Known for Directing
Arthur Rankin, Jr. (July 19, 1924 - January 30, 2014) was an American-born, Bermudian director, producer and writer, mostly working in animation. The son of actor Arthur Rankin, in the early 1960s he founded the film production company Videocraft International (now called Rankin/Bass) with Jules Bass. The two worked closely together for many years, co-directing and producing a wide array of stop motion animated features and cartoons, perhaps most famously the holiday-themed TV specials, such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974 TV special), and Jack Frost. He is also credited with devising the story for many Rankin/Bass productions, including the featurefilms The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party?. In 1977 Rankin and Bass produced a version of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. The pair also teamed on a wide variety of animated TV series, including ThunderCats and Silverhawks. The pair last teamed on the 1987 TV special based on The Wind in the Willows. Rankin's last producing credit was on the 1999 animated version of The King and I, in which Bass was not involved, since Arthur was a supervising animator in The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. Rankin's grandfather was Harry Davenport, perhaps best known as Dr. Meade in Gone with the Wind (1939). Description above from the Wikipedia article Arthur Rankin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born
July 19, 1924
Died
January 30, 2014 (age 89)
Birthplace
New York City, New York, USA
Filmography
105 films, 20 shows


The Rudolph, Frosty & Friends Sing Along
2024 · 24m
Ten Musical Yuletide treasures featuring the voices of Fred Astaire, Jimmy Durante and Burl Ives. Create A tuneful new family tradition with this festive, fun-to-follow sing along!


SilverHawks: The Origin Story
1986 · 46m · US
The next generation of superheroes has arrived... SILVERHAWKS. They fly on silver winds - they fight with nerves of steel. Partly metal...partly real. Born of a time beyond time, they are the SILVERHAWKS. They sacrificed their human bodies, modified to withstand the stress of their long journey through space to a distant galaxy. Sent there to defend the universe against the terrible MonStar and his intergalactic mod. SILVERHAWKS - the first super androids with the minds of men and the muscles of machines.


The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
1985 · 50m · US
The Great Ak calls a council of the Immortals to ask that Santa Claus be given immortality. And to justify it, he tells the history of Santa Claus. The Ak found an abandoned baby and gave it to a lioness and a fairy to raise, who named him Claus. When Claus grew up, the Great Ak showed him the evil and hardship in the world and Claus decides to live there and relieve some of the suffering. He decides to make toys for orphans, but King Awgwa, the ruler of the valley where Claus lives doesn't want the children to be happy, and there is a great battle among Immortals.


The Wind in the Willows
1983 · 1h 36m · US
The Irresponsible Toad is in a mess and needs help from his friends try and save Toad Hall.


The Coneheads
1983 · 24m · US
In this animated pilot based on the SNL sketch, The Coneheads come to conquer Earth but they soon find themselves becoming domesticated.


The Last Unicorn
1982 · 1h 33m · UK
A unicorn learns from a riddle-speaking butterfly that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the monstrous Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly's words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard.


The Flight of Dragons
1982 · 1h 36m · US
The realm of magic is being threatened by the realm of logic, so the green wizard, Carolinus, decides to shield it for all time. Ommadon, the evil red wizard, stands in his way. Carolinus then calls for a quest that is to be led by a man named Peter Dickinson, who is the first man of both the realms of science and magic. It is Peter's job to defeat Ommadon.


The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold
1981 · 24m · US
Sent in search of a Christmas tree, cabin boy Dinty Doyle lands on a mysterious, uncharted Irish island where he accidentally releases a bad-tempered banshee from her pine tree prison. Leprechaun Blarney Kilakilarney knows that in order to survive, the banshee will try to swipe his clan's pot of Christmas gold. With some magical assistance from Lord Patrick, the king of the wee folk, Dinty and Blarney make a plan to outwit the gold-hungry hag before Christmas morning dawns.


Pinocchio's Christmas
1980 · 49m · US
As Geppetto prepares for Christmas, Pinocchio joins a puppet show to earn money for a present. There he meets and elopes with the beautiful girl puppet, Julietta, leaving Geppetto alone and worried.


The Return of the King
1980 · 1h 38m · US
Two Hobbits struggle to destroy the Ring in Mount Doom while their friends desperately fight evil Lord Sauron's forces in a final battle.


