There is another 1999's TV series aired in Japan and internationally known as BARBAPAPÁ AROUND  THE WORLD, but it is a Studio Pierrot production.	DR. SNUGGLES was originally conceived and created by British writer Jeffery O' Kelly. The remaining six episodes were animated by Depatie/Freleng Inc.

1977 opened with a long TV series very known to every European and Japanese children: LES BARBAPAPÁ. It was developed from the original illustrated tales by Annete Tison and Talus Taylor and a lot of episodes were directed by Katsuhisa Yamada and Koichi Sasaki. This was the first joint work that Topcraft made with the Netherlands. A small Japanese agency named K&S purchased the rights of  some western characters to make TV series for export. Even Pagot's CALIMERO was made by K&S (in association with Toei) with such purpose and aired in Japan only months after. The first season of BARBAPAPÁ, 45 episodes partially made at the studios of  Tama Productions, was co-produced by Polyscope BV and aired for the first time in France during 1974 by TF1 (LINK). In 1977 Tokyo12-Channel (today TV-Tokyo) eventually bought the TV series and commissioned a second season (104 + 6 episodes) to Topcraft (presumibily with the supervision of Polyscope BV and economic funds by Frank Fehmers Productions, the actual copyrights owner). In a recent interview to Cartoon on the Bay, the author confirms that the whole phase of pre-production was achieved in France and that only a part of the 1977's season was broadcast because several episodes would have had a mediocre quality. The website NNgallery reports that Chew Kiat Lim was storyboard artist during 1975/76 (LINK). The info about the 1977's Japanese broadcasting has been confirmed into Japan TV Anime History (LINK). We don't yet know anything about mysterious Dutch TV series entitled DOCTOR SNUGGLES, except that the animation supervision was done by Tsuguyuki Kubo. Both the series were aired in the USA during 1981 through LBS Communications.

When American producers wanted to made a faithful animated version of J.R.R. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT, they applied once again to Toru Hara's studio, where some of the famous illustrator Arthur Rackham's works were accurately examined. Thanks to experience provided by supervisor Tsuguyuki Kubo this TV special had to count no less of 40.000 cels, boasting about nearly two-hour of good animation. The beautiful backgrounds were made by Hidetoshi Kaneko and Kazuko Ito under artistic supervision of a veteran such as Minoru Nishida. Direction and screenplay were respectively assigned to Katsuhisa Yamada and Romeo Muller. In the collectors world is still valued the album relesed by Disney's Vista Record, that owned a splendid film-book (Disney group already released the soundtrack albums of 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS and WINTER WONDERLAND). This TV special won the Christopher Award and it was the first TV product of any work by South African author J.R.R. Tolkien as well. Very important for success of it, was the voice characterization of Bilbo, for which had been called a best-known talent actor such as Orson Bean. In the same year, Topcraft was once again helpful to Tatsunoko, since this one was involved in a co-production with France's Procidis. During its filming, Tomoko Kida left Tatsunoko to join Topcraft's editing department. In the course of 1977, Hidekazu Ohara was also employed in the I/B animator role. After Topcraft disbandment his apparitions in the world of TV animation will be rare. He undertook the career of director for commercial shorts.

THE HOBBIT was originally premiered in November 1977 on NBC. It brought Rankin/Bass at a whole new adult's audience.	Thanks to this work, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass had a prestigious Peabody Award. It was the most awarded Rankin/ Bass TV special.

In 1978 was released the feature film THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but it was not a Rankin/Bass production. It presented the adventures written on the first book of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy. (LINK) Ralph Bakshi directed this work on the accurate screenplay achieved by Peter S. Beagle. (LINK) Bakshi was one of a few American cartoonist who believed in the adult animation and Beagle is still one of the most appreciated England's novellist. Even if the animation parts were made at an high level, it was never been completely appreciated by Tolkien fans, due to the incompleted ending. Furthermore, Bakshi did an eccessive use of live action in the second half of it. In the next year Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass premiered an ideal but-not-official sequel of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, entitled it THE RETURN OF THE KING. Character design was similar to THE HOBBIT, since anew were Lester Abrams and Tsuguyuki Kubo to realize it. In spite of being a low-cost TV special, it was a successful follow up to THE HOBBIT on several different levels, boasting an amount of circa 47.000 cels. This new effort of Rankin/Bass did have really nothing to envy to the famous film of Bakshi, even if the critics slighted it. It is my duty to remember that also in the critically acclaimed Bakshi's productions the tedious and expensive process of coloration was partly supplied by a Korean factory. (LINK)

It captured the strong feel of Tolkien's book and was recently released through LORIMAR-Telepictures.	It was premiered on NBC during May 1980, but it was actually completed at the end of 1979.

THE HOBBIT and THE RETURN OF THE KING have at time been relased on VHS from Warner Home Video. Now they are available on DVD, but only in NTSC. In the period between the production of these two titles, Topcraft made a musical tv-special based on Dickens Christmas Carol titled THE STINGIEST MAN OF TOWN. It was realized for NBC and features the voice talent of Walter Matthau. Masahiro Yoshida, Fumiko Kawada and Yoshiko Sasaki were key animators, while Kazuko Ito did the background paintings based on Kazusuke Yoshihara's layout. Its final cost was 1,5$ million. This Rankin/bass special was also the only one to be broadcast in Japan. Because of this, some sources consider it to be anime (by the definition of the word which refers exclusively to Japanese animation).