Rankin/Bass Productions is probably most famous for its stop-motion Christmas animated specials like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." But they also produced a lot hand drawn animation, including 1977's The Hobbit and 1980's Return of the King. My introduction to the Rankin Bass version of Gollum was a Disneyland Records Album and Book of Return of the King (Disneyland Records produced a lot of recordings for non-Disney properties, including Garfield and Gremlins). The Rankin Bass Gollum is oddly endearing to me, looking very much like a frog. Gollum looks a lot like the Toad from the later 1987 Rankin Bass special version of The Wind in the Willows. As with the majority of Rankin Bass productions, the animation itself was actually done in Japan. So, there's definitely an Anime quality to these two Tolkien adaptations.
I made Gollum using shells, shark teeth (for his tooth and his fingers and toes) and rocks. And Sharpie paint pens. And yes, he even has a Ring.
No comments:
Post a Comment