Antony Peters, Co-Creator of all of the characters in Rankin/Bass' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

 

I have been doing a lot of interviews for radio, magazines, etc. this holiday season and I explain how Romeo Muller, Jr., writer of the TV Special created all of the characters in the classic, except for Rudolph and Santa Claus.   This is true, all of the concepts came from the pen of Romeo, but it was visualized by Antony Peters.  Antony and I became great friends before his passing.  He worked at Rankin/Bass Productions when it was known as Videocraft International in the late 1950s.   He always described himself to me as the art kid in the back room.   At any rate, he designed The New Adventures of Pinocchio and The Tales of the Wizard of Oz and the lettering style in the titles,   He even oversaw the animation on OZ at Crawley studios in Canada.   He came up with the original concept of Willy McBean & His Magic Machine and designed all of the characters in Rudolph, which was his last project at Rankin/Bass Productions.  It is his lettering style that was used in the titles (I like the original end titles from 1964 best, which we have now in color).  Tony was a talented artist and designer and we can thank him for the look of the Animagic characters!