When Mark Hall, who has died of cancer aged 75, teamed up in a new company with Brian Cosgrove, a fellow graphic designer from Granada Television, they ventured on a path that led to the production of hugely popular, well-crafted children's series such as Danger Mouse and The Wind in the Willows. Cosgrove Hall Productions became one of Europe's most successful animation studios.

The pair's chalk-and-cheese personalities and complementary skills were a critical factor. Hall was calm and quietly spoken, with a talent for running the business and model-animation, while Cosgrove was slightly more temperamental and an expert cartoonist.

"Part of our success is that we argue like crazy, but always for the right things," Hall told the journalist Fiona McClymont in 2002. "Our roles overlap, which caused problems in the beginning. Brian was happiest creating brand-new ideas that came from the end of his pen, like Danger Mouse and Count Duckula. I was much happier with the classics, like The Pied Piper of Hamelin and The Wind in the Willows."

Hall, who was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, was an artistic child who put on his own puppet shows for friends. At the Regional College of Art, Manchester (now part of Manchester Metropolitan University), where he trained as an illustrator, he met Cosgrove, and they were later reunited in the city at the ITV company Granada, producing graphics for various television programmes.

In 1969, Hall left the security of his job to set up Stop Frame Animations and was soon joined by Cosgrove. After making commercials for the TV Times and the magazine Look-In, as well as public information films, they produced their first award-winning series, The Magic Ball (1971-72). It told the story of a time-travelling boy whose adventures are sparked by the unusual objects he finds in his Aunt Mil's antiques shop. Written and narrated by Eric Thompson, of Magic Roundabout fame, and notable for mixing photographs with hand drawings, it was made in a converted garden shed at Cosgrove's father-in-law's house and demonstrated the pair's inventiveness, wit and eccentricity. Hall then gained experience as a director with Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1972) and the Noddy series (1975).

Although Stop Frame closed in 1975, salvation came as a result of having made the title sequence and animated inserts for the children's show Rainbow since its launch in 1972. That programme's producer, the ITV company Thames Television, set up Cosgrove Hall Productions as a wholly owned subsidiary and commissioned Hall and Cosgrove to make programmes for it, with John Hambley as executive producer.

Over the next quarter of a century, the studio produced a string of popular shows using both cartoon and stop-motion animation, before embracing computer-generated imagery. First came the cartoon Jamie and the Magic Torch (1976-79), featuring a boy who shines a light through his bedroom floor into Cuckoo Land. It ran in tandem with another much-cherished children's series, the surreal Chorlton and the Wheelies (1976-79), named after the new company's base at a converted tobacco warehouse in the Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, using stop-motion animation and following the story of a magical dragon – immune to the evil Kettle Witch Fenella's magic – who awakens the heads-on-wheels characters of Wheelie World. Both series were written by Brian Trueman, a Granada Television presenter who was beginning a long partnership with Hall and Cosgrove.

The company found its greatest success with Danger Mouse (1981-92), a cartoon about an eyepatch-wearing secret agent and his bumbling hamster sidekick, Penfold, who operate out of a London postbox, accept missions from Colonel K of the Secret Service and do battle with the fiendish villain Baron Silas Greenback. With David Jason voicing the title character, Danger Mouse was sold to more than 50 countries, including the US. Merchandise also generated millions of pounds. Although many thought the hero was based on James Bond, he was intended as an extension of television's Danger Man, played by Patrick McGoohan.

The series also spawned the spin-off Count Duckula (1988-93), about a vegetarian vampire duck, voiced by Jason, who could also be heard as Toad in The Wind in the Willows, an evocative stop-motion animation that began with a 1983 television film, based on Kenneth Grahame's novel, and was followed by four series (1984-88).

The voices of Michael Hordern as Badger, Ian Carmichael, then Peter Sallis, as Rat, and Richard Pearson as Mole completed the lineup, giving the adventures a relaxed, unhurried feel. All the characters' models were beautifully dressed, the sets were painstakingly designed, and the nostalgic cocktail gained many awards, including a 1984 Emmy. A television film spin-off, Oh! Mr Toad! (1989), was followed by a series of that title a year later.

Danger Mouse, 1981-92, the secret agent operating out of a London postbox, proved to be a great international success. Photograph: FremantleMedia Ltd/Rex Features

Other Cosgrove Hall programmes included Cockleshell Bay (1980-86), Creepy Crawlies (1987-89), Noddy's Toyland Adventures (1992-94), Oakie Doke (1995-96), Fantomcat (1995-96), the first two series of Brambly Hedge (1996-97) and Lavender Castle (1999-2000), and there was a 1989 film version of Roald Dahl's book The BFG. Cosgrove Hall also produced the Captain Kremmen comic-strip, aimed at a different audience, for The Kenny Everett Video Show (1978-80).

After Thames Television lost its ITV London weekday broadcasting franchise at the end of 1992, the company struck a deal with Anglia Television and the distributor ITEL, and was rebranded Cosgrove Hall Films. This led to the creation of studios equipped for digital animation. Following Hall and Cosgrove's retirement in 2000, the company produced – for the BBC – revivals of Bill and Ben (2001) and Andy Pandy (2002), as well as Postman Pat (2003-06). In 2003, Cosgrove Hall was absorbed into the newly unified ITV, which finally closed the business two years ago.

In October, Hall and Cosgrove announced that they had formed a new company, CHF Entertainment, and were working on a children's series titled HeroGliffix.

Hall is survived by his wife, Margaret Routledge, whom he married in 1961, and their children, Rachel and Simon.

• Mark William Hall, animator and producer, born 17 May 1936; died 17 November 2011

• Cosgrove and Hall on the Toonhound website