Jack Frost
1979 · 48m · US
Pardon-me Pete, the official groundhog of Groundhog Day, tells the story of Jack Frost, who falls in love with a beautiful young woman and begs Father Winter to make him human so that she can see him. His request is granted, but only on the condition that by the Spring he has a house, a bag of gold, a horse and a wife. But Jack finds that life as a human is more complicated than he thought.


Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
1979 · 1h 37m · US
Winterbolt is trying to make the North Pole his evil wonderland, and it is up to Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and others to stop him.


The Stingiest Man in Town
1978 · 50m · JP
An animated adaptation of A Christmas Carol from Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass -- the duo behind some of the most enduring Christmas specials ever (including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). Reinvented as a 49-minute musical, this charming cartoon stars the voice of Walter Matthau as the bedeviled Scrooge and Tom Bosley as the Jiminy Cricket-type narrator, B. Humbug, Esq. It features animation by Japanese studio Topcraft, known for their work on other Rankin/Bass films such as The Hobbit, The Flight of Dragons, and The Last Unicorn.


Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
1977 · 25m · US
Nestor the donkey is a bit of an oddity--his long ears are enough for six donkeys and stretch all the way to the ground. One night, when Nestor is locked out in the cold, he begins to wander the desert.


The Hobbit
1977 · 1h 17m · JP
The story follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, a diminutive creative who resides in a place called Middle-Earth before he is compelled to go on a quest to find a treasure buried deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain.


The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town
1977 · 50m · US
The Mailman decides to stop another deluge of letters by answering questions about the Easter Bunny: Sunny, a baby rabbit found and adopted by Kidville (a town of only kids--even a kid mailman). And when Sunny goes delivering eggs to the nearby town (which he has to dye to fool Gadzooks, the mean bear on the mountain), he discovers that there are no kids in the town, and that the rightful (kid) ruler is being suppressed by his aunt. But the young king likes Sunny's dyed eggs and jelly beans. So Kidsville, with the help of an old train engine, makes a few plans (and a decoy chocolate rabbit) to distribute them.


The Little Drummer Boy: Book II
1976 · 24m · US
Aaron, the drummer boy, struggles to protect a bellmaker's great silver bells from seizure by Roman soldiers


Rudolph's Shiny New Year
1976 · 50m · US
Rudolph must find Happy, the baby new year, before the midnight of New Year's Eve.


Frosty's Winter Wonderland
1976 · 25m · US
Years have passed since Frosty left for the North Pole, but his promise is kept when he hears news of the first snowfall of the season, and decides to return.


The First Easter Rabbit
1976 · 25m · US
A beloved toy stuffed rabbit is rescued by a fairy to be the first Easter Rabbit.


The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow
1975 · 24m · JP
A young shepherd, Lucas, is blinded by lightening, and some kindly nuns at a nearby abbey take him in. Sister Catherine describes snow to Lucas, who has never seen it. Lucas gets chosen to play an angel in the abbey's Christmas pageant, and the Christmas snow that falls during the pageant works a small miracle.


The Year Without a Santa Claus
1974 · 51m · US
Feeling forgotten by the children of the world, old St. Nick decides to skip his gift-giving journey and take a vacation. Mrs. Claus and two spunky little elves, Jingle and Jangle, set out to see to where all the season's cheer has disappeared. Aided by a magical snowfall, they reawaken the spirit of Christmas in children's hearts and put Santa back in action.


'Twas the Night Before Christmas
1974 · 25m · US
When a town learns that Santa Claus has struck it off his delivery schedule due to an insulting letter, a way must be found to change his mind.


Festival of Family Classics: Alice in Wonderland
1973 · 22m · US
Part of the animated anthology series 'Festival of Family Classics' by Rankin/Bass Productions, this adaptation follows a blonde, pig-tailed Alice as she visits the bewildering world of Wonderland. Alice encounters a host of characters including the blue Caterpillar, Mad Hatter, March Hare, Cheshire Cat, the Dormouse, who looks and sounds like a punch-drunk fighter, and the Red Queen, who uses a flamingo for a croquet mallet.


That Girl in Wonderland
1973 · 51m · US
Anne Marie imagines herself in the stories "Alice in Wonderland," "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Cinderella".


