Arthur Rankin Jr., the animator, producer and director behind the whimsical holiday stop-motion TV specials Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman has died at the age of 89. According to The Royal Gazette newspaper, He died at his home by Harrington Sound in Bermuda. He was born in New York in 1924. Rankin is lived by his Greek-born wife Olga and sons Todd and Gardner.

 In the early 1960s, Rankin and Jules Bass established the film production company Video craft International now called Rankin/Bass Productions. Their stop-motion, cel-animated features were careful to make and known for their doll-like characters.

The duo revolutionized the industry opinion of stop-motion craft with the release of Rudolph. Rankin had dozens of credits as a producer or director for movies and TV shows ThunderCats and SilverHawks, among 1,000 plus other productions for TV. He is credited as a pioneer in using celebrity voices in animation, casting such 20th century entertainment giants as a comic actor Danny Kaye, dancing star Fred Astaire and horror master Boris Karloff in his productions, frequently creating character designs that look like the stars.

Other Rankin/Bass productions included The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories, in addition to The Last Unicorn and The Flight of Dragons. Rankin’s most recent famous credit is as a producer of the 1999 animated take on The King and I.