The story
Universal Animation Studios was established in 1990 as Universal Cartoon Studios, the animation division of MCA Inc., to produce television shows. It was originally a subsidiary of Universal Family Entertainment, which was headed by former Hanna-Barbera employee Jeff Segal. Its debut work was Back to the Future: The Animated Series, which was announced on March 22, 1991, and premiered on CBS on September 14 the same year.
In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios was transferred as a joint-venture between Universal Family Entertainment and MCA/Universal Home Video, due to the tremendous growth in the children's home video market.
In 1995, the company partnered with Harvey Comics to launch a new subsidiary, Universal/Harvey Animation Studios, to produce animated series based on Harvey Comics' properties.
In 1996, the two groups Universal Family Entertainment and its subsidiary Universal Cartoon Studios were absorbed into MCA Television Entertainment.
In 1998, Universal Cartoon Studios was later transferred to Universal Family & Home Entertainment Production (later renamed as Universal Home Entertainment Productions), as first mentioned in An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island.
In 2001, when Vivendi acquired Universal Cartoon Studios and Universal Pictures Home Video's parent Universal Studios alongside its owner Seagram back in 2000, Universal Studios established a new subsidiary that would handle, manage and expand Universal Pictures' key intellectual properties across multiple platforms entitled Universal Pictures Franchise Development with Universal Cartoon Studios and its home entertainment parent Universal Pictures Home Video & London-based British production division Universal Pictures Visual Programming being placed into the new subsidiary alongside Universal Studios' consumer products & licensing division Universal Pictures Consumer Products which also became division of the new subsidiary, while Louis Feola became president of the new subsidiary.
In 2005, Universal Cartoon Studios was absorbed into Universal Studios Family Productions, and later on, it was renamed to Universal Animation Studios.
In 2006, Universal Animation Studios produced and animated the film Curious George in-house in Los Angeles, along with several animation studios around the world.
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In 2007, Chris Meledandri founded Illumination (formerly as unnamed until 2008) with a deal was announced positioning his studio as Universal's family entertainment arm, that would produce one to two films a year starting in 2010, while Universal Studios Family Productions acts as Universal Animation Studios' animation home-video arm. As part of the deal, Illumination retains creative control and Universal Pictures exclusively distributes the films.
In 2016, Universal Pictures acquired DreamWorks Animation, making it one of the two theatrical animation divisions of Universal, alongside Illumination. With this acquisition, it was merged with DreamWorks Animation Television, who began to produce shows based on Universal Pictures franchises, such as Fast & Furious: Spy Racers and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.
From Wikipedia’s article on Universal Animation Studios, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4