Career
Bass started working with Arthur Rankin Jr. at the American Broadcasting Company in 1955. Rankin was an art director and Bass was a copywriter. The pair initially made television commercials, before moving onto television series and movies when they established Videocraft International in 1960. They released their first syndicated television series, The New Adventures of Pinocchio the same year, animated in stop-motion. In 1961, Videocraft produced a cel-animated series called Tales of the Wizard of Oz, which was expanded into their first prime-time network special, Return to Oz, on NBC in 1963.
The following year in 1964, they produced the long-running stop-motion special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964). Its success paved the way for the theatrical feature Mad Monster Party? (1967), and television specials like The Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1966).
In 1968, the company was renamed Rankin/Bass Productions, shortly before the debut of The Mouse on the Mayflower and The Little Drummer Boy. The 1970s brought additional television successes including Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) and Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971).
Traditional hand-drawn animation was employed in features like The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967), specials like Frosty the Snowman (1969), and series like The King Kong Show (1966). Bass shared the director credit with Rankin for the aforementioned productions. Their later collaborations included the hit cartoon ThunderCats (1985–1989) and The Wind in the Willows (1987).
Bass wrote the lyrics for many of the films he directed, collaborating with composer Maury Laws. This began with his first solo directing project, the live-action/stop-motion feature The Daydreamer (1966). Bass also wrote for some of the company's specials and series under the pseudonym "Julian P. Gardner" (a moniker Rankin also sometimes used; it combined "Jules" with the name of one of Rankin's sons), some of which include The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus, and the Emmy Award-nominated The Little Drummer Boy, Book II. With Laws, he wrote songs performed by Fred Astaire, Danny Kaye, Mickey Rooney, Ed Wynn, Patty Duke, Ray Bolger, Shirley Booth, John Huston, Roddy McDowall, Danny Thomas, José Ferrer, Vincent Price, Phyllis Diller, Boris Karloff, and the Vienna Boys' Choir. Bass also adapted the verse of J. R. R. Tolkien, approved by the Tolkien estate, into musicalized lyrics for the first completed film adaptation of The Hobbit, in 1977. The animated feature, produced for NBC, was awarded the Peabody Award.
Bass stopped directing and producing films in 1987. He later authored a series of children's books, based around the character of Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon and Cooking with Herb. He also wrote fiction for adults including Headhunters, which was adapted into the 2011 Selena Gomez feature, Monte Carlo.
