Where Are The Stop Motion Puppets Now?
One other question that I should answer here is: Where are the
'ANIMAGIC' Figures today? I did answer this in some detail in my
CINEFANTASTIQUE Feb. 1999 article in their "100 Years of Stop-Motion"
issue. For those of you that missed it, the 'ANIMAGIC' figures were
made for animation puposes and not made to last or collect. The same
can be said of RKO's KING KONG, etc. etc. The materials used were
flexible and sprayed down with a type of flock to avoid reflection for
filming purposes. The Spray had some acidity to it and eventually
would cause the figure(s) to deteriorate over time. True, some do
still exist in private collections (Arthur and Jules would give them
to people they worked with), but all that I am aware of are barely
hanging together. We will share some of the photos of these figures
on our 'ANIMAGIC' web pages as we receive them....Donner is already there in many
poses. Jules Bass explained "We did have a few re-creations made in
lasting materials to display in our office, but the average life of a
real 'Animagic' figure was about 6 months." I was given a Wood carved
Salad Fork/Spoon set of FANG & DRACULA carved by head 'ANIMAGIC' tech
Pinchon (during the making of MAD MONSTER PARTY) as a gift from
RANKIN/BASS for Christmas last year! THANK god these were made with
lasting material! I'll try to share some photos soon! If you are
interested in collecting dead on likenesses of the characters in 3-D
form, go out and buy the ENESCO figurine line! More planned for next
year too!