''How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'' (also known as ''Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'') is a 1966 American animated

television special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...

, directed and co-produced by Chuck Jones. It is based on the 1957 children's book of the same name by

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel (;"Seuss"
'' Grinch The Grinch is a fictional character created by Dr. Seuss. He is best known as the main character of the 1957 children's book '' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'' He has been portrayed and voiced by many different actors, including Boris Karloff ...

, who tries to ruin Christmas for the townsfolk of

Whoville Whoville, sometimes written as Who-ville, is a fictional town created by author Theodor Seuss Geisel, under the name Dr. Seuss. Whoville appeared in the 1954 book '' Horton Hears a Who!'' and the 1957 book '' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!;'' ...

below his mountain hideaway. Originally telecast in the United States on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

on Sunday, December 18, 1966, it went on to become a perennial holiday special. The special features the voice of

Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film '' Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established ...

as the Grinch and the narrator.

Plot

The Grinch is a surly asocial 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 always been annoyed by the town's Christmas celebrations. One Christmas Eve, he finally decides to stop

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

from coming to Whoville by disguising himself as Santa Claus, his dog Max as a

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 sub ...

and, in a reversal of Santa's visit, stealing all presents, decorations, and symbols of Christmas. Once loaded, he plans on dumping the bags of stolen goods. He is noticed by a girl named Cindy Lou Who, but is otherwise undetected. As the Grinch reaches the summit of Mt. Crumpit, ready to dump the bags, he discovers that the citizens of Whoville, despite having no gifts or decorations, have gathered in the middle of town to sing as Christmas Day dawns. Realizing that Christmas means more than just material possessions, the Grinch's heart grows three sizes. He saves the sleigh, returns the presents and the other belongings to the Whos, and joins in the town's Christmas celebration, by carving the roast beast, and Max gets the first slice.

Voice cast

as the

Grinch The Grinch is a