60s and 70s

Many artists and filmmakers continued to experiment with stop motion throughout the 60s and 70s. This is when entire series and motion pictures were starting to be made using stop motion.

Norman McLaren was still making stop motion films with the National Film Board of Canada, and had also brought in many other animators to create their own creatively controlled films.

Another well known stop motion animated series from the 70s, is The Moomins, created by Finnish woman Tove Jansson. This series was based on the many Moomins books written by Jansson.

One of the most famous companies to start around this time, is Bristol based studio Aardman Animations, Ltd., who brought us Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. It was founded in 1972 as a low budget project by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who wanted to realise their dream of producing an animated motion picture. In 1976, they created the Plasticine character Morph, who first appeared as an animated side-kick to the late TV presenter Tony Hart on his BBC TV programme Take Hart. Morph also appeared in children's series SMart.

Tony Hart with Morph

Morph 

In 1985, Nick Park joined the company, and in 1989, created the short film 'Creature Comforts', which was the first Aardman production to win an Oscar.

Aardman films have now made $971.8 million worldwide and average $162 million per film. All of their stop motion films are among the highest-grossing stop-motion films, with their debut, 'Chicken Run', being their top grossing film as well as the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time.