50 Fun Facts About Rankin/Bass

In Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Hermey quits Santa's workshop to follow which career dream?

A dentist is what Hermey longs to be, and the dream pays off: he pulls the Abominable Snow Monster's teeth, leaving the beast harmless.

Staff from Topcraft, animators of Rankin/Bass's The Last Unicorn, went on to form which famous company?

Studio Ghibli grew out of Topcraft: after the Rankin/Bass jobs, Hayao Miyazaki hired the studio to make Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and its core members went on to found the new company.

Which comedian narrated Rankin/Bass's Frosty the Snowman, having recorded the song himself back in 1950?

Jimmy Durante made the special his final film role. He tells the story, sings the title song, and a cartoon version of him marches in the closing parade.

Which star replaced the first voice of Sam the Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to please NBC?

Burl Ives took over the part from Larry D. Mann, who stayed on as Yukon Cornelius. Hiring a famous narrator became the studio's habit for later specials.

In Frosty the Snowman, where does Professor Hinkle lock Frosty inside, causing the snowman to melt?

A greenhouse was meant as a kindness: Frosty carries his freezing young friend inside to warm her up, and Hinkle shuts the door behind them.

In The Year Without a Santa Claus, who is asked to settle the Miser brothers' weather feud?

Mother Nature is the feuding pair's own mother. She summons both sons, over their protests, and forcefully persuades them to strike a compromise.

Which film star voiced mailman S.D. Kluger in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town and an Easter follow-up?

Fred Astaire plays Kluger as a postman whose truck breaks down, so he answers children's letters with Santa's life story. He returned to explain the Easter Bunny's origins.

Which lost animal does Kris Kringle befriend and name Topper in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town?

A penguin far from home, Topper joins Kris on his first trip to deliver toys and is still at his side when the mailman narrator heads north at the end.

Which modern holiday film is heavily influenced by the look and style of Rankin/Bass's Christmas specials?

Elf wears the debt openly, and it is not alone: the specials' doll-like puppet style has been parodied everywhere from Saturday Night Live to South Park.

Which appraisal show featured surviving Santa and Rudolph puppets from the Rankin/Bass special in 2006?

Antiques Roadshow valued the battered pair at up to $10,000 after years in a family attic. Restored, they fetched $368,000 at auction in 2020.

What has prospector Yukon Cornelius spent his life hunting for in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?

Silver and gold is also the title of his theme song in the score, yet it is the narrator who sings it rather than the prospector himself.

Professor Hinkle's rabbit, who brings the magic hat back in Frosty the Snowman, goes by what name?

Hocus Pocus swaps the hat for a lamppost wreath to fool his master, then leads the search for Santa when the snowman's trip north goes wrong.

Which gift from Kris Kringle wins over the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town?

A toy train turns the captor into a friend. The Warlock later repays Kris from a prison cell, spending the last of his magic to help him escape.

Which star voiced Santa in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town and again in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Mickey Rooney played the role a third time in Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, making him the studio's regular Santa through the 1970s.

Burgermeister Meisterburger bans toys as mayor of which town in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town?

Sombertown loses its toys because the mayor trips over a toy duck. Kris gets round the locked doors by coming down chimneys and filling stockings.

In The Year Without a Santa Claus, Southtown's mayor will free a reindeer only if his visitors do what?

Make it snow was the mayor's joke about his warm Southern town. When flakes do fall, he is stunned into calling for an official day off for Santa.

In Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which doe calls Rudolph cute at the reindeer games, sending him flying?

Clarice stands by Rudolph after the others mock his nose, and later joins his parents in searching for him, only to be captured by the snow monster.

Which job does the tamed Abominable Snow Monster do at the end of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?

Trimming the tree is the trick Yukon Cornelius has taught him. Both were thought lost over a cliff, but the monster's bounce saved them.

Which demonic sorcerer battles Lion-O for the Eye of Thundera in Rankin/Bass's hit cartoon ThunderCats?

Mumm-Ra is a mummified sorcerer who recruits the Mutants of Plun-Darr to his cause. ThunderCats became the most successful series the studio ever made.

Which family pop group starred in a Rankin/Bass Saturday-morning cartoon that began on ABC in 1971?

The Jackson 5 were too busy to voice themselves, so actors played the brothers while their real records supplied the songs. Motown co-produced the series.

Which creature is King Moonracer, ruler of the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?

A winged lion, he flies out to collect unloved toys and shelters them until children can be found for them, a job he asks Santa to help with.

Which schoolgirl rides north in a refrigerator car with Frosty in Rankin/Bass's Frosty the Snowman?

Karen stows away with Frosty because neither has money for a ticket. The cold that keeps him frozen chills her badly, forcing them off the train.

Mad magazine artist Paul Coker Jr. was hired so that Frosty the Snowman would have the look of what?

A Christmas card was the look the producers wanted, and Coker also drew greeting cards for a living. He went on to design more than 40 of the studio's shows.

Which actor voiced the evil rabbit January Q. Irontail in Rankin/Bass's Here Comes Peter Cottontail?

Vincent Price gives Irontail his grudge: a child once roller-skated over his tail, leaving him with an iron replacement and a plan to ruin Easter.

Rankin/Bass followed The Hobbit by animating which Tolkien volume for television in 1980?

The Return of the King jumps straight to Tolkien's final volume, summing up the first two in a brief opening. A lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate over television rights was settled in time for it to air.

Which injured animal is healed after Aaron plays for the newborn Jesus in The Little Drummer Boy?

