MTM Animation

MTM Animationis a Canadian (formerly American) feature animation studio. As of 2009, it mainly operates as a feature animation arm of Nelvana.

History
In 1957, Michael Shires, former Disney alumni, formed his own animation studio. The company was low-budget, and relied on a distribution deal with American International Pictures (later Filmways).

In 1965, Michael Shires formed a television animation studio, Shires Television Animation, which was sold to SFM Entertainment in 1975 after “10 years of flops”. (Ironically, both studios eventually ended up in the hands of MTM Enterprises by 1984, when SFM sold its television animation and made-for-TV movie units to MTM.)

Michael Shires Animation Studios went bankrupt in 1981, after the death of Michael Shires in 1979, due to mismanagement and corruption by his son and successor, Michael Shires Jr. Ironically, their last film, “Princess Stella” (released later in 1981), about a heroic princess who has to rescue a knight, in a “role reversal” of the “damsel in distress” trope, was a massive hit, but it was too late to save the studio.

MTM Animation was formed in 1982, after MTM Enterprises acquired much of the assets and remaining employees of Michael Shires Animation Studios. The deal with Orion Pictures, a successor of AIP and Filmways, continued until 1987, when MTM moved distribution in-house.

At the time of acquisition by MTM, the studio had no films in production, only a few rough outlines for future films. One of these outlines, “Catland”, which involved a world of anthropomorphic cats, was combined with the proposed plot of a potential sequel to “Princess Stella”, and the MTM Enterprises mascot Mimsie the cat, to create their first movie under the MTM banner, “Mimsie’s Adventure” (1983). This movie was hailed as “the start of a new era in animation”, due to the use of a new proprietary Unix-based computer system for in-betweening. (However, everything else was hand-drawn or cel-animated.) This “Unixmation” system, made by Bell Labs, was completed in 2 weeks to meet a deadline.

In 1984, MTM acquired a television animation studio (ironically the former Shires TV studio) from SFM Entertainment.

(more history TBA)