Editing Stop motion (section)

===1960s and 1970s===
[[File:Pat Mat.jpg|thumb|[[Pat & Mat]], two inventive but clumsy neighbors, was introduced in 1976,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.extrastory.cz/pat-a-mat-spolu-kuti-uz-40-let-a-stale-se-nevzdavaji.html |title=Pat a Mat spolu kutí už 40 let a stále se nevzdávají. Za socialismu je chtěli zakázat, za kapitalismu málem zkrachovali |publisher=extrastory.cz |date= |access-date=2021-12-20 | language = cs}}</ref> while the first made-for-TV episode ''Tapety'' (translated ''Wallpaper'') was produced in 1979 for [[Jednotka|ČST Bratislava]].]]
Japanese puppet animator [[Tadahito Mochinaga]] started out as assistant animator in short anime (propaganda) films ''Arichan'' (1941) and ''[[Momotarō no Umiwashi]]'' (1943). He fled to [[Manchukuo]] during the war and stayed in China afterwards. Due to the scarcity of paint and film stock shortly after the war, Mochinaga decided to work with puppets and stop-motion. His work helped popularize puppet animation in China, before he returned to Japan around 1953 where he continued working as animation director. In the 1960s, Mochinaga supervised the "Animagic" puppet animation for productions by [[Arthur Rankin Jr.]] and [[Jules Bass]]' Videocraft International, Ltd. (later called [[Rankin/Bass Productions]], Inc.) and [[Dentsu]], starting with the syndicated television series ''[[The New Adventures of Pinocchio (TV series)|The New Adventures of Pinocchio]]'' (1960-1961). The Christmas TV special ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV special)|Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]'' has been telecasted annually since 1964 and has become one of the most beloved holiday specials in the United States. They made three theatrical feature films ''[[Willy McBean and His Magic Machine]]'' (1965), ''[[The Daydreamer (film)|The Daydreamer]]'' (1966, stop-motion / live-action) and ''[[Mad Monster Party?]]'' (1966, released in 1967), and the television special ''Ballad of Smokey the Bear'' (1966) before the collaboration ended. Rankin/Bass worked with other animators for more TV specials, with titles such as ''[[The Little Drummer Boy (TV special)|The Little Drummer Boy]]'' (1968), ''[[Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (film)|Santa Claus is Comin' to Town]]'' (1970) and ''[[Here Comes Peter Cottontail]]'' (1971).

British television has shown many stop-motion series for young children since the 1960s. An early example is ''[[Snip and Snap]]'' (1960-1961) by [[John Halas]] in collaboration with Danish paper sculptor Thok Søndergaard (Thoki Yenn), featuring dog Snap, cut from a sheet of paper by pair of scissors Snip.

Apart from their cutout animation series, British studio [[Smallfilms]] ([[Peter Firmin]] and [[Oliver Postgate]]) produced several stop-motion series with puppets, beginning with ''[[Pingwings]]'' (1961-1965) featuring penguin-like birds knitted by Peter's wife Joan and filmed on their farm (where most of their productions were filmed in an unused barn). It was followed by ''[[Pogles' Wood]]'' (1965-1967), ''[[Clangers]]'' (1969-1972, 1974, revived in 2015), ''[[Bagpuss]]'' (1974) and ''[[Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House]]'' (1984).

Czech surrealist filmmaker [[Jan Švankmajer]]'s released his short artistic films since 1964, which usually contain much experimental stop-motion. He started to gain much international recognition in the 1980s. Since 1988 he has mostly been directing feature films which feature much more live action than stop-motion. These include ''[[Alice (1988 film)|Alice]]'', an adaptation of [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', and ''[[Faust (1994 film)|Faust]]'', a rendition of [[Faust|the legend of the German scholar]]. Švankmajer's work has been highly influential on other artists, such as [[Terry Gilliam]] and the Quay brothers (although the latter claim to have only discovered Švankmajer's films after having developed their own similar style).

French animator [[Serge Danot]] created ''[[The Magic Roundabout]]'' (1965) which played for many years on the [[BBC]].

Polish studio [[Se-ma-for]] produced popular TV series with animated puppets in adaptations of ''[[Colargol]]'' (''Barnaby the Bear'' in the UK, ''Jeremy'' in Canada) (1967-1974) and ''[[The Moomins (TV series)|The Moomins]]'' (1977-1982).

In the 1960s and 1970s, independent clay animator [[Eli Noyes|Eliot Noyes Jr.]] refined the technique of "free-form" clay animation with his Oscar-nominated 1965 film ''Clay (or the Origin of Species)''. Noyes also used stop-motion to animate sand lying on glass for his musical animated film ''Sandman'' (1975).

Italian director Francesco Misseri created the clay animation TV series ''[[Mio Mao]]'' (1970-1976, 2002–2007), ''[[The Red and the Blue (TV series)|The Red and the Blue]]'' (''Il Rosso e il Blu'', 1976), and a TV series with an animated [[origami]] duck ''[[Quaq Quao]]'' (1978-1979).

