Collectibles

Rankin/Bass "The Daydreamer" Puppets, ca. 1966

Appraisal: Rankin/Bass "The Daydreamer" Puppets, ca. 1966

Transcript

GUEST: I brought with me five figures from an animated movie called The Daydreamer. We had purchased them in 1985. My husband was a sculptor and a collector, and I was a collector, too. And we used to, every year, go to the Cranford ant, antique advertising show in New Jersey, and one year, one of the dealers had these five figures that drew our attention, because my husband, one of the things he loved to collect was puppets.

APPRAISER: Ah!

GUEST: And the animated figures fit right in with what we had.

APPRAISER: Oh, that's so cool-- well, you are correct. Yes, they are from The Daydreamer, which was by Rankin/Bass Productions, which... Rankin/Bass is so iconic when it comes to the world of animation and film and television. You just see these puppets, it's, like, boom! There is no denying these are from a Rankin/Bass production.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: The company was founded by Arthur Rankin, Jr., and Jules Bass, a New York-based production company.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: But when they first started, in 1960, it was Videocraft International.

GUEST: Interesting.

APPRAISER: They did not get under the moniker of Rankin/Bass Productions until 1968. When they came out swinging in 1960, they had The New Adventures of Pinocchio...

GUEST: Hm.

APPRAISER: ...which was a stop-animation TV series.

GUEST: Cool.

APPRAISER: And when it came to Rankin/Bass, they worked at two things. They did traditional cel animation, hand-drawn.

GUEST: Oh, right, okay.

APPRAISER: But what they were really known for was their stop-motion animation, which has been coined as "animagic."

GUEST: Yes! (laughs)

APPRAISER: Which used these handmade puppets. The characteristics, the bubbly cheeks, the expressions-- they're just filled with energy and joy.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: They make you happy just looking at them. So while The Daydreamer is a lesser-known film, as it is not a holiday special, it is still a great story. It's based on the life and career of Danish author, uh, Hans Christian Andersen. The film was released 1966. It's coming off the huge hot success of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

GUEST: Right, right, right, right.

APPRAISER: Which, when kids watched that 55-minute special in 1964, it was, like... (makes explosion sound effect) Christmas coming to town. This is awesome.

GUEST: So nice.

APPRAISER: Working off that success is what enabled them to get just such an all-star cast. The two closest to you are the tailor characters. The first tailor was voiced by Victor Borge.

GUEST: Oh, wow!

APPRAISER: The second tailor in was by Terry-Thomas.

GUEST: Yeah, he looks like Terry-T.

APPRAISER: (laughs)

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: We have Ed Wynn as the emperor.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISER: And then getting to the major all-stars, we have Patty Duke as Thumbelina…

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...and the one and only Boris Karloff.

GUEST: Oh, my gosh, I love Boris. Yeah, yeah.

APPRAISER: Right? "Frankenstein"? I mean...

GUEST: Yes! How could you miss it? Right.

APPRAISER: And so the film followed Hans Christian Andersen.

GUEST: Right, right.

APPRAISER: And it followed him as a young schoolboy, son of a poor shoemaker.

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: And while he was supposed to be studying for school, he instead decided to daydream, and on the search for the Garden of Paradise. Even though Rankin/Bass Productions was a New York-based company, they actually subbed out all the work...

GUEST: Yeah!

APPRAISER: ...and these puppets were made in Japan.

GUEST: Get out! I didn't know that.

APPRAISER: Yup. So they were all hand-manufactured by Tadahito Mochinaga of MOM Studios.

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: These puppets are all articulated. Every hand, every leg, the head, the neck, they all moved because they had to position them, and they're just so intricate, and it's very tough to find them today surviving. It's believed that less than 100 puppets were produced over the course of Rankin/Bass history.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So to have five from the same film is rather incredible today.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: We're calling them production puppets. There were puppets made for a lot of different marketing reasons, promotional items, but it is very confident, when looking on at the screen, you would believe them to be screen-used puppets from the film.

APPRAISER: Do you remember what you paid for them in 1985?

GUEST: I do. Because it was big money for us. It was, like, our mortgage payment. It was, uh, $350.

APPRAISER: For the set of five?!

GUEST: For the set of five.

APPRAISER: Whoo!

GUEST: And the dealer was, like, he really indicated to us, like, "You are getting something special, and this is really a bargain."

APPRAISER: For the group, because while you can sell them individually, they would best be sold as a package. So today at auction, for the group of five, they would achieve in the $50,000 to $80,000 range.

GUEST: (laughs) Oh, my gosh! Oh, m... Did you hear that, Ed? My husband passed away a little while ago at a good old age. But he would love that.

APPRAISER: Thank...

GUEST: Tribute to you, Edward. That's amazing!

APPRAISER: When I saw these, I said, "Whoa!" It's absolutely incredible.

GUEST: Thank you, that is amazing.

APPRAISER: (laughs)

GUEST: Very, very happy.