Cosgrove Hall Films

Cosgrove Hall Films was a British animation studio founded by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall and based in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Its lineage began with Stop Frame Productions, which Hall started in 1969 and which closed in 1975, and continued as Cosgrove Hall Productions, a studio that Thames Television set up as a subsidiary in 1976. That studio closed in 1993 when Thames lost its ITV franchise, and it reopened in November 1993 as Cosgrove Hall Films under Anglia Television and HBO backing, with Cosgrove and Hall holding a quarter. The company became best known for children's television, notably Danger Mouse, The Wind in the Willows and Count Duckula, whose programmes were shown in more than eighty countries. ITV plc, its owner from 2004, wound the company down on 26 October 2009.