Rankin/Bass Productions

Rankin/Bass Productions

Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd. and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.) was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usually done in stop motion animation. Rankin/Bass' stop-motion productions are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called Animagic. Nearly all of the studio's animation was outsourced to Japanese animation companies such as Toei Doga Entertainment, MOM Production, Mushi Productions and Topcraft. Rankin/Bass was one of the first western studios to outsource their low-budget animated television and film productions to animation studios in foreign countries; the others that already practiced animation outsourcing includes Total Television and King Features Syndicate TV in New York City; and Jay Ward Productions and Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California.

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