Animation has come a long way since the turn of the 20th century. Originally confined to short hand-drawn features played in theaters, animation has expanded to full-length feature films, television shows, and everything in between. The rise of computers has also expanded the creativity and diversity of animated films, and dozens of production companies have been opened to take advantage of it.

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Unfortunately, the world of business is a cut-throat place where the big companies regularly swallow up the small ones. Over the years, many good animation companies have come and gone, but their legacy lives on thanks to the films and shows they produced and the new generations of animators they inspired.

Blue Sky Studios

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Image via Blue Sky Studios

After MAGI/Synthavision, the company that did the effects of TRON, collapsed, many of the former animators decided to team up and make their own company. Thanks to the rise of Pixar, Blue Sky Studios was picked up by 20th Century Fox after closing their own animation department. With Fox's backing, Blue Sky released Ice Age and would prove to be another contender alongside DreamWorks and Pixar in the world of CGI children's films.

Blue Sky would struggle over the next decade with a series of peaks and valleys. They saw success with films such as The Peanuts Movie and Ferdinand, but many of their sequels fell short of audience expectations. After Disney bought Fox in 2019 and the outbreak of COVID, the company was finally liquidated in 2021.

Topcraft

A God Warrior awakens.

Founded by Japanese animator, Toru Hara, Topcraft took many animators from Toei animation who felt the studio had peaked in the early 70s. They would team up with Rankin/Basss to produce a number of non-stop motion films, including The Hobbit, Flight of the Dragons, and The Last Unicorn. They also worked with Hayao Miyazaki to release Nasuka and the Valley of the Wind.

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In 1985, the studio went bankrupt, and its people split into two halves. One half, including Hara, went with Miyazaki to form Studio Ghibli, one of Japan's most successful animation companies. The other half formed Pacific Animation Corporation to keep working with Rankin/Bass until Disney bought them and turned the company into Walt Disney Animation Japan.

Sullivan-Bluth Studios

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Image via Universal Pictures

After splitting from Disney, animator Don Bluth established his own company to produce The Secret of NIMH and the video games Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. After the Video Game Crash of 1983, Bluth convinced semi-retired businessman Morris Sullivan to help him set up a new studio. Sullivan also convinced them to move to Dublin, Ireland, to take advantage of government grants.

Sullivan-Bluth Studios would produce seven of Bluth's ten theatrical releases and help kickstart the Irish animation industry. However, financial troubles and the rise of the Disney Renaissance meant Bluth had to sell his films to other studios, which took away creative control from him. Eventually, he and fellow animator Gary Goldman moved back to America to form Fox Animation Studio, which closed within a few years.

Amblimation

Balto and Jenna from Amblimation's Balto

By the mid-80s, Steven Spielberg was interested in dipping his toe into animation. He teamed up with Don Bluth to release An American Tale and The Land Before Time, and partnered with Disney on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. After Bluth cut ties with Spielberg, he opened Amblimation in 1991 to keep making animated projects.

Unfortunately, Spielberg had a hard time finding talented animators and writers to fill Bluth's shoes, and Disney owned the 90s. Amblimation released three theatrical films before closing in 1997 due to poor box office performances. Spielberg would migrate his animators over to the newly formed DreamWorks, and among the unfinished ideas they brought with them was Shrek.

Hanna-Barbera Productions

The Jetsons
Image via Hanna-Barbera

Nobody believed animation could meet a fast-paced television schedule for the longest time. Fortunately, Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of Tom and Jerry, pioneered new animation techniques to save costs, such as repeat pans for backgrounds and collars and ties for their characters to make animating heads easier. Though the quality of the animation suffered, they were able to put more emphasis on voice acting and quick dialogue.

Hanna-Barbera's catalog includes dozens of recognizable cartoons that still have a place in pop culture, including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo. They even managed to produce a few movies, such as Charlotte's Web. Unfortunately, the company couldn't survive being acquired by Turner Entertainment and Warner Brothers, and it was replaced by Cartoon Network.

Filmation

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Image via Filmation

Though Hanna-Barbera pioneered releasing animation for television format, they soon found competition in Filmation. They tackled animated shows with a "people before art," mentality, which meant that they refused to outsource their animation, even if it would be cheaper. They made up for this with strong writing and the majority of their products focus on adventure and high fantasy.

Though Filmation saw many successes in the 60s and 70s, their most widely known shows are He Man and the Masters of the Universe and She Ra: Princess of Power. By the 80s, people were more interested in buying Filmation's catalog than making new cartoons, and it was dismantled. Its last production was an unofficial sequel to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs called Happily Ever After.

Turner Feature Animation

Danny and Peabo from Cats Don't Dance

Although Turner Entertainment had released a few animated films, especially after acquiring Tom and Jerry, they lacked an animation division of their own. That changed in 1991, after acquiring Hanna-Barbera's film divisions. The new Turner Feature Animation was then headed by David Kirschner, a producer, and screenwriter who had worked on An American Tale.

During its six-year run, Turner Feature Animation released two movies, The Page Master and Cat's Don't Dance. Though these movies were creative and well-animated, they failed to turn a profit. After Cats bombed at the box office, Warner Bros. folded Turner Feature into their own animation branch, known today as Warner Bros. Animation.

Kroyer Films

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Bill Kroyer got his start working at Disney during the 80s, but soon left to found his own animation studio with his wife, Susan Kroyer. Though the studio would only be open for eight years, it was considered a pioneer in combining hand drawn and CGI animation. Their first short, Technological Threat, was nominated for the 1989 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Kroyer Films' short life saw them animating the title sequence of Honey I Shrunk the Kids and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and providing computer animation to films like Tom and Jerry, the Movie. They also animated and produced Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. Even after the studio closed, Bill and Susan would be honored for their work in 2017, when they received the June Foray Award from the international Animation Society.

Disneytoon Studios

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Image via Disney

During the animation Renaissance of the 90s, Disney decided to open a new studio to focus on making films that tied into their television shows. After the disappointing box office of The Rescuers Downunder, they also tasked the studio with making all future sequels to their animated canon. Though a few were released theatrically, most would be straight to DVD.

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The production values of Disneytoon Studios varied from film to film. Sometimes they could release something that almost rivaled Disney's main films, like A Goofy Movie, while at other times they made something that felt like a television special, like Aladdin: The Return of Jafar. Sadly, the studio closed in 2018, following a restructure of Disney's animation departments.

Richard Williams Productions

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Image Via Miramax

Learning from the best animators from the Golden Age of Animation, Richard Williams soon opened his own animation company. He got his start animating title sequences in the 60s, then won the Acadamy Award for Best Animated Short in 1972 for his adaptation of A Christmas Carol. The studio's most famous project was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where Williams and his team revolutionized live-action/animated hybrid films with their attention to detail.

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During all this, Williams was hard at work animating his masterpiece, The Thief and the Cobbler, which he financed by accepting these projects. Unfortunately, William's tendency for perfection, going over budget, and missing deadlines caught up to him, and he was kicked off his own film. After Thief was released in a heavily edited state to critical and financial failure, Williams closed his animation studio and dedicated the rest of his life to teaching.

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