Listen Now

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 primeval creatures. Co-directed by Alexander Grasshoff and Shusei Kotani, this is yet another of the Rankin/Bass Kaiju films.

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.

On this episode Richard Hatem, Chris Stachiw, and Mike White discuss the Rankin & Bass film The Bermuda Depths. It's a live action (and stop motion) film about a man, a mysterious woman, and a giant turtle.

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?

Did you know that there are Native American mice? We learned this and other fun facts about the pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower in this Rankin & Bass animated Thanksgiving special.

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.

Based on the first book of Gordon R. Dickson's series, The Flight of Dragons, stars Harry Morgan as a disgruntled wizard whose way of life is threatened. He travels through time to retrieve John Ritter to help defeat James Earl Jones.

Rankin & Bass combine live action and animagic in the secret bio-pic of Hans Christian Andersen, The Daydreamer (1966) in which Paul O'Keefe plays the titular role along with a cavalcade of voice talent.

We're going back to the first Rankin & Bass animagic feature, Willy McBean & His Magic Machine in which Willy is joined by talking monkey Pablo to defeat the evil Professor Von Rotten by traveling time and making sure history is not rewritten.

In 1977 Rankin & Bass did one of the first successful adaptation of JRR Tolkien's work with their adaptation of The Hobbit. In 1979 they tried again with The Return of the King. Between those two, Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings complicated matters. We discuss these animated specials in a post Peter Jackson LOTR world.

Directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, The Last Unicorn was adapted for the screen by Peter S. Beagle and based on his book. It's an offbeat look at legacy, legend, and immortality. It's the story of a unicorn (Mia Farrow) who thinks she may be the last of her kind and her quest to find the truth.

Ah, spring is here! Nothing better than to celebrate the martyrdom of Jesus by discussing the origins of the Easter Bunny! Chris, Richard, and Mike delve into Rankin/Bass's three Easter specials: Here Comes Peter Cottontail, The First Easter Rabbit, and The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town. They're essentially Santa Claus stories but with a rabbit playing the Santa part. We learn about the importance of bonnets, the Scarlet Fever epidemic, and why we roll Easter eggs across these three celebrity-voiced specials.

Chris Stachiw and Mike White (Richard Hatem was on assignment to the North Pole) talk about the Rankin/Bass-produced King Kong Escapes which is part sequel to the Japanese animated TV-series, part re-telling of the Kong story, and part sequel to the Toho King Kong vs. Godzilla movie from 1962.