A to Z of Animation Studios: Laika
(Or: The Stop-Motion Studio That Willingly Chose Suffering as a Career Path)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we celebrate animation history while also questioning why anyone willingly chooses stop-motion as their career. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, do it now before Laika spends five years animating a scene of you making bad life choices in painstaking detail.
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🔥 L is for Laika
Laika is the studio that took one of the most grueling, tedious, and time-consuming animation techniques in existence and said,
“Yes, this is what we want to do for a living.”
Founded in 2005, Laika specializes in stop-motion animation, a technique that requires moving tiny puppets frame by frame over several years just to create a 90-minute film.
Imagine spending six months animating a single character blinking, only for the studio execs to say, “Hmm… let’s change that.” That’s Laika’s entire existence.
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The Stop-Motion Masterpieces™ (A.K.A. Movies That Look So Good You Forget How Much They Suffered to Make Them)
• Coraline (2009) – The movie that made an entire generation terrified of buttons. Absolutely stunning animation, incredible atmosphere, and a villain who scarred children for life.
• Paranorman (2012) – What if The Sixth Sense was animated in excruciating stop-motion detail? A beautifully crafted ghost story with some of the best zombie animation ever.
• The Boxtrolls (2014) – A weird little movie about garbage-dwelling creatures and fancy cheese-obsessed villains.
• Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) – This movie has some of the most breathtaking stop-motion sequences ever created. At this point, Laika was basically competing with itself.
• Missing Link (2019) – A charming and hilariously overlooked film featuring a Bigfoot with better social skills than most people.
Every Laika film looks so good that you almost forget that every frame took weeks of painstaking effort. And yet, they still struggle to turn a profit. Why? Because stop-motion is an act of pure insanity.
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Laika’s Unfair Fate (A.K.A. Why Their Movies Never Make Money)
• Their movies take forever to make.
• They’re up against CGI-heavy blockbusters that cost less and make more.
• Most audiences don’t fully appreciate how difficult stop-motion is.
And yet, Laika refuses to give up. Even if it means painstakingly animating a character’s hair movement for a year while Pixar just uses a physics simulator.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Will Vinton Studios (The Real Stop-Motion Pioneers)
Now let’s talk about the studio that walked so Laika could run.
Before Laika, there was Will Vinton Studios, a company that pioneered claymation before it was cool.
What Did They Do?
• The California Raisins (1986) – Yes, the singing raisins from the ‘80s commercials. And yes, they were so popular that they got their own TV special.
• The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) – A stop-motion film that featured one of the most unsettling animated sequences ever created: the ‘Mysterious Stranger’ scene. If you’ve seen it, you know.
• The PJs (1999-2001) – A stop-motion sitcom starring Eddie Murphy as a landlord in the projects. Somehow, this existed.
• Claymation Christmas (1987) – A Christmas special featuring the most terrifying camel designs ever animated.
The Laika Takeover (A.K.A. The Sad Truth About Will Vinton Studios)
Will Vinton pioneered modern stop-motion, but his studio eventually ran out of funding.
Enter Travis Knight, son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who invested in the studio and took over. Eventually, it was rebranded as Laika, and Will Vinton was pushed out of his own company.
Vinton’s influence lives on, but it’s a harsh reminder that even animation legends aren’t safe from corporate takeovers.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before a Stop-Motion Puppet Replaces You in Real Life)
Laika? Absolute stop-motion masters.
Will Vinton? The original claymation king.
