The company was founded in New York City by
Arthur Rankin Jr. and
Jules Bass on September 14, 1960, as
Videocraft International, Ltd. The majority of Rankin/Bass' work, including all of their "Animagic" stop-motion productions (which they were well known for), were created in Tokyo, Japan. Throughout the 1960s, the Animagic productions were headed by Japanese stop-motion animator
Tadahito Mochinaga at his studio, MOM Production. He was credited for his supervision as "Tad Mochinaga". Rankin/Bass' traditional animation output was done by several animation studios such as
Toei Animation,
Eiken (formerly known as TCJ),
Dentsu,
Mushi Production, and especially
Topcraft, which was formed on February 1, 1972, by Toei animator Toru Hara (who was credited as an animation supervisor in some of Rankin/Bass' specials). While several of Topcraft's staff, including Hara and industry legends such as
Hayao Miyazaki, established
Studio Ghibli in the wake of Topcraft's closure, others formed another studio:
Pacific Animation Corporation, which continued working on Rankin/Bass' titles until it was bought by Disney in 1988. 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. The Canadian group included actors such as
Paul Soles,
Larry D. Mann,
Billie Mae Richards,
Paul Kligman and
Carl Banas.
Maury Laws served as musical director for almost all of the animated films and television programs.
Romeo Muller was another consistent contributor, serving as screenwriter for many of Rankin/Bass' best-known productions including
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964),
The Little Drummer Boy (1968), and
Frosty the Snowman (1969).
Output One of Videocraft's first projects was an independently produced television series in 1961,
The New Adventures of Pinocchio, based on the Italian author
Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel
The Adventures of Pinocchio and featuring "Animagic", a
stop motion animation process using figurines or puppets (a process already pioneered by
George Pal's "
Puppetoons" and
Art Clokey's
Gumby and
Davey and Goliath), managed by Mochinaga and his MOM Production staffers for Videocraft with
Dentsu. This was followed by another independently produced series in 1961,
Tales of the Wizard of Oz, Videocraft's adaptation of the 1900 novel
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by
L. Frank Baum, as well as their first production to use traditional cel animation. Unlike many of Rankin/Bass' works,
Tales of the Wizard of Oz was animated by Crawley Films in
Ottawa, headed by
F. R. Crawley.
Rudolph era 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
General Electric, later owner of NBC. It was a stop motion animated adaptation of
Robert L. May's 1939 story "
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the 1949 song it inspired, "
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", written by May's brother-in-law,
Johnny Marks. Almost two decades earlier, in 1948, it had been made into a cartoon by
Max Fleischer, brother and former partner of
Dave Fleischer, as a traditional cel animated short for the Jam Handy Film Company. With the American actor
Burl Ives in the role of Sam the snowman, the narrator, Canadian actress
Billie Mae Richards as the voice of the main title character, Rudolph, 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 when it moved to
CBS. In 2019, for its 55th anniversary, the special was also aired on
Freeform as part of its "
25 Days of Christmas" programming block, although it continued to air on
CBS under a separate license with Universal, but in 2024, it came back to
NBC for its 60th anniversary. The special contained seven original songs. In 1965, a new song was filmed in "Animagic" to replace "We're a Couple of Misfits", titled "Fame and Fortune". The success of
Rudolph led to numerous other Christmas specials. The first was
The Cricket on the Hearth in 1967, with two live-action announcements by
Danny Thomas, continuity and character designs by Don Duga and
Paul Coker, and animation by Jiro Yanase's
TCJ, followed by the 1968
Thanksgiving special
The Mouse on the Mayflower, told by
Tennessee Ernie Ford and animated by
Kenzo Masaoka, Sanae Yamamoto, and Yasuji Murata's
Toei Animation. Paul Coker Jr. would go on to design characters and production for more than 40 Rankin-Bass specials and episodes.
Other holiday specials Many of their other specials, like
Rudolph, were based on popular Christmas songs. In 1968, the British-American actress
Greer Garson provided dramatic narration for
The Little Drummer Boy, based on
the traditional song and set during the birth of the baby
Jesus Christ, and starring the
Puerto Rican actor
José Ferrer as the voice of Ben Haramed. During that year, Videocraft International, Ltd. (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 when Tomorrow Entertainment, a unit of the
General Electric Company, acquired the production company. The "Animagic" process for
The Little Drummer Boy took place at MOM Production, which was renamed Video Tokyo Production after Tadahito Mochinaga left Japan for his return trip to China following the completion of the animation for
Mad Monster Party?, thus ending his collaboration with Rankin/Bass. Takeo Nakamura, the director of
Sanrio's 1979 stop motion feature
Nutcracker Fantasy, was among the "Animagic" team, but he was never credited as a supervisor. The following year, in 1969,
Jimmy Durante sang and told the story of
Frosty the Snowman, with
Jackie Vernon voicing Frosty. It was based on
Steve Nelson and
Jack Rollins' 1950 song
of the same name, and also introduced
Billy De Wolfe as the voice of Professor Hinkle, a greedy magician who tries to steal away the magic hat that brought Frosty to life to become a billionaire.
