The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass: A Portfolio

by Rick Goldschmidt

The history of Rankin/Bass Productions (originally known as Videocraft International, Inc.) spans more than thirty years and includes dozens of fondly-remembered animated television specials, feature films, and television series. With the assistance of Arthur Rankin, Jr., author Rick Goldschmidt has assembled this complete visual history of the animated projects of Rankin/Bass.
Benefiting from generous access to the studio's archives, the author has assembled an array of production stills, concept artwork, storyboards, advertising materials and behind-the-scenes photographs that document every single production that issued from Rankin/Bass over the years, including projects that were never released. Dozens of interviews with animators, composers, voice-actors, and artists augment the extensive commentary contributed by Arthur Rankin, Jr.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, History, Christmas, Holiday, Reference, Media Tie In

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 1997

Reviews

[Steven "Steve" · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very enjoyable look at the portfolio of specials, tv shows, and movies made by Rankin/Bass over their entire career(s). The book itself gives summaries of each show and has many interesting behind the scenes photos as well as tidbits of information from various interviews and other sources. The only downside to this book is that there are multiple unnecessary hyphenations and other grammatical oddities that made it seem like the original writing was reformatted or newly spaced and the text was never updated or corrected. Despite those minor quibbles, this book is a treasure trove of information on all things Rankin/Bass.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, well, well done history of the Rankin-Bass puppet animation production company. The storyboards, production stills, puppet designs and memorabilia (lunch boxes, etc.) will blow your mind. Whether your taste runs toward "Rudolph The Red Nosed reindeer", "Jack Frost", "Mad Monster Party" or "Her Comes Peter Cottontail" you'll have tons of fun looking at this!

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must for anyone who grew up watching the holiday specials by Rankin-Bass during the late-1960s and 1970s. There is some great background information and tons of photos and illustrations. I loved this trip down this nostalgic road.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basically a catalogue of all of the Rankin/Bass shows and specials. It gave me a walk down Memory Lane of some of most favorite holiday specials, but I expected more behind-the-scenes information vs summaries of each special.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview of childhood iconic classics

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

An encyclopedia really of all the media works produced by Arthur Rankin Jr & Jules Bass, featuring vintage colored and black and white photographs, artwork, and other miscellaneous memorabilia. It was a wonderful book to look through. There are anecdotes here and there, but mainly it contains summaries of all the short films, specials, feature films and television shows Rankin & Bass produced over their 30 plus year history. I consider myself a pretty big fan of their work, but there were plenty of their works I didn't even know about. It's just unfortunate that many of these treasured programs don't have official releases or at the very least have gone out of print.

Arthur Rankin Jr has since passed on, but his legacy will last for all time.

[Kellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the very first book I purchased from Amazon waaaay back in the mid-90's when we added the Internet to our home.

My love for stop-motion animation borders on obsession. It is a dying art and thank God Tim Burton and few other directors still practice.

It is also my childhood memories of Rankin/Bass' immortal creations such as "Rudolph", "Peter Cottontail", and the rarely seen "Mad Monster Party".

All I can say is <3

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

Kindle version was very disappointing. Font sizes changed at random, photo quality was very poor. I was really excited to read some behind the scenes stories, but really there are very few. This is a nice list of shows and characters but it truly is more of a portfolio than reading material.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of the Rankin/Bass

A little disappointed that there was a good portion of recaps rather than more inside/background info, but it was still really interesting to learn just how much Rankin/Bass is responsible for. A good read for Rankin/Bass fans.

[Tonya Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reference book