Universal Animation Studios

Universal Animation Studios LLC, formerly known as Universal Cartoon Studios, is an American animation studio and a unit of Universal 1440 Entertainment, a home entertainment division of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, which in turn is owned by NBCUniversal, the entertainment and mass media division of Comcast. It has produced direct-to-video sequels to Universal-released feature films, such as An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), Balto (1995), and Curious George (2006), as well as other films and television series. This studio rarely made theatrically-released films, focusing instead on direct-to-video/streaming films and TV shows.

The actual animation production is mostly done overseas, usually by foreign animation studios such as AKOM, Wang Film Productions, and Rough Draft Studios, while pre-production and post-production are United States–based. On August 23, 2016, after Universal completed its acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, the division was merged with DreamWorks Animation Television, which began producing a majority of Universal Pictures' family-friendly TV shows. The studio is one of Comcast's three animation studios, alongside DreamWorks Animation and Illumination.

History

Universal Animation Studios was established in 1990 as Universal Cartoon Studios, the animation division of MCA Inc., to produce television shows. It was originally a subsidiary of Universal Family Entertainment, which was headed by former Hanna-Barbera employee Jeff Segal. Its debut work was Back to the Future: The Animated Series, which was announced on March 22, 1991, and premiered on CBS on September 14 the same year.

In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios was transferred as a joint-venture between Universal Family Entertainment and MCA/Universal Home Video, due to the tremendous growth in the children's home video market.

In 1995, the company partnered with Harvey Comics to launch a new subsidiary, Universal/Harvey Animation Studios, to produce animated series based on Harvey Comics' properties.

In 1996, the two groups Universal Family Entertainment and its subsidiary Universal Cartoon Studios were absorbed into MCA Television Entertainment.

In 1998, Universal Cartoon Studios was later transferred to Universal Family & Home Entertainment Production (later renamed as Universal Home Entertainment Productions), as first mentioned in An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island.

In 2001, when Vivendi acquired Universal Cartoon Studios and Universal Pictures Home Video's parent Universal Studios alongside its owner Seagram back in 2000, Universal Studios established a new subsidiary that would handle, manage and expand Universal Pictures' key intellectual properties across multiple platforms entitled Universal Pictures Franchise Development with Universal Cartoon Studios and its home entertainment parent Universal Pictures Home Video & London-based British production division Universal Pictures Visual Programming being placed into the new subsidiary alongside Universal Studios' consumer products & licensing division Universal Pictures Consumer Products which also became division of the new subsidiary, while Louis Feola became president of the new subsidiary.

In 2005, Universal Cartoon Studios was absorbed into Universal Studios Family Productions, and later on, it was renamed to Universal Animation Studios.

In 2006, Universal Animation Studios produced and animated the film Curious George in-house in Los Angeles, along with several animation studios around the world.

In 2007, Chris Meledandri founded Illumination with a deal was announced positioning Illumination as Universal's family entertainment arm, that would produce one to two films a year starting in 2010, while Universal Studios Family Productions acts as Universal Animation Studios' animation home-video arm. As part of the deal, Illumination retains creative control and Universal Pictures exclusively distributes the films.

In 2016, Universal Pictures acquired DreamWorks Animation, making it one of the two theatrical animation divisions of Universal, alongside Illumination. With this acquisition, it was merged with DreamWorks Animation Television, who began to produce shows based on Universal Pictures franchises, such as Fast & Furious: Spy Racers and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.

Franchises

This is not including the original films of An American Tail, The Land Before Time and Balto made by either Hanna-Barbera (formerly), Sullivan Bluth Studios or Amblimation.

1:The date reflects the first appearance of Woody Woodpecker in a production from Universal Cartoon Studios rather than the date when the character was originally created in 1940 by Walter Lantz Productions.

Filmography

Feature films

Theatrical feature films

S Combines live-action with animation.

R Not released theatrically in the United States

Direct-to-video/streaming feature films

Children's feature films

Adult animated short films

P Released on Peacock.

N Released on Netflix.

A Adult animated production.

Short films

• Fractured Fairy Tales: The Phox, the Box, & the Lox (1999) (theatrical release)

Television series

Television specials

Miscellaneous work

• 63rd Academy Awards (1991) – animation for Woody Woodpecker presenting the award for Best Animated Short Film
• Kids WB! promos – Earthworm Jim segments.
• Dudley-Do Right’s RipSaw Falls (1999) – traditionally-animated queue video.

Cancelled projects

• Escape from Jurassic Park, an animated TV series that takes place after the first Jurassic Park film, was confirmed to be in development and awaiting Steven Spielberg's approval in June 1993. The series would have centered on John Hammond's attempts to finish Jurassic Park and open it to the public, while InGen's corporate rival Biosyn is simultaneously planning to open their own dinosaur theme park in Brazil, which ultimately ends with their dinosaurs escaping into the jungles. Artist William Stout was hired to work on the series and subsequently made a trailer to demonstrate how the series would look, and how it would combine traditional animation with computer animation. The series required Spielberg's final approval before it could go into production. However, Spielberg had grown tired of the massive promotion and merchandise revolving around the film, and never watched the trailer. On July 13, 1993, Margaret Loesch, president of the Fox Children's Network, confirmed that discussions had been held with Spielberg about an animated version of the film. Loesch also said, "At least for now and in the foreseeable future, there will not be an animated Jurassic Park. That's Steven Spielberg's decision, and we respect that decision."
• A pair of traditionally animated cutscenes were produced for the 1996 video game Crash Bandicoot to serve as the game's intro and outro, as well as act as source material for a potential animated series if the game was well-received and commercially successful. The hand-drawn cutscenes were dropped after Sony Computer Entertainment picked up Crash Bandicoot for publication, as Sony desired to push the PlayStation's 3D polygonal graphics. The cutscenes were uploaded to YouTube by producer David Siller in 2015.
• Jurassic Park: Chaos Effect, an animated television series based on The Lost World: Jurassic Park, was confirmed to be in development within the third part of a four-part comic adaptation of the film published by Topps Comics in July 1997. In November 1997, it was reported that the cartoon would be accompanied by Jurassic Park: Chaos Effect, a series of dinosaur toys produced by Kenner and based on a premise that scientists had created dinosaur hybrids consisting of DNA from different creatures. That month, it was also reported that the cartoon could be ready by March 1998, as a mid-season replacement. The Chaos Effect toyline was released in June 1998, but the animated series was never produced, for unknown reasons.

See also

• Illumination
• DreamWorks Animation DreamWorks Animation Television
• List of Universal Pictures theatrical animated feature films
• List of unproduced Universal Pictures animated projects
• List of animation studios owned by NBCUniversal