A Christmas Tree
1972 · 23m
With the help of Charles Dickens, two young children attempt to save the essence of Christmas from the evil Mantu.


The Red Baron
1972 · 45m · US
This animated feature casts the Red Baron as a hero, in a world of heroic anthropomorphic dogs and villainous anthropomorphic cats.


Jack O'Lantern
1972 · 23m · US
A leprechaun, who had changed himself into a pumpkin seed to hibernate for the winter, comes to life as Mr. Jack O'Lantern, who then uses his pumpkin shell to help scare away Zelda the Witch and Archibald the Warlock.


Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid
1972 · 1h
A guardian angel agrees to help Willie Mays win the National League Pennant if Mays agrees to take care of Veronica, a lonely, mischievous orphan girl. Veronica makes Mays' life difficult, but when relatives show up to claim her after hearing that she's inherited money, Mays' heart softens.


20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1972


The Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters
1972 · 44m · US
All of Universal's greatest classic monsters gather at the Transylvania Astoria Hotel for Frankenstein's monster and his bride's Friday the 13th midnight wedding.


The Emperor's New Clothes
1972 · 52m · US
Two con men convince a king that they have woven for him a suit made of magical cloth that only stupid or incompetent people are unable to see. Not wanting to seem dull, everyone pretends to admire the king's new clothes although he is completely naked.


Here Comes Peter Cottontail
1971 · 51m · US
Peter Cottontail wants to be the #1 chief Easter Bunny, and everyone in April Valley agrees...except for Evil Irontail. Peter must deliver more eggs than this archrival to earn the top spot...and save Easter for children everywhere!


Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
1970 · 51m · US
A postman, S.D. Kluger, decides to answer some of the most common questions about Santa Claus, and tells us about a baby named Kris who is raised by a family of elf toymakers named Kringle. When Kris grows up, he wants to deliver toys to the children of Sombertown. But its Mayor is too mean to let that happen. And to make things worse, the Winter Warlock lives between the Kringles and Sombertown.


The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians
1970 · 1h · US
The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians is a 1970 American animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. After the Christmas special Frosty the Snowman (1969), it was Rankin/Bass' second hand-drawn animated work to be outsourced to Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production in Tokyo, Japan. The show aired on ABC on April 7, 1970 before the airing of that year's Oscars. It was a tribute to early vaudeville, and featured animated reworkings of various famous comedians' acts.


Frosty the Snowman
1969 · 25m · US
A discarded silk top-hat becomes the focus of a struggle between a washed-up stage magician and a group of schoolchildren, after it magically brings a snowman to life. Realizing that newly-living Frosty will melt in spring unless he takes refuge in a colder climate, the magic snowman and Karen, a young girl whom he befriends, stow away on a freight train headed for the North Pole. Little do they know that the magician is following them, and he wants his hat back!


The Little Drummer Boy
1968 · 25m · US
After being kidnapped and escaping, young drummer boy Aaron searches for his camel and finds him in the Nativity of the Baby Jesus. Aaron gives Baby Jesus the only gift he has, a song on his drum.


The Mouse on the Mayflower
1968 · 1h · US
The famous ship called Mayflower is trapped amidst a huge storm. The entire story is narrated by a church-mouse called Willum, from his viewpoint. The tale begins with the pilgrim preachers deciding to move to America and getting aboard the Mayflower. However, because of the huge storm, the ship gets on the verge of sinking. Then, Willum, the pilgrim mouse, comes up with an idea to save the ship. When the pilgrims land safely, they write the Mayflower Compact and start constructing their new church and colony. However, it is already the autumn season and they do not have much food stored for the winter. The pilgrims then learn to plant crops during the spring season and celebrate a big feast toward the onset of the autumn season or fall. This is their first Thanksgiving celebration.


Cricket on the Hearth
1967 · 49m · US
A delightful, animated musical version of Charles Dickens' classic tale. A Cricket on the Hearth, tells the story of a poor toymaker and his daughter whom a helpful Cricket named Crocket befriends on Christmas morning. When tragedy strikes the family, it's Crocket who comes to the rescue and restores peace and happiness.


Willy McBean & His Magic Machine
1965 · 1h 34m · JP
Little Willy McBean joins up with a Mexican monkey named Pablo to travel back in time and stop the evil Prof. von Rotten from changing history.