The British artists Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall ([[Cosgrove Hall Films]]) produced two stop-motion animated adaptions of [[Enid Blyton]]'s ''Noddy'' book series, including the original series of the same name (1975–1982) and ''[[Noddy's Toyland Adventures]]'' (1992–2001), a full-length film ''[[The Wind in the Willows (1983 film)|The Wind in the Willows]]'' (1983) and later a [[The Wind in the Willows (TV series)|multi-season TV series]], both based on [[Kenneth Grahame]]'s [[The Wind in the Willows|classic children's book]] of the same title. They also produced a documentary of their production techniques, ''Making Frog and Toad''.

In 1975, filmmaker and clay animation experimenter [[Will Vinton]] joined with sculptor [[Bob Gardiner (animator)|Bob Gardiner]] to create an experimental film called ''[[Closed Mondays]]'' which became the first stop-motion film to win an Oscar. Will Vinton followed with several other successful short film experiments including ''[[The Great Cognito]]'', ''The Creation'', and ''Rip Van Winkle'' which were each nominated for Academy Awards. In 1977, Vinton made a documentary about this process and his style of animation which he dubbed "claymation"; he titled the documentary ''Claymation''. Soon after this documentary, the term was trademarked by Vinton to differentiate his team's work from others who had been, or were beginning to do, "clay animation". While the word has stuck and is often used to describe clay animation and stop-motion, it remains a trademark owned currently by Laika Entertainment, Inc. Twenty clay-animation episodes featuring the clown [[Mr. Bill]] were a feature of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', starting from a first appearance in February 1976.

At very much the same time in the UK, [[Peter Lord]] and [[David Sproxton]] formed [[Aardman Animations]] that would produce many commercials, TV series, short films and eventually also feature films. In 1976 they created the character [[Morph (animation)|Morph]] who appeared as an animated side-kick to the TV presenter [[Tony Hart]] on his [[BBC TV]] programme [[Take Hart]]. The five-inch-high presenter was made from a traditional British modelling clay called [[Plasticine]]. In 1977 they started on a series of animated films, again using modelling clay, but this time made for a more adult audience. The soundtrack for ''[[Down and Out (film)|Down and Out]]'' was recorded in a Salvation Army Hostel and Plasticine puppets were animated to dramatise the dialogue. A second film, also for the BBC followed in 1978. A TV series [[The Amazing Adventures of Morph]] was aired in 1980.

Sand-coated puppet animation was used in the Oscar-winning 1977 film ''[[The Sand Castle (1977 film)|The Sand Castle]]'', produced by Dutch-Canadian animator [[Co Hoedeman]]. Hoedeman was one of dozens of animators sheltered by the [[National Film Board of Canada]], a Canadian government film arts agency that had supported animators for decades. A pioneer of refined multiple stop-motion films under the NFB banner was [[Norman McLaren]], who brought in many other animators to create their own creatively controlled films. Notable among these are the [[pinscreen animation]] films of Jacques Drouin, made with the original pinscreen donated by [[Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker]].

Czech filmmakers [[Lubomír Beneš]] and [[Vladimír Jiránek]] debuted their animated puppet characters ''[[Pat & Mat]]'', two inventive but clumsy neighbors, in the 7-minute short ''Kuťáci'' in 1976. Since 1979, over 100 episodes have been broadcast irregularly.<ref>{{Citation|title=Pat & Mat (TV Series 1976–2018) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0841929/episodes|access-date=2020-01-23}} {{User-generated source|certain=yes|date=March 2022}}</ref> Since 2014, new episodes were presented in theatrically released package films. The series became very popular in several countries, especially in The Netherlands, the only country where the characters are voiced.

One of the main British animation teams, [[Bura and Hardwick|John Hardwick and Bob Bura]], were the main animators in many early British TV shows, and are famous for their work on the ''[[Trumptonshire]]'' trilogy (''[[Camberwick Green]]'', ''[[Trumpton]]'' and ''[[Chigley]]''). Their company was named Stop-Motion Limited,<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01018410
|title=Stop-Motion Limited overview - Companies House
|date=5 April 2022
|access-date=8 December 2024}}</ref> the term having been their trademark until it became [[Generic trademark|generic]].<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.t-web.co.uk/trump_bh.htm
|title=The Animators: Bura and Hardwick - Trumptonshire Web
|access-date=8 December 2024}}</ref>

Disney experimented with several stop-motion techniques by hiring independent animator-director [[Mike Jittlov]] to make the first stop-motion animation of [[Mickey Mouse]] toys ever produced, in a short sequence called ''Mouse Mania'', part of a TV special, ''Mickey's 50'', which commemorated Mickey's 50th anniversary in 1978. Jittlov again produced some impressive multi-technique stop-motion animation a year later for a 1979 Disney special promoting their release of the feature film ''[[The Black Hole (1979 film)|The Black Hole]]''. Titled ''Major Effects'', Jittlov's work stood out as the best part of the special. Jittlov released his footage the following year to 16mm film collectors as a short film titled ''[[The Wizard of Speed and Time]]'', along with four of his other short multi-technique animated films, most of which eventually evolved into his own feature-length film of the same title. Effectively demonstrating almost all animation techniques, as well as how he produced them, the film was released to theaters in 1987 and to video in 1989.