Many fans have suggested a petition over the Holiday week!

NO "MERRY" FOR THIS CHRISTMAS ICON

Arthur Rankin, Jr., creator of such holiday TV classics as RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, FROSTY THE SNOWMAN, THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS, THUNDERCATS and THE HOBBIT is dealing with a BURGERMEISTER MEISTERBURGER in the form of WARNER BROS. It seems that WARNER BROS. had underpaid RANKIN/BASS in various ways, including 19 years of impermissible $200,000 annual deductions from the pool of revenues from which Rankin's profit participation is paid.

"It was an accounting mistake on WARNER BROS., part, a mistake that the company's accountants readily admit, right down to the penny," said Rankin. "However, WARNER BROS. is now claiming I caught their error too late. So instead of doing the right thing and fairly compensating RANKIN/BASS for helping generate years of viewer enjoyment, not to mention an awful lot of revenue,WARNER BROS.is hiding behind the statute of limitations."

The dispute dates back to the 1980's, when WARNER BROS. acquired from RANKIN/BASS, the rights to several of the RANKIN/BASS Christmas classics and other animated properties, including the enormously popular 1980's animated television series THUNDERCATS and SILVERHAWKS. The recent WARNER BROS. home video DVD box set releases of THUNDERCATS sold over a million DVDs and they are getting ready to release SILVERHAWKS. Mr. Rankin even graciously appeared on Set #2 of THUNDERCATS in a documentary and did the same for the WARNER BROS. Deluxe DVD release of THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS (Which is also available in a new box set).

"This is obviously not the right thing to do to a creator of such wonderful programming and the rest of his staff," says Rick Goldschmidt RANKIN/BASS Historian/Biographer. "As in all RANKIN/BASS specials, writer Romeo Muller would reform the villains. This villain needs to be reformed."

"As far as I am concerned," continues Rankin, "There is no question as to what is right and what is wrong. If you take something by mistake, you put it back. You don't get to keep it. We put those kinds of ethics into our shows for children. Maybe the folks at WARNER BROS. should watch a few of them."

There were postings about this at www.forbes.com as well as www.cartoonbrew.com Word is spreading fast!

WE'RE A COUPLE OF MISFITS

SEASON'S GREETINGS!

from ELVIS & THE COLONEL

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

RANKIN/BASS' FROSTY THE SNOWMAN

Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MEEEEERRRRRY CHRISTMAS! MEEEEERRRRY CHRISTMAS! I want to THANK Everyone for a wonderful season! RANKIN/BASS fans are the BEST! I even had one NUTTY fan steal my ENCHANTED WORLD book and on Christmas Eve of all days! He wanted it THAT much. ARTHUR RANKIN and JULES BASS would like to wish everyone the happiest of Holidays (Except for that NUTT).

BASED ON THE ORIGINAL RANKIN/BASS CHRISTMAS CLASSIC

Got this in the mail today from my friend Patrick! Do you remember when U2 sang "Helter Skelter" by the BEATLES in RATTLE & HUM? They said that the song was stolen by someone and we are stealing it back.... Well, that is what I am doing with the name RANKIN/BASS, only in reverse. For some reason the companies that own the RANKIN/BASS classics are removing the RANKIN/BASS name from specials they created. This is of course, not right. It is RANKIN/BASS' RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, RANKIN/BASS' FROSTY THE SNOWMAN, RANKIN/BASS' THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY and so on.... HAPPY HOLIDAYS from RANKIN/BASS!

Hope everyone is having a nice Christmas Eve!

A FLEXITOON CHRISTMAS

Just received Craig and Olga's Christmas card. REALLY like their SANTA puppet creation. Check them out at www.flexitoon.com

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Getting ready to watch WHITE CHRISTMAS again. "Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep" and "Snow" are two of my favorite songs from the film.

We three kings of orient are....

FACEBOOK Christmas!

From my friend KIRSTEN

www.kirstenulve.com

We had a GREAT time on the ROE CONN SHOW today with KEVIN MATTHEWS! It took us a few hours to drive downtown BUT it was well worth it. We got to talk about my books, the ROUND 2 TOYS, www.rankinbass.com, www.timeandspacetoys.com etc. We wanted to get BILLIE MAE RICHARDS on BUT they ran short on time. We did get to field a few questions from people calling in. The show aired live during a very long rush hour drive home for many! The snow changed to rain and sleet as we left the studio and made traveling very hazardous!