A lamb named Baba is struck by a Roman chariot in Bethlehem. Having no gift for the baby, Aaron offers his drumming, and Baba recovers.

Most of the voice cast of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, including Rudolph, came from which country?

Canada still had a busy radio-drama scene, which gave the producers a deep pool of voice talent. The recording sessions took just two days.

Viewer letters led Rankin/Bass to add a scene to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer showing Santa doing what?

Rescuing the Misfit Toys was missing from the first broadcast, which left them stranded. Viewers wrote in, so the scene was animated and added in 1965.

Which of Santa's reindeer is seized by a dog catcher in Southtown in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Vixen, the youngest of the team, is carrying two of Santa's helpers on a search for Christmas spirit when she is hauled off to the town pound.

What do Father Mouse and the Trundles build to win Santa back in 'Twas the Night Before Christmas?

A clock tower that plays a special song is their apology, after a letter in the town paper claimed Santa did not exist. The letter's author then breaks the clock.

What name do the children give the snow wife built for Frosty in Frosty's Winter Wonderland?

Crystal comes to life when Frosty hands her a bouquet of frost flowers. A snow parson, brought to life with a Bible, marries the pair.

Which television star narrated Frosty's Winter Wonderland, with Shelley Winters voicing the snowman's bride?

Andy Griffith stepped in because the first special's narrator had suffered a stroke and retired. He closes by promising that the snow will come back.

Which enchanted food from the Winter Warlock lets Kris Kringle's reindeer fly in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town?

Corn is all the magic the Warlock has left by the time he is jailed. It lifts the reindeer just in time to break Kris and his friends out of prison.

Which Scooby-Doo voice actor played the title rabbit in Rankin/Bass's Here Comes Peter Cottontail?

Casey Kasem plays a young Easter Bunny who oversleeps on the big day, then borrows a time machine piloted by a French caterpillar to put things right.

Which feature makes Happy the Baby New Year run away after being laughed at in Rudolph's Shiny New Year?

His large ears draw laughter everywhere, until Rudolph explains that the sight simply makes people feel wonderful. The same ears later reduce the villain to helpless laughter.

Which kind of giant bird is Eon the Terrible, kidnapper of the Baby New Year in Rudolph's Shiny New Year?

A vulture fated to turn to ice and snow when his eon ends, he steals the baby to stop the calendar and so cheat his own death.

Which author's book became The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Rankin/Bass's last stop-motion Christmas special?

L. Frank Baum, better known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, imagined Santa as a foundling raised by forest Immortals who must vote on granting him eternal life.

Rankin/Bass's part-live-action film The Daydreamer imagines the boyhood dreams of which storyteller?

Hans Christian Andersen appears as a teenage runaway whose dreams, staged with puppets, become The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina and The Emperor's New Clothes.

Which band performed Jimmy Webb's songs for Rankin/Bass's animated film The Last Unicorn?

America recorded the songs with the London Symphony Orchestra in England. The theme later turned up on the band's own best-of album.

Which actor voiced King Haggard in The Last Unicorn and repeated the role himself for the German dub?

Christopher Lee was fluent in German and arrived for work with his own copy of the novel, marked with the lines he felt must not be cut.

Which Hollywood director voiced Gandalf and narrated Rankin/Bass's animated version of The Hobbit?

John Huston was not the only filmmaker in the recording booth: fellow director Otto Preminger voiced the Elvenking, while Orson Bean played Bilbo.

Which broadcasting honour did the teleplay of Rankin/Bass's animated The Hobbit win after airing on NBC?

A Peabody Award honoured the script even as opinion split: The New York Times found the film worth attention, while Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson called it execrable.

Which series set in the Limbo Galaxy did Rankin/Bass create as a space-based follow-up to ThunderCats?

SilverHawks sent bionic heroes after the crime boss Mon*Star for 65 episodes. Like TigerSharks after it, it never matched the first show's success.

Which actor's last Frankenstein film was Rankin/Bass's Mad Monster Party, in which he voiced the mad Baron?

Boris Karloff's Baron shares his first name and was designed to look like him. Mad magazine's Harvey Kurtzman worked on the script, and its artist Jack Davis drew the characters.

Which singer co-wrote the song that became Rankin/Bass's Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey?

Gene Autry's song gave the studio another mocked misfit: a donkey whose long ears end up sheltering Mary on the road to Bethlehem.

Which star voiced the circus ringmistress Lilly Loraine in Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July?

Ethel Merman's ringmistress ends the villain's rampage herself, shattering his sceptre with her iron pistols so that he turns into a tree.

Which company sponsored the NBC premiere of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer under its own Fantasy Hour banner?

General Electric put its name on the $500,000 special, and a year later one of its executives had a song swapped for a new one.

Which songwriter, brother-in-law of Rudolph's creator Robert L. May, wrote the songs for the Rankin/Bass special?

Johnny Marks turned his brother-in-law's 1939 poem into the hit song, then wrote the special's numbers, including A Holly Jolly Christmas.

Under which name did Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass found their New York animation studio in 1960?

Videocraft International made Rudolph under that name. The partners' own surnames replaced it in 1968, the year of The Little Drummer Boy.

Which voice actor played both Burgermeister Meisterburger and the Ghost Host of Disney's Haunted Mansion?

Paul Frees filled whole cast lists for the studio: in Frosty the Snowman alone he is the traffic cop, the ticket-taker and Santa Claus.