{"id":10280,"date":"2014-04-14T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=10280"},"modified":"2014-04-14T09:12:30","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T16:12:30","slug":"the-japanese-studios-of-rankinbass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/the-japanese-studios-of-rankinbass\/","title":{"rendered":"The Japanese Studios of Rankin\/Bass"},"content":{"rendered":"\"mother-goose-lobbies\"\n

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If there’s one thing that Rankin\/Bass set the precedent for in the animation industry, it was their use of foreign labor. They were one of the first studios to use overseas companies exclusively for animation production, something that would become the norm in made-for-TV animation today. When I talked to Basil Cox, who was the studio’s associate producer in the early 1970s, he told me that they never really employed full-time crew members that most animation studios at the time required. It was just Rankin and Bass themselves, plus composer Maury Laws. Character designers such as Paul Coker Jr. were brought in whenever design work was required. Since everything was done overseas there was no need to employ animators.<\/p>\n

Arthur Rankin Jr., having worked at ABC as an art director, started Videocraft International in the late 1950s, located in New York. Jules Bass, who worked at one of the ad agencies that Videocraft dealt with, later joined the company. Their early projects involved commercials, with clients such as A&P and General Electrics. While several of them utilized limited animation, they were mostly in live-action. According to Rankin, there were desires to go into television programs early on. “Frankly we wanted to get out of commercials because you’re just doing what somebody else wants you to do,\u201d Rankin said in a 2005 interview with Jim Colucci.<\/p>\n

Around this time the Japanese government has been sending representatives to USA, wanting to export their products to the country. A person representing the country’s film industry asked somebody in Washington if he knew any animation producers. It turned out the man knew Rankin, so he was lead to him.<\/p>\n

\"new_pinocchio_1\"The Japanese representative invited Rankin to Japan to visit their animation studios. Rankin toured numerous studios, including Toei Doga, as well as a studio that did stop-motion work. Impressed at what they were doing, Rankin, who has been looking for a way to find the production facilities needed to produce a series, decided to use the Japanese studios to produce his shows. The first series Videocraft did was The New Adventures of Pinocchio<\/em>, a stop-motion series produced in Japan at Dentsu Studio.<\/p>\n

With that, the Videocraft company, also known as Rankin\/Bass, started producing television specials and Saturday Morning programs, both with cels and stop-motion, and almost all of them done in Japan. Since I write about vintage TV anime, I decided to examine the studios that Rankin\/Bass used on their cel-animation projects.<\/p>\n

Toei Doga<\/strong><\/p>\n

Animated:<\/strong> \u201cKing Kong\u201d with \u201dTom of T.H.U.M.B\u201d (1966 series), \u201cThe Wacky World of Mother Goose\u201d (1967 feature), \u201cThe Mouse on the Mayflower\u201d (1968 special), \u201cThe Smokey Bear Show\u201d (1969 series)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Kong-record\"Toei was one of the studios Rankin visited on his first trip to Japan. Having been in business since 1956, Toei was regarded as the Japanese Disney studio, producing high quality features and short films. They started producing shows for television in 1963 with \u201cWolf Boy Ken\u201d, which I wrote about in the past, so they were already familiar with the demands of television schedules when they agreed to animate King Kong<\/em> for Videocraft. Unlike most shows they contracted out, Toei managed to get the rights to have this show aired in Japan, part of the deal they made with the company.<\/p>\n

King Kong<\/em>, which also included \u201cTom of T.H.U.M.B.\u201d in the middle, aired on ABC Saturday Mornings starting September 10, 1966. In Japan, it aired on the NET (Nihon Educational Television) network from April 5 to October 4, 1967. NET (now TV Asahi) is partly owned by Toei, hence the network airing shows and cartoons made by the Toei company.<\/p>\n

Because it aired in Japan, \u201cKing Kong\u201d is regarded as a Japanese\/USA co-production. In Japanese anime listings the show is frequently listed as one of the shows airing in 1967, with both companies listed as producers. Among the animators involved on the show includes Yasuji Mori (who would create \u201cHustle Punch\u201d), Tsutomu Shibayama and Osamu Kobayashi (both animation directors for The Gutsy Frog<\/em>). On the US side, Jack Davis did the character designs. Unfortunately, Davis’s style wasn’t suited for limited animation, especially the kind done by Japanese artists not familiar with the American style. As a result, his design work ended up being extremely butchered. One is hard-pressed to watch the show and recognize Davis’ design work.<\/p>\n