Marvel Productions Ltd. (MP), last called New World Animation, was a television and film studio subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment Group (MEG), based in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, then New World Entertainment and News Corporation/Fox. Originally an animation studio, Marvel produced such notable television shows, motion pictures and television specials such as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Transformers: The Movie, The Incredible Hulk and G.I. Joe: The Movie. Most productions of Marvel Productions are now owned by The Walt Disney Company, with the several exceptions.

The company began in 1963 as DFE Films and was sold to Cadence Industries, Marvel Comics Group's owner, in 1980 after DFE founder and company executive Friz Freleng departed the company to return to his former job at Warner Bros. Animation. Freleng's business partner and DFE co-founder David H. DePatie continued to work for the company under the Marvel banner for several years until his retirement.

Marvel Productions opened its Los Angeles studio in 1980. In 1984, Margaret Loesch joined Marvel Productions as President and Chief Executive Officer. MCG was owned from 1968 by Cadence Industries Corporation and was incorporate as Marvel Entertainment Group (MEG) and sold in 1986 to New World Pictures. With New World have cash flow problems, MEG was sold in January 1989 to Andrews Group, a MacAndrews and Forbes subsidiary, owned by Ronald Perelman. However, Marvel Productions was merged into New World's television business. MP moved their offices from Van Nuys to West Los Angeles in May 1989. New World's problems continued which lead them to also be acquired by the Andrews Group within the year. Loesch left for Fox Kids in 1990.

Stan Lee (born December 28, 1922) is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.

In collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and many other fictional characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he headed the first major successful challenge to the industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, and forced it to reform its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995.

Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression, and the family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan. When Lee was nearly 9, his only sibling, brother Larry Lieber, was born. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in a one-bedroom apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and his brother sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch.

Margaret Edith Weis (born March 16, 1948 in Independence, Missouri, United States) is a fantasy novelist who, along with Tracy Hickman, is one of the original creators of the Dragonlance game world and has written numerous novels and short stories set in fantastic worlds.

Margaret Weis was born in 1948 in Independence, Missouri, and later attended the University of Missouri. She discovered heroic fantasy fiction while in college, “I read Tolkien when it made its first big sweep in the colleges back in 1966. A girlfriend of mine gave me copy of the books while I was in summer school at MU. I literally couldn’t put them down! I never found any other fantasy I liked, and just never read any fantasy after Tolkien.” She graduated with a bachelor's degree of Arts,^{[citation needed]} and went to work for a small publishing company in Independence and became an editor there. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Weis wrote children's books, including a biography of notorious frontier bandits Jesse and Frank James. Weis wrote about subjects such as computer graphics, robots, the history of Thanksgiving, and an adventure book written at a 2nd-grade reading level (intended for prisoners), but eventually decided she needed a change.

James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He died on May 16, 1990 of organ failure resulting from a Group A streptococcal infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes.

Henson, who was born in Greenville, Mississippi and educated at University of Maryland, College Park, is one of the most widely known puppeteers ever. He created Sam and Friends as a freshman in College Park. After suffering struggles with programs that he created, he eventually was selected to participate in Sesame Street. During this time, he also contributed to Saturday Night Live. The success of Sesame Street spawned The Muppet Show, which featured Muppets created by Henson. He also co-created with Michael Jacobs the television show Dinosaurs during his final years. On June 16, 2011, he posthumously received the Disney Legends Award.