Mushi Production, an animation studio founded in 1961 and formerly led by the manga artist
Osamu Tezuka (creator of
Astro Boy,
Kimba the White Lion and
Ambassador Magma), handled the animation for the special with supervision by Yusaku "Steve" Nakagawa, a layout artist and character designer from
Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California. The year 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 the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger, voiced by
Paul Frees. Kringle later marries the town's schoolteacher, Miss Jessica, voiced by
Robie Lester. Kizo Nagashima, the associate director of Rankin/Bass' previous productions, was credited as a production supervisor. In 1971, Rankin/Bass produced their first Easter television special,
Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with the voices of
Danny Kaye as the narrator Seymour S. Sassafrass,
Vincent Price as the evil rabbit January Q. Irontail, and
Casey Kasem from Hanna-Barbera's
Scooby-Doo franchise as the title character Peter Cottontail. It was not based upon
the title song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, but on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich titled
The Easter Bunny That Overslept. This was the second and final "Animagic" production to be supervised by Kizo Nagashima. Steve Nakagawa was also involved in this special as a continuity designer. In 1977, Fred Astaire returned as S. D. Kluger in ''
The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town'', telling the tale of the
Easter Bunny's origins. From there, Rankin/Bass used Masaki Iizuka as an associate producer, and Akikazu Kono as an "Animagic" supervisor. Back in 1973, Iizuka was the production assistant of
Marco—a live-action musical film based on the biography of Italian merchant, explorer, and writer
Marco Polo, filmed at
Toho Company in Tokyo and on location throughout East Asia, and featuring Kono's "Animagic" sequence of the Tree People. Previously, he was met by Rankin during the animation production of the Halloween television special
Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters at Mushi Production in 1972, and became an integral part of Rankin/Bass for many years. In 1974, Rankin/Bass Productions was relaunched once again as an independent production company and produced another Christmas special for television,
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 (voiced by
Dick Shawn) and
Heat Miser (voiced by
George S. Irving). It was the first Rankin/Bass "Animagic" production on which Akikazu Kono and puppet maker Ichiro Komuro share in the production supervision. It was
remade as a poorly received
live-action/special effects TV movie shown on
NBC in 2006 starring
Delta Burke and
John Goodman as Mrs. Claus and Santa. Throughout the 1970s, Rankin/Bass, with Video Tokyo and the former Toei Animation employee Toru Hara's
Topcraft, 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 Lilly Loraine, 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 the Clockwork Whale from Rudolph's Shiny New Year and Jack Frost from Frosty's Winter Wonderland. Later that year, Jack appeared in his own special, Jack Frost''. Narrated by
Buddy Hackett, it 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). In this special, Jack's voice was performed by
Robert Morse, who previously voiced Stuffy in 1976's
The First Easter Rabbit (loosely based on Margery Williams'
The Velveteen Rabbit), and young
Ebenezer Scrooge in 1978's
The Stingiest Man in Town (based on Charles Dickens'
A Christmas Carol). Among Rankin/Bass' original specials was 1975's
The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, featuring the voice of
Angela Lansbury (who also starred in the 1982 adaptation of
The Last Unicorn) as the narrating and singing nun, Sister Theresa, and
Irving Berlin's Christmas classic "
White 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 (voiced by
Alfred Drake) summons a council of the Immortals to bestow upon a dying Claus (voiced by
Earl Hammond, with
J.D. Roth voicing the young 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. This special has recently been released as part of
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's
Warner Archive Collection, on a double-feature disc that also contains
Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey which is often paired with
The First Christmas on holiday broadcasts. Many of these specials are still shown seasonally on American television, and some have been released on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
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 the production of Rankin/Bass' first theatrical film,
Willy McBean and His Magic Machine, another joint venture between Videocraft and Dentsu. 1966 brought
The Daydreamer, the first of three films to be produced in association with executive producer
Joseph E. Levine's
Embassy Pictures in Los Angeles, California, and the film adaptation of the stories and characters by the Danish author
Hans Christian Andersen, which combines live-action, special effects and "Animagic"; and
The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, the story of the famous forest fire-fighting bear seen in numerous public service announcements, narrated by
James Cagney. The theatrical feature film
Mad Monster Party? saw theatrical release in the spring of 1967, featuring one of the last performances by the British actor
