My childhood would like to thank Arthur Rankin for living a long and purposeful life.
How empty would my life be without Yukon Cornelius and The Bumble? (A lot more on them, HERE.)
More on why anyone born in the 20th C (and most kids born in this century) know who he is, HERE.
Hint: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.
Snippet: Mr. Rankin’s stop-motion films were painstakingly handmade. Collaborating with Japanese puppet makers who fashioned each figure from wood, wire and wool — Rudolph was about five inches tall, Santa about nine inches — the filmmakers shot thousands of still photos of the incremental movements involved in every gesture each character made. Running them together at 24 frames a second created the whimsical, herky-jerky effect of dolls being moved by invisible hands. Mr. Rankin called it Animagic.
I think it’s quite safe to say Mr. Rankin very much left his mark on our world. Kids (and adults) everywhere owe him eternal gratitude and respect.
