Christmas at Cafe Pause

Responses:

1. I love Kobito hiding behind the christmas tree :)

   05.12.21 17:59

   Posted by Jesper

2. And they are everywhere! And of course, can be purchased at the cafe.

   05.12.21 19:54

   Posted by Jean Snow

3. Love those Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials. Unknown in Japan even though they were animated in Japan by Japanese puppeteers hired by the American producers.

   05.12.21 22:30

   Posted by Roy

4. Oh wow, I didn’t know about that Japanese connection! It was a nice nostalgic trip for me, as I remember fondly watching those specials on TV every year when I was a kid.

   05.12.21 23:43

   Posted by Jean Snow

5. Yep, it’s true although they definitely do play it down. While the character design was done in the U.S. the actally production was done in Japan. If you look at the eyes of those characters (esp. Frosty the Snowman) you can see that they look slighty “Japanese Manga/Anime-ish” in some of the expressions.

   In the early days, lots of animation was farmed out to Japan. (Transformers, Thundercats, Inspector Gadget etc) Many studios did the contract work to pay for they own animations. You can say that Saturday morning cartoons paid for some of the Japanese anime series in the 70s and early 80s.

   But when Japan got expensive they started to go to Taiwan and Korea. When I was working in Animation we did the pre-production in Toronto and the production was done in Korea and Taiwan. The huge animation industry in Korea and Taiwan now is thriving thanks to Carebears.

   For a while, some Japanese studios were contracting Korea to do some TV series as well. I’m pretty sure 2/3s of the original Macross series was animated in Korea (The crappy episodes) but I can’t prove it.

   05.12.23 10:35

   Posted by Roy

6. Thanks for all the background info!

   05.12.23 12:16

   Posted by Jean Snow