Boris Karloff. The film features affectionate send-ups of classic movie monsters and their locales, adding "Beatle"-wigged skeletons as a send-up of the era's pop bands, and a writing staff borrowed from
Mad magazine, including the cartoonist
Jack Davis, who designed the characters of this film. It is also the last "Animagic" project that Tadahito Mochinaga supervised. In 1972 and 1973, Rankin/Bass produced four animated TV movies for
The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series:
Mad Mad Mad Monsters (with the animation by Mushi),
Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid,
The Red Baron, and
That Girl in Wonderland (all featuring the animation by Topcraft). 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 that was co-produced with
ITC Entertainment in London, England,
Peter Dickinson's
The Flight of Dragons and
Kenneth Grahame's
The Wind in the Willows which was animated by the second overseas animation unit of Hanna-Barbera, James Wang's Cuckoo's Nest Studios (now
Wang Film Productions) in Taipei, Taiwan. In addition to their prime time specials, Rankin/Bass produced several regular television shows in traditional animation, including
The King Kong Show (1966),
The Smokey Bear Show (1969), animated by
Toei Animation,
The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show (1970), animated by
Mushi Production,
The Tomfoolery Show (1970) animated by
Halas and Batchelor Animation, Ltd.,
The Jackson 5ive in 1971 (the latter co-produced with
Motown Productions), and
Kid Power and
The Osmonds in 1972. The most successful of these was
Ted Wolf's
ThunderCats in 1985, an action-adventure series based on his related line of toys. It was followed by two similar TV shows about humanoid animals,
SilverHawks in 1986, and
TigerSharks, as part of the series
The Comic Strip in 1987. Each of those four series was mainly animated by former Topcraft employees' Pacific Animation Corporation, with production management by Masaki Iizuka, just before the studio was bought by
Disney and renamed
Walt Disney Animation Japan in 1988. Neither one enjoyed the same commercial success as
ThunderCats did, however. Rankin/Bass also attempted live-action productions, such as 1967's
King Kong Escapes, a co-production with
Toho; 1976's
The Last Dinosaur; 1978's
The Bermuda Depths; 1980's
The Ivory Ape (all co-produced with
Tsuburaya Productions, the creators of the
Ultra Series); and 1983's
The Sins of Dorian Gray. With the exception of
King Kong Escapes, all were made-for-television films.
Demise After its last series output, Rankin/Bass shut down its production company on March 4, 1987. Arthur Rankin Jr. would split his time between New York City, where the company still had its offices, and his home in
Bermuda. Rankin died at
Harrington Sound, Bermuda on January 30, 2014, at the age of 89. Bass became a vegetarian; a decade later, he wrote
Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, 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. Bass died on October 25, 2022, at the age of 87. In 1999, Rankin/Bass joined forces with James G. Robinson's
Morgan Creek Productions and
Nest Family Entertainment (creators of
The Swan Princess franchise) 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. Pictures with its
Warner Bros. Family Entertainment division, the film flopped at the American box office.
Stephen Hunter, among several American film critics, criticized the film's depictions of "offensive ethnic stereotyping." In 2001,
Fox aired the first new original Christmas special to be produced by both Rankin and Bass in 16 years,
Santa, Baby!, which like most of their production company's other specials was based on a
popular, similarly-titled Christmas song.
Santa, Baby! stood out from its predecessors due to its use of African-American characters and voice performers, such as
Patti LaBelle (the narrator),
Eartha Kitt,
Gregory Hines,
Vanessa L. Williams and
Tom Joyner. Although Pacific Animation Corporation was responsible for the overseas animation production of the special with the background art provided by Atelier BWCA and the See Throu Studio, some of the animation services were done at Steven Hahn's
Hanho Heung-Up in Seoul, South Korea.
Santa, Baby! turned out to be the final Rankin/Bass-produced special; the Rankin/Bass partnership was officially dissolved shortly after, with most of its remaining assets acquired by
Warner Bros. Entertainment. The company last existed legally as TPIX Subsidiary Corp. Currently, Rankin/Bass' pre-September 1974 library (including works from Videocraft International) is owned by
Universal Pictures, which acquired
DreamWorks Animation's
DreamWorks Classics portfolio, while
Warner Bros. Discovery owns the rights to the post-September 1974 library. Universal also retained the rights to
King Kong Escapes and also currently holds the rights to
Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, again, via DreamWorks Classics.
StudioCanal holds the rights to the films from Rankin/Bass that Embassy Pictures distributed, with American distribution rights split between
Rialto Pictures and
Lionsgate (excluding
The Daydreamer, the American distribution rights to which are with Scorpion Releasing) while
ITV Studios currently holds the rights to
The Last Unicorn, with select distribution rights currently licensed to
Shout! Studios. The rights to the 1999 animated film adaptation of
The King and I are currently held by
Morgan Creek Entertainment, with distribution handled by
Revolution Studios. ==Legacy==