Rankin/Bass Productions

Rankin/Bass Productions
General information
Founded	September 14, 1960
Defunct	March 4, 1987
Predecessor	Videocraft International/Arthur Rankin Jr. Associates
Headquarters	New York, New York, United States
Key People	Arthur Rankin, Jr. Jules Bass
Industry	Film industry
Products	Television specials Television shows Feature films

Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. (founded as 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 Universal Studios (via DreamWorks Animation/DreamWorks Classics), while the post-1973 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.

All of the studio's creative output was outsourced to at least 4 Japanese animation companies: Topcraft, Mushi Production, Toei Doga and TCJ (Television Corporation of Japan).