Bear Bones Productions

Bear Bones Productions (also known as Bear Bones Studios, commonly referred to as Bear Bones) is an American animation studio headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded by former Hanna-Barbera animator Mala Miles on May 1975, the studio is operated as a subsidiary of Bear Bones Entertainment and is best known for producing animated television series, feature films and short films. The studio was formerly owned by Taft Broadcasting; they became independent in 1990, following Turner Entertainment's acquisition of Hanna-Barbera.

Early years (1975–1996)
Bear Bones' predecessor Mala Miles Productions was founded in 1975 as a division between Hanna-Barbera by animator Mala Miles who wanted to realize his dream of producing an animated feature-length film.

In 1987, Mala Miles announced its plans to acquire Wave Wonder and the company was renamed to TakaWave. In 1988, Mala Miles founded Naughty Bear Animation, which typically produces animated films and television shows targeted to adult audiences.

In 1992, Bear Bones founded division Sensation Animation, who makes original animated series and feature films separate from its sister studio. That same year, Bear Bones Australia, was founded.

In 1993, Mala Miles founded a computer animation department at the studio's main headquarters at Los Angeles, California that would produce computer-generated productions, including special effects for some of their films, starting with the film Greenuts in 1993, which was Mala Miles' first attempt at computer animation. For then, the studio had the traditional animators working for their main hand-drawn animation department, and the computer animators worked on CG productions.

In 1994, TakaWave was spun off into a separate public company, although TakaWave still owns the video game rights to Malachi Universal from Mala Miles Productions.

Bear Bones era (1996–1998)
In 1996, Mala Miles Productions changed its name to Bear Bones Productions. To expand the studio's online content presence, Bear Bones launched their own official website, BearBones.com, in 1996. The website gathers its core animation properties in a single online environment for site visitors. It offers both originally produced content along with press releases, games, free wallpapers, desktop backgrounds, and screensavers. In 1998, the studio founded Bear Bones Interactive, an in-house video game development department.

Bear Bones Entertainment era (1999–present)
On January 1, 1999, Bear Bones Productions, along with Riverhood Entertainment and Hammocks Animation, was transferred into Bear Bones Entertainment, a new entertainment company. Its divisions Naughty Bear Animation and Bear Bones Interactive, formerly under the main Bear Bones Productions umbrella, were integrated under Bear Bones Entertainment.

After seeing the box office success of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek and Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc., Bear Bones was restructured as a computer animation studio, but the studio still has several hand-drawn animated productions in development. As a result, Maloing Entertainment was founded to make CGI films.

In May 2006, Bear Bones launched their official YouTube channel, which is a YouTube Partner channel featuring clips and trailers from the studio's productions and many others.

In June 1, 2010, it was announced that Bear Bones Studios had started production on a theatrical shorts series, called Bear Bones Cartoons, which will show original animated short films before Bear Bones' feature films, much akin to what Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios do for their feature films and a similar concept as Walt Disney cartoons, MGM cartoons, Walter Lantz cartoons, Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, Mouse Trapz cartoons, Jollytoons cartoons, Terrytoons cartoons, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The first short film to be produced for the series was Rock n' Foods, released with Naughty Bear Animation's Life Squad.

On November 18, 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sony Pictures was in talks to buy Bear Bones Productions to share with Mala Miles for $3 billion; the company already has its own feature animation studio, Sony Pictures Animation, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment unit which is known for the Open Season, Surf's Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania franchises. On June 23, 2016, Sony Pictures officially announced its intent will buy Bear Bones Productions to share with Miles for $3.8 billion. On September 1, 2016, the acquisition was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In May 2016, Bear Bones Entertainment and Sonar Entertainment teamed up with select companies to launch a new block. After several discussions, Bear Bones announced plans to launch a new, multi-platform cartoons entertainment brand known as BBToons.

2020–present: Anime distribution
Bear Bones folded Riverhood in early 2015. Founder Sabrina Scott talks angry for Mala Miles and passed following a stroke; Riverhood filed for bankruptcy protection, and the studio shut down in 2020. On February 11, 2020, Bear Bones Productions announced that it will start distributing anime films and would also include an English dub cast as well.

