Glass Ball Productions

Glass Ball Productions (also known as Glass Ball Animation or Glass Ball Studios, commonly referred to as Glass Ball) is an American live-action/animation studio established on December 21, 1993 and based in North Hollywood, California, as well as its other offices at Burbank. A division label of Gingo Entertainment, the studio produces live-action as well as animated films and television shows (including the animated series Really Surreal) with more mature themes and darker tones that are targeted to adult audiences, than those released under the studio's main Gingo Animation banner. As such, Glass Ball Productions was a pseudonym brand for the studio, and does not exist as a distinct business operation.

Glass Ball has produced five theatrically released films starting with The TeenV Movie in 2003, its most recent release being Havoc on the Planet of the Apes in 2019. As of 1993, Glass Ball also works as the in-house production arm of NightHouse, the adult programming block on Gingo TV along with creating programs for other channels. In a similar manner to Gingo Animation (which has a long-running partnership with its former parent company Universal Pictures), Glass Ball is primarily associated with 20th Century Fox (now part of The Walt Disney Company), but also with some other studios such as Columbia Pictures.

Background
Due to increased public assumption that Gingo productions were aimed at children and families, work by the Gingo Productions began to receive negatively as a result. In 1990, Gingo produced a television pilot titled Melee Girl, which did not get a full series due to major criticism for including adult themes that were considered inappropriate for a Gingo property. Melee Girl was considered a potential The Simpsons-level success series by the studio. In February 1992, an episode of Gingo's hit series Gabriel Garza titled "Mr. TV" was criticized by critics and parents who interpreted the episode as an example of promoting and implicitly satirizing use of profanity towards children. The controversy over the episode is generally considered the catalyst that sparked the creation of Glass Ball Productions.

In March 1992, Gingo co-founder Michael Wildshill announced that they would produce and develop more mature productions under a new brand. Wildshill elaborated to the New York Times: "We won't get into horror or exploitive sex, but using a non-Gingo name will allow us wider latitude in the maturity of the subject matter and the edge we can add to the humor."

History
Glass Ball Productions was started by Gingo CEO and founder Geo G. on December 21, 1993 as a label for their mature productions with an expected one to two productions released under the label. One title suggested for the new company was Northwood Entertainment, named after a portmanteau of the location of the studio. Additionally, Wildshill considered renaming the label to StarActive Animation.

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Logo
The Glass Ball Productions logo depicts a large glass ball being shattered by a butterfly, followed by a loud cracking sound. The logo was created by Gingo Animation in traditional animation and designed by founder Geo G. Some special versions of the studio's animation were made to fit episodes of shows like TeenV. Often, dialogue from some TeenV episodes can be heard during the animation.

The Glass Ball logo was parodied in the "Rejected Pokémon" segment in an episode of the Cartoon Network animated series MAD, where it features a rejected Pokémon called Glasstar, who is shattered by a butterfly (which resembles the one in the Glass Ball logo), thus echoing the famous Glass Ball logo.

Miscellaneous productions

 * Adult Swim (network IDs, promos)
 * Cardcaptor Sakura (English dub title cards)
 * Comedy Central (IDs, commercial)
 * Everyone's Hero (2006; commercials)
 * Team POWER (2004) (visual effects)
 * Teletoon at Night (packaging)
 * Ugly Americans (visual effects)
 * Alleycats (2017)
 * Computeropolis: The Deep Web (2018, use of Planet of the Apes and Ico characters under license from Fox and Sony)