How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special)


How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a 1966 television special directed and co-produced by Chuck Jones. It is based on the eponymous children's book by Dr. Seuss, the story of the Grinch trying to take away Christmas from the townsfolk of Whoville below his mountain hideaway. Originally telecast in the United States on CBS on December 18, 1966, it went on to become a perennial holiday special. The special also features the voice of Boris Karloff as the Grinch and the narrator.

Plot

The Grinch is a surly, antisocial green creature with a heart "two sizes too small" who lives alone in a cave atop Mt. Crumpit, located above the village of Whoville. He especially hates Christmas and has spent the last 53 years annoyed by their Christmas celebrations. In particular, he hates the noise, the gluttonous feasting, and the Christmas music. On Christmas Eve, he finally has had enough and decides to stop Christmas Day from coming to Whoville at all.
The Grinch makes himself a Santa Claus-style coat and hat, to disguise himself as the famed Christmas character. He also disguises his dog Max as a reindeer. The Grinch then loads empty bags onto a sleigh and travels to Whoville in the night. Acting as the reverse of Santa Claus, he takes everything Christmas-themed in the first house he finds. In so doing, he is almost caught by Cindy Lou Who, a toddler Who girl who wakes up and sees him taking the Christmas tree. Maintaining character as Santa, the Grinch tells Cindy Lou that he is merely taking the tree to his workshop for repairs, and then gets her a drink before sending her back to bed. He finishes emptying the first house of all the Christmas-related items, then repeats the process at the other houses in Whoville.
With the Whos' stolen Christmas goods, the Grinch and Max travel back up Mt. Crumpit. Before dropping the loaded sleigh off the mountain, the Grinch listens, excitedly, to hear cries of anguish from the Whos when they wake to discover their losses. However, down in the village, the Whos joyously begin to sing Christmas carols as though nothing had happened, proving that the spirit of Christmas does not depend on material things. At first, the Grinch is confused, but he then begins to understand the true meaning of Christmas. Just as the stolen Christmas items begin to slip off the mountain edge, the Grinch rushes to save them. His heart grows three sizes, granting him "the strength of ten Grinches, plus two!", which he needs to lift the sleigh to safety. He brings everything back to the Whos and participates in the holiday feast. He is given the honor of carving the Whos' favorite Christmas dish, a rare roast beast, and Max gets the first slice for all his troubles.

Credits

Director Chuck Jones and children's-book author Ted Geisel had worked together on the Private Snafu training cartoons at Warner Bros. Cartoons during World War II. Jones was interested in adapting one of Geisel's books into a television special and approached him to turn How the Grinch Stole Christmas! into one in time for the holiday season. Although Geisel was initially reluctant due to his unpleasant experiences making the film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., he eventually agreed. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was produced by The Cat in the Hat Productions in association with the television and animation divisions of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, where Jones was under contract at the time. CBS, coming off the surprise success of A Charlie Brown Christmas a year before, allotted Jones and MGM a $315,000 budget, more than four times what Bill Melendez was offered to produce A Charlie Brown Christmas. The original broadcast was sponsored by the Foundation for Full Service Banks, whose sponsor plugs within the original airing were later edited out for subsequent broadcasts. The entirety of the book's text, with some slight embellishment, was adapted into the special; to pad the special to a full 30-minute time slot, songs and animated sequences without words were added. As all the major networks had flipped to full color schedules by 1966, the special was likewise produced in color, establishing the Grinch's color as green, a convention used in later television specials featuring the character as well as the 2000 live-action and 2018 3D animated film adaptations.

Broadcast

The half-hour short was originally telecast in the United States on CBS on December 18, 1966. CBS repeated it annually during the Christmas season until 1987. It was then seen multiple times per year on Turner-owned properties – first TNT and then Cartoon Network – and The WB returned it to broadcast television by adding its own annual screening in 2001. ABC took over the special after The WB ceased operations in 2006. NBC acquired the rights in 2015; its deal with Warner Bros. allows two broadcasts per season, currently scheduled for the first week of December and Christmas night.

