Burbank Films Australia was an Australian animation-production company that in a span of eight years produced over thirty different animated films. These films were presented to the public through television or direct-to-video debuts.
The company's first animated productions in 1982 were a series of Animated Adaptations of books from Charles Dickens; these first few films characterized themselves by their grim appeal. The eight total Dickens adaptations were produced during two years. At the same time, in 1983, the company produced a short series of adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, adapted from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the years that followed, until 1988, Burbank adapted the works of many other well known authors and legends.
In 1991, the company was resurrected under the name of Burbank Animation Studios, from then until the present time, the new studio has continued the production of the "Animated Classics".
Filmography as Burbank Films Australia
- A Christmas Carol
- Oliver Twist
- David Copperfield
- Great Expectations
- Sherlock Holmes and a Study in Scarlet
- Sherlock Holmes and the Baskerville Curse
- Sherlock Holmes and the Sign of Four
- Sherlock Holmes and the Valley of Fear
- A Tale of Two Cities
- The Old Curiosity Shop
- The Adventures of Robin Hood
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Nicholas Nickleby
- The Man in the Iron Mask
- The Pickwick Papers
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Ivanhoe
- Kidnapped
- King Solomon's Mines
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- The Three Musketeers
- Alice through the Looking Glass
- Black Beauty
- Don Quixote of La Mancha
- Rob Roy
- The Last of the Mohicans
- The Odyssey
- Treasure Island
- Alice in Wonderland
- Around the World in Eighty Days
- Black Arrow
- Black Tulip
- Hiawatha
- Peter Pan
- Prisoner of Zenda
- Westward Ho!
- Wind in the Willows
- The Corsican Brothers
Filmography as Burbank Animation Studios
- White Fang
- The Emperor's New Clothes
- The Count of Monte-Cristo
- Hans and the Silver Skates
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- Frank Enstein
- Ali Baba
- The New Adventures of Robin Hood
- The Pied Piper of Hamlin
- Thumbelina
- The Fantastic Voyages of Sinbad
- Puss in Boots
- The New Adventures of William Tell
- Pocahontas
- Cinderella
- Beauty and the Beast
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (not to be confused with the one above - for one thing, Gringoire has been Adapted Out; for another, Quasimodo has a You No Take Candle way of speaking. It also features a Setting Update from 1482 to 1600.)
- Hercules
- Hansel and Gretel
- Anastasia
- The Little Mermaid
- Camelot
- Mulan
- Prince of the Nile: The Story of Moses
- The Three Little Pigs
- D4: The Trojan Dog
- Easter in Bunnyland
- Anna and the King
- Silent Night: The Story of the First Christmas
- The Canterville Ghost
- Joseph and the Coat of Many Colours
- The Little Drummer Boy
- Jungle Girl and the Lost Island of the Dinosaurs
- The Time Machine
Burbank Animation Studios' work provides examples of:
- Adaptation Inspiration: As Burbank Animation Studios, they do more works based on elements of their source materials rather than straight adaptations.
- Animated Adaptation: Of various classics, legends and fairy tales.
- Compressed Adaptation: As Burbank Films Australia, they tend to cut out quite a bit of the source material in order to keep their films under an hour.
- Lighter and Softer: In their time as Burbank Films Australia, their cartoons tread a fine line between being suitable for children and being faithful to the source material.
- Public Domain Animation: The studio's films were considered this until 2008, when the copyrights to their 80s and 90s catalogs were discovered and acquired by both Pulse Films
and H.S. Holdings Corp respectively. Although with the two no longer mentioning their ownership in recent years, along with the multiple re-releases from various PD distributors, Burbank's current copyright status has been in question. - You Don't Look Like You: In the rare case that they did stories set in the same continuity, this occurred, perhaps most notably in their two adaptations of the d'Artangan romances, where there was no resemblance between characters with Aramis in The Man in the Iron Mask bearing a strong resemblance to Richelieu in The Three Musketeers.
