Universal Television Animation

Universal Television Animation is an American animation studio that creates, develops and produces animated television series, films, specials and other projects. It is a division of Universal Television, ultimately owned by Comcast through NBCUniversal.

History
MCA has created its television animation division entitled Universal Television Animation in 1989 by Jeff Segal to produce animated shows as well as TV specials and TV movies. Prior to that, they partnered with Fred Calvert Productions in the 1970s on ''Emergency! 4+ and The Mini Munsters and in 1987 with TMS Entertainment on Bionic Six and even with Hyperion/Kushner-Locke on the short "Family Dog" for Amazing Stories''.

In 1991, the studio was integrated into Universal Cartoon Studios, which is a part of MCA Family Entertainment. Initially focusing on Saturday morning cartoons such as Back to the Future: The Animated Series, it expanded in 1992 with its first cable show Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories. A year later, they made its first foray onto prime time TV with Family Dog and in syndication with Exosquad. In 1996 after Multimedia, Inc. was sold to MCA, the television animation unit Gingo Animation was merged into its television animation unit, keeping Gingo as a separate entity while its CEO Michael Wildshill oversaw both UTA and Gingo as well as animation units for the entire Universal group. It was expanded to produce shows for Gingo, and in 2002, for NightHouse, and it took over production of Gingo shows.

In 1999, after acquiring PolyGram, UTA took over co-production facilities of Maisy, and shared with King Rollo Films. As a result, many employees of PolyGram Visual Programming moved over to its television animation division and launched its London office. Two years later, they branched out into CGI by partnering with Creative Capers Entertainment on the first CGI cartoon Sitting Ducks. CCE and Universal parted ways after a dispute, and it was followed by the next CGI cartoon Planetokio.

In 2004, NBC was merged with Universal to form NBC Universal. Two years later, they started doing work for PBS with Curious George. They expanded its focus to produce more CGI cartoons, starting with Computeropolis: Adventures of Peri & Nicky. In 2011, NBCUniversal was sold to Comcast, which gained full interest in 2013. In 2013, for the first time in 20 years, Universal tried to attempt prime time again with College University. It flopped after one season on NBC, but it gained cult following and a revival.

In 2016, after DreamWorks Animation was sold to NBCUniversal, its television animation operations were combined, with DreamWorks remaining as a separate entity. Both DreamWorks and Universal collaborated with Netflix on Fast & Furious: Spy Racers and Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, respectively.

In 2020, UTA collaborated with 20th Television Animation on the Fox series Duncanville.

Short films

 * Magilli's Boombox Party (1996)
 * Cookie and Cream in The Last Slice (2002)
 * Operation Bug (2008)