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 three years going from animagic to animated to live action fare that ranged from the sublime to the bizarre. Thank you to everyone who took this trip with us.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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-telling of A Christmas Carol starring the voice of Walter Matthau -- and The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow which features Angela Lansbury and a poor blind shepherd.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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 White, and Chris Stachiw discuss the strange choices made when trying to bring the Coneheads into America's living room on a weekly basis.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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. It's a bizarre story of Willie Mays being saddled with an orphaned child and her guardian angel, KC.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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 emperor gets swindled by a pair of slick scammers who appeal to his vanity, selling him a suit made of "invisible" thread. Mike, Richard, and Chris discuss this uneven fable and the amazing year Rankin/Bass had in 1972.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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 Rankin/Bass's animated features as one of their earliest animates series, The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show also brought Grahame's characters to life (albeit in 1970). Richard Hatem, Chris Stachiw, and Mike White discuss both incarnations of Mr. Toad on this final season of Rankin on Bass.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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, and a horribly racist caricature of an Asian man voiced by Darrell Hammond. Possibly released to cash in on the Anna & The King film from the same year, The King and I suffers from an inconsistent tone.Richard Hatem, Chris Stachiw, and Mike White discuss the film and begin planning their exit strategy from the world of Rankin and Bass.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

'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. Richard, Mike, and Chris discuss 1974's Twas the Night Before Christmas and 1967's Cricket on the Hearth, a Rankin/Bass special inspired by Charles Dickens.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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 Mostel as Kublai Khan? If you're not ready for all of that then you definitely can't handle the Rankin & Bass-produced epic MARCO from 1973.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

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 treaty with Japan. The film fractures into essentially three storylines featuring Frank Converse, Timothy Patrick Murphy, and Mike Starr in his first film role. Interviews include a snippet of an earlier interview with Starr as well as a new interview with producer Benni Korzen who worked on the live action Rankin & Bass pictures going all the way back to The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

We continue to hop around in the filmography of Rankin & Bass as we look at the last live-action film they produced with the 1983 made-for-TV movie The Sins of Dorian Gray, a gender-swapped version of Oscar Wilde's tale wherein Dorian (Belinda Bauer) is a model/actress whose screen test weathers the storm of her myriad sins while Anthony Perkins plays a Mephistophelian character.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

We're scraping the bottom of the Rankin & Bass Christmas barrel with a look at the 1974 animated special 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and 1985 animagic story The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus which re-tells the Santa story by way of L. Frank Baum. Did you know that Santa suckled at the teat of a lioness?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.

We really wanted to like Mad Monster Party? and Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters but just couldn't We discuss the lame voices of both spooky specials which celebrate Friday the 13th far more than Halloween.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rankin-on-bass--4645382/support.