Rankin on Bass

Farewell from Rankin on Bass

Live from the Island of Misfit Toys we record our last episode of Rankin on Bass where Mike, Chris, and Richard recount the bizarre trip they've been on for the last thre

Episode 38: Pinocchio's Christmas and The New Adventures of Pinocchio

We conclude our discussion of Rankin & Bass works properly with a double dose of animagic for the holidays - Pinocchio's Christmas in which the little wooden boy learns t

Episode 36: The Stingiest Man in Town and The First Christmas

Richard Hatem, Chris Stachiw, and Mike White are back in Christmas-town and looking at two more holiday specials from Rankin & Bass; The Stingiest Man in Town -- a re-tel

Episode 37: Santa, Baby! and The Comic Strip

It's Santa, Baby an animated special from 2001 starring Gregory Hines as a frustrated songwriter and Patti Labelle as the patridge from the pear tree(!). We also discus

Episode 35: The Coneheads (1983)

It's time to consume mass quantities of Coneheads with this 1983 pilot produced by Rankin & Bass for a Coneheads half-hour animated television show. Richard Hatem, Mike W

Episode 34: That Girl in Wonderland (1973)

Marlo Thomas returns as "That Girl" in a very "not cannon" episode. Here she's in a Rankin & Bass cartoon where she seems to be having delusions about being inside severa

Episode 33: Willie Mays and The Say Hey Kid (1972)

One of the more rare Rankin & Bass specials we've covered, Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid was the sixth episode of the first season of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie.

Episode 32: The Red Baron (1972)

One of the episodes of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, The Red Baron (1972) is a canine interpretation of the story of Baron Manfred von Richthofen who, for whatever re

Episode 31: The Emperor's New Clothes (1972)

The pilot for a proposed series called "The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye," The Emperor's New Clothes tells a version of Hans Christian Anderson's classic fable wherein a

Episode 30: The Saga of Smokey the Bear

Mike, Chris, and Richard discuss both 1966's The Ballad of Smokey the Bear wherein we learn the traumatic origin story of the ursine fire-fighter as well as the 1969 cart

Episode 29: The Wind in the Willows

We look at the idle rich via Kenneth Grahame's children's classic, The Wind in the WIllows and the 1987 Rankin/Bass animated adaptation. This is a proper bookend for Rank

Episode 28: The Mad Mad Mad Comedians (1970)

Pepsico presents The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians, an animated special that played before the Academy Awards ceremony in 1970. The cast includes contemporary (Flip Wilson) and

Episode 27: The King and I (1999)

One of the final Rankin/Bass animated features fuses the grandeur and romance of Rodgers and Hammerstein with some sub-par kiddie far including funny monkeys, elephants,

Episode 26: Return to Oz (1964)

Though we don't remember going there the first time, Richard, Chris, and Mike return to Oz to discuss some of Rankin & Bass's earliest work, the 1961 series Tales of the

Episode 25: Cricket on the Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except for a mouse who has seen The Year Without a Santa Claus too many times. R

Episode 24: The Wacky World of Mother Goose

We're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel here, folks, with Rankin & Bass's first feature film, the animated interpretation of Charles Perrault’s many nursery rhy

Episode 23: Marco (1973)

Are you ready for the heart-stopping action of the totally true tale of Italian tradesman Marco Polo? Are you ready for Desi Arnaz Jr. riding on a kite? Or how about Zero

Episode 22: The Ivory Ape (1980)

Something of a retread of The Last Dinosaur, the usual gang is back -- "Tom" Kotani directing, William Overgard writing, Benni Korzen producing, Maury Laws providing musi

Episode 21: The Bushido Blade (1981)

We're discussing "Tom" Kotani's The Bushido Blade. Written by William Overgard, it's the fictionalized account of Admiral Perry (Richard Boone) and his crew making a trea

Episode 20: The Last Dinosaur (1977)

Richard Boone IS The Last Dinosaur in Rankin & Bass's take on Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Land That Time Forgot in which an eclectic group of explorers find a pocket of p