Rankin on Bass Podcast

01/01/2024

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 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.

https://bit.ly/3tLp6dP

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...

21/12/2023

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 the magic of the season and some of R&B's earliest work.

https://bit.ly/3NAMIIN

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 the magic of the season and some of R&B's earliest work, the New Adventures of Pinocchio.

25/11/2023

My, George Kambadais, and DC Hopkins’ original ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS graphic novel is currently available at www.scoutcomics.com for 60% off! Use code BF60! Today only! (And you can grab BONES OF THE GODS #1-5 while you’re there, too! 😃)

27/10/2023

Rankin on Bass 35: The Coneheads

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.

https://bit.ly/479gNXA

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 we...

22/09/2023

Rankin on Bass features an episode all about the Marlo Thomas in Fantasy Land special THAT GIRL IN WONDERLAND on their latest episode: https://bit.ly/462PeyI

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 several familiar fairy tales.

24/08/2023

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.

https://bit.ly/3KSr7KM

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.

28/07/2023

Our latest episode, all about Rankin & Bass's THE RED BARON is now available! https://bit.ly/3OkmtoL

Welcome to Rankin on Bass, an offhanded joke that became a short-lived podcast where we discuss the stopmotion and animated works of Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. Your hosts: Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast podcast, Richard Hatem of DC's Titans, and Mike White of The Projection Booth podcast. A...

06/07/2023

Coming this month, a look at the 1972 Red Baron:

I tried to take the three-part Red Baron that's on here and cut out all of the portions that are oddly repeated. Copyright not given or implied.

23/06/2023

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.

https://bit.ly/3CKyUG0

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,....

28/04/2023

Rankin on Bass 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 Rankin/Bass's animated features as one of thier 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.

https://bit.ly/3VhfAZa

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 Graham...

31/03/2023

Rankin on Bass: The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians

Pepsico presents The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians, an animated special that played before the Academy Awards ceremony in 1970. The cast includes conemporary (Flip Wilson) and older (George Burns, Henny Youngman, Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, etc.) comedians as well as the voice talent of Paul Frees in an uneven TV event.

Richard Hatem, Chris Stachiw, and Mike White discuss the state of stand-up comedy in the early '70s as well as what a series of Mad Mad Mad Comedians might have looked like.

https://bit.ly/3JYlitN

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 older (George Burns, Henny Youngman, Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, etc.) comedians as well as the voice talent of Paul Frees in an un...

11/03/2023

Rankin on Bass: 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, 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.

https://bit.ly/3ZVMdgj

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 Kin...

13/02/2023

Rankin on Bass 26: Return to Oz

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 Wizard of Oz and the 1964 follow-up, Return to Oz. Based on two of the later L. Frank Baum books, it's the story of Dorothy going back to Oz and finding that her old friends aren't what they used to be. Of course, we also discuss the 1985 Walter Murch freaky feature film as well.

https://bit.ly/3JYGiCf

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 Wizard of Oz and the 1964 follow-up, Return to Oz. Based on two of the later L. Frank Baum books, it's the story of Dorothy go...

23/12/2022

Rankin on Bass 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.

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.

https://bit.ly/3Ge3OZH

'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 inspi...

18/12/2022

Introducing a new show from Weirding Way Media, From the Files of Police Squad (In Color!), a show from Mark Begley (Wake Up Heavy), Chris Stachiw (The Kulturecast), and Mike White (The Projection Booth) wherein they look at the ZAZ series POLICE SQUAD and the subsequent Naked Gun films. Coming January, 2023!

29/11/2022

Tonight at 8PM ET on CBS - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer https://bit.ly/3OJKo1I

We kick off the series with a look at Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, talking a bit about the histor

25/11/2022

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 rhymes wherein the titular Mother Goose skips town, leaving Old King Cole in charge. The hapless dupe is usurped by the Crooked Man who kidnaps all of the adults in Cole's kingdom, leaving little Jack and Mary to try and save the day.

Listen to Richard Hatem, Chris Stachiw, and Mike White lose their minds.

https://bit.ly/3gC0sWI

We're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel here, folks, with Rankin & Bass's first feature fi

26/10/2022

Weirding Way Media t-shirts are now on sale: https://bit.ly/3JHDCq0

25/10/2022

Jules Bass https://bit.ly/3SGHvPj

Jules Bass, the animator, producer, director and composer whose work included stop-motion holiday television specials like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman& #8…

21/10/2022

Rankin on Bass 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 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.

https://bit.ly/3VRWIQK

Are you ready for the heart-stopping action of the totally true tale of Italian tradesman Marco Polo

30/09/2022

How to support your favorite podcast.

21/09/2022

The Hobbit was released 85 years ago: https://bit.ly/3R0tBqr

In 1977 Rankin & Bass did one of the first successful adaptation of JRR Tolkien's work with their ad

30/07/2022

https://deadline.com/2022/07/paul-coker-dead-rankin-bass-mad-magazine-illustrator-was-93-1235081190/?fbclid=IwAR2gN2eW82wX_H0qiBkNH-4UFbACQypWZph9VXdkDm1rUFD8DtYwzb5FVBs

Paul Coker Jr., whose character and production designs for the classic Rankin/Bass stop-motion and animated holiday specials and his many years as one of Mad magazine’s “Usual Gang Of I…

29/07/2022

Rankin on Bass 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 music, and all under the auspices of Rankin & Bass. It's also something of a King Kong story where the titular ape is taken from his home in Africa to Bermuda where he's feared by the local authorities who hire a big game hunter (Jack Palance) to stop the ape from killing innocent victims.

https://bit.ly/3bi6uZN

Something of a retread of The Last Dinosaur, the usual gang is back -- "Tom" Kotani directing, Willi

29/07/2022

Something of a retread of The Last Dinosaur, the usual gang is back -- "Tom" Kotani directing, Willi