Reception

The special was released in the midst of a wave of animated holiday specials, joining a number of other 1960s productions that have come to be regarded as classics; critic Rick Du Brow compared it favorably to those specials at the time, saying it was "probably as good as most of the other holiday cartoons."
The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, which gives the special a 100% rating, reads: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas brings an impressive array of talent to bear on an adaptation that honors a classic holiday story – and has rightfully become a yuletide tradition of its own." The special continues to be popular in Nielsen Ratings, with its 2010 airing winning its time slot among persons 18 to 49 and finishing second in overall viewers. TV Guide ranked the special No. 1 on its 10 Best Family Holiday Specials list.

Home media

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was released to VHS, Betamax, CED, and LaserDisc by MGM/UA Home Video in the 1980s, and was reissued several times. The special was first released to the VHS and DVD formats in 1999 and 2000 by Warner Home Video, which acquired the rights to the MGM library in the late 1990s. The DVD release featured another Seuss-based special, Horton Hears a Who!, and contained an audio commentary by lead animator Phil Roman and June Foray, interviews with Albert Hague and Thurl Ravenscroft, and the "Special Edition" documentary which aired alongside the special on TNT in 1994. The DVD was well-received for these bonus features, but also criticized for its sub-par picture quality; many critics pointed out that the Grinch looked yellow, not green, in this release.
The special was re-released on DVD in 2006 and labeled as a "50th Birthday Deluxe Edition". That labeling refers to the 1957 date of the book's publication rather than to the date of the 1966 TV special. This DVD release featured a new retrospective featurette and contained all the bonus features from the previous release, except for the audio commentary, and the Grinch was restored to his original green color. This edition is also available as part of the four-disc Classic Christmas Favorites box set. The special was again re-released on DVD with Phil Roman's and June Foray's audio commentary replacing the Horton Hears a Who! bonus special. The special was released on high definition Blu-ray Disc in 2009 with the title changed to Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! It contained all the bonus features from the 2000 DVD, except for Horton Hears a Who!, and also included a DVD of the special and a Digital Copy.

Soundtrack

Three songs with lyrics were included in the special: "Welcome Christmas", "Trim up the Tree" and "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." The last of these was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft; the other two were performed by a chorus representing the voices of the Whos. None of the vocalists were credited at the time.
On December 18, 1966, MGM released a soundtrack LP in conjunction with the television special. CD releases include albums produced by Island and Mercury Records. In the recorded version, Boris Karloff does all voices including Cindy Lou Who. The song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", which comically describes the level of the Grinch's despicable nature, includes all verses with their original rhyming lyrics and the isolated song tracks have different durations due to being re-recorded.
On October 5, 1999, Rhino Entertainment released a new CD soundtrack. Both story collections contain selected dialogue and music numbers. The "isolated music tracks" in this edition are taken directly from the television soundtrack and are not the re-recorded tracks from earlier versions. The dialogues are the originals, being voiced by Boris Karloff for "Grinch" and Hans Conried for "Horton."
Because Thurl Ravenscroft was not credited in the closing credits of the 1966 television special as singing the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", it is sometimes attributed to Boris Karloff. After becoming aware of this oversight, Seuss himself called Ravenscroft and apologized profusely and later wrote letters to columnists nationwide telling them that it was Ravenscroft who provided vocals for the musical number. Ravenscroft would become a staple in several of Seuss's later television specials, voicing one of the Wickersham Brothers in Horton Hears a Who and a factory worker in The Lorax. Karloff received a Grammy Award in the Spoken Word category—the only major performing award of his career—for the album.

Sequels

A television special called Halloween Is Grinch Night, created by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, aired on ABC in 1977, eleven years after the Christmas special. This special involved a tale of the Grinch coming down to scare the Whos every Halloween. Though less successful than the original, it was awarded an Emmy. A later cartoon, The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat, aired on ABC in 1982. Though credited to DePatie-Freleng, it was produced by Marvel Productions, which had taken over DePatie-Freleng in 1981.