Bear Bones Lineup
Bear Bones Lineup was a created-for-syndication two-hour animated television programming block produced by Bear Bones Studios in association with Tribune with distribution through their syndication affiliate Tribune, debuted on August 31, 1996. The syndicated Bear Bones Lineup block was relaunched as the Bear Bones Channel on May 28, 2005. The 22 cable channels and blocks using the Bear Bones Lineup brand around the world were relaunched under the Bear Bones Channel brand over the next four years, concluding with the rebranding of the Polish channel in February 2009.

Bear Bones Channel
The Bear Bones Channel was a American pay television channel that is operated by the Bear Bones Channel Group LLC. The channel was launched on March 28, 2005. Its headquarters were located in Burbank. it was originally targeted towards kids, but now targets both kids, teens and adults. The English feed is used around English speaking countries (like Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand), its programming consists of original first-run television series, theatrically-released and home media-exclusive movies and select other third-party programming. In 2017, following the launch of BBToons, it was announced that Bear Bones Channel would shut down, and BBToons' own channel would take its place. The merger happened in 2017.

BBToons
BBToons, short for Bear Bones Toons, is both a cartoon programming block and channel, with the block version airing on Animax in January 30, 2014, and the channel version three years after the block premiered.

BearBones.com
BearBones.com is Bear Bones' main website, which launched in 1996 as a component of America Online's Kids Only channel before eventually moving to the full World Wide Web. It provides content, as well as video clips and full episodes of Bear Bones series available for streaming.

Mobile apps
Bear Bones released a free mobile app for smartphones and tablet computers operating on the Apple and Android platforms in January 2011. Like BearBones.com and Sony.com, a TV Everywhere login code provided by participating subscription providers is required to view individual episodes of Bear Bones and Sony network's series.

Naughty Bear Animation
Naughty Bear Animation is the adult production studio division that produces adult-oriented animated feature films and television series and provides original program to the Bear Bones network's former late-night program Naughty Bear, that is located in Los Angeles, California, along with the main headquarters of the Bear Bones animation studio.

Bear Bones Interactive
Bear Bones Interactive is the studio's in-house video game department. Founded in 1997, the studio is best known for developing the games, as well as games based on its parent company's Malachi Universal and more franchises.

Bear Bones Magazine
Bear Bones Magazine was a print magazine that was launched in 1997 and published until 2010. It incorporated informative non-fiction pieces, humor (including pranks and parodical pieces), interviews, recipes, and a comic book section in the center of each issue featuring original comics by leading underground cartoonists as well as strips about popular Bear Bones and non-Bear Bones properties.

Bear Bones Distribution
Bear Bones Distribution is the Bear Bones network's distribution arm. It distributes the shows, pilots, and movies through various international Bear Bones channels since 1998.

Bear Bones Branding
Bear Bones Branding is the studio's global licensing and merchandising arm established in 2002. It distributes merchandises of various Bear Bones brands such as Malachi Universal, The Animal Farm, Toon Friends, Wonderful Darlene, The Kutabatas, Live Tour, The Kidriends, and more.

Theme park areas
All except three Bear Bones-themed theme park areas now closed:

Current attractions

 * Bear Bones Xplosion  is an area inside of Movie Park Germany featuring Bear Bones-themed rides, including a Malachi-themed dark ride. This area is currently being expanded to fill space formerly occupied with rides based on Warner Bros. characters.
 * Bear Bones World opened in August 2016 at IMG Worlds of Adventure as one of the four "epic zones". This zone contains the world's largest Bear Bones-themed store.

Closed areas

 * Bear Bones Palace was a short-lived area at Dreamworld in Australia. It was closed later on and was rebranded as Nickelodeon Central, which was also rethemed it to the generic Kid's World theme (it was later revealed that the park had struck a deal with DreamWorks Animation).

Hotel brands
Coming soon!

Cruises
Coming soon!

Gallery
Coming soon!

Trivia

 * Malachi is Bear Bones' mascot since 1976.