My Pal JOCKO HEDBLADE! He is the Producer of the ROE CONN SHOW. He booked me on FOX MORNING NEWS years ago and then the MANCOW Show, when he was on Q101. A GREAT guy and a BIG RANKIN/BASS fan!

On the air at WLS RADIO in Chicago!

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS

Do you remember when the CHIPMUNKS were good? It has been a long, long time since they did anything good with those characters. This was one of the good things!

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW

....until Christmas and then PLEASE let it stop!

THE FLINTSTONES Christmas

We watched THE FLINSTONES CHRISTMAS again tonight! One of Josh's favorites!

ABC TV on a horrible weather day in CHICAGO, IL

SARA in a WINTER WONDERLAND

Jerry Taft, my favorite weatherman on a VERY busy weather day!

The famous CHICAGO THEATER is right across the street from ABC TV on State Street.

Cool T-Shirt Mock up by WES!

wrapping lots of presents...

ICICLES

We REALLY loaded up our 10 foot real tree with ICICLES this year!

KRIS

Our friend, San Diego artist Robert Aragon did this art and sent it along. Mickey Rooney signed it to him.

RANKIN/BASS GENERAL ELECTRIC ELF commercials are the BEST!

RANKIN/BASS GE Elf commercials from our 1964 RARE RUDOLPH DVD for $35 shipped. PAYPAL Rickgoldsc@aol.com

Enjoy the RANKIN/BASS classic TV specials on DVD!

on the set of WILLY McBEAN & HIS MAGIC MACHINE (1965)

THANK YOU for your quick orders on the re-mastered WILLY McBEAN DVD! You won't be sorry! Here is TAD MOCHINAGA and HIROSHI TABATA working on the ANIMAGIC set for the RANKIN/BASS film classic!

PABLO teases a T-REX in a wonderful CAVEMAN scene from the film!

BRUSH after every meal...

from my CHICAGO KID'S TV book project...

WIZARD WORLD Booth

WIZARD WORLD booth a few years back

SANTA & LOIS LANE

SANTA CLAUS & LOIS LANE (NOEL NEILL) at our booth in CHICAGO at WIZARD WORLD.
www.timeandspacetoys.com

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

Here is my pal SHAG's 2008 Christmas card! Always enjoy looking at his work! They have some GREAT SHAG items for sale at http://www.shagmart.com/

WLS RADIO Reminder

My rescheduled appearance on the ROE CONN SHOW is for tomorrow night (TUESDAY 12-23) at 5pm (Could be later...his show is on until 7pm) on WLS RADIO 890AM (The BIG 89). The interview will be done by Kevin Matthews, who will be filling in for ROE. Glad this will be during the drive home for anyone that is working this week! HAPPY HOLIDAYS! You can also listen on-line, as MAURY LAWS did last week, when we were originally scheduled. BILLIE MAE RICHARDS (RUDOLPH) will be on the show with me from her home in Canada!

One of my favorite DVDs we offer!....

If you like RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER....this DVD is for you and I am putting it on sale for $15 until Christmas + $2 shipping. This is the Re-mastered version of WILLY McBEAN & HIS MAGIC MACHINE (1965) w/ trailer! It is in full color and was filmed simultaneously with RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER. They used the same animators, voice actors, designers, etc. for both! In fact, BILLIE MAE RICHARDS (Voice of RUDOLPH) is the voice of WILLY McBEAN! I love the TONY PETERS designs of both! Tony is a GREAT friend and a wonderful designer that went on to design things for SESAME STREET. Larry D. Mann (YUKON) is the voice of Professor Von Rotten! I love the ANIMAGIC puppet cast of this film and that is why I place it in my top 5 favorite RANKIN/BASS Productions! The DRAGON pictured above is featured in one of my favorite all time animated scenes by RANKIN/BASS (Outside the castle).

Cover by Steve Banes

RUDOLPH Hot CoCoa Gift Set!

My pal Dustin Sullo (Producer of the MANCOW show) told me this gift set is on sale at a store called 5 BELOW for $5. Looks like an exceptional deal! It is 5 below zero in Chicago right now!!!!!

GARFIELD GOOSE & FRIENDS

Another image from my CHICAGO KID'S TV book project! Art by Patrick Owsley