How Rankin Bass Outsourced Their ‘Animagic’ Characters to a Largely Overlooked Japanese Studio

Animation vlogger Swamp Jawn, who appears in videos as a little green creature, explained the history behind the legendary stop motion animation from Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, noting how all of the Rankin Bass characters were outsourced to the incredibly talented but grossly overlooked Japanese studio MOM, which was run by legendary animator Mochinaga Tadahito, who had previously worked on films that were critical of the United States.

He inadvertently popularized stop-motion puppet animation in China. Directed by the prolific leftist actress and filmmaker Bo’er Chen, Fung Ming aka Mochinaga was shown a cartoon that satirized the Chinese nationalist Party by depicting its leader as a marionette controlled by an American General and tasked with adapting it for film with real puppets.

The MOM workers put in a great deal of time and effort into the production but weren’t credited or compensated as they should have been.

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reinder, the team of animators worked tirelessly to bring to life Rankin Bass’s trademarked Animagic technique …Rankin Bass would record and edit a full audio version in New York and send it to Japan where the animators could synch to it. They worked excruciatingly long hours, sometimes sleeping by the puppets, to get as much animation time as possible. 

Jawn also notes how several “original characters” were found in an attic and were featured on Antiques Roadshow. They were carefully restored and eventually landed at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. They were not the originals from the movies, but were actually pieces made for publicity.

The animators were still in production right up until the last minute so they couldn’t use the real ones, which means the Santa and Rudolph on display in Georgia are not the actual screen used puppets at all. Still a part of history for sure but not the ones you see on the screen.