ThunderCats (1985–1987)
- SilverHawks (1986)
- The Comic Strip (featuring TigerSharks, Street Frogs, Mini Monsters and Karate Kat) (1987)
Sequels to Rankin/Bass specials not made by Rankin/Bass
Several sequels were made to Rankin/Bass specials by other producers.
- Frosty Returns (1992): Pseudo-sequel to Frosty the Snowman. Made by Bill Melendez, Broadway Video and CBS.
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys (2001): Sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Made by GoodTimes Entertainment, Golden Books Family Entertainment and Tundra Productions using staff from GoodTimes' own, separate Rudolph adaptation.
- The Legend of Frosty the Snowman (2004): Sequel to Frosty the Snowman. Made by Classic Media.
- Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie (2005): Sequel to Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Made by Classic Media.
- A Miser Brothers' Christmas (2008): Sequel to The Year Without a Santa Claus. Made by Warner Bros. and Cuppa Coffee Studio.
References
- ↑ The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006) (TV)
- ↑ The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus (1985) at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Obituary for Arthur Rankin, Jr. from The Royal Gazette, 1/31/2014
- ↑ Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, 1999, ISBN 978-1-902283-36-4
- ↑ Santa Baby! (2001) at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/57128-Puss_in_Boots.html
External links
- Rick Goldschmidt's "The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass"
- The Big Cartoon DataBase entry for Rankin/Bass Productions
- Archive of McQuarrie, Jim, "Mad Monster Party?/Movie Classics No. 460", "Oddball Comics" (column) #1152, April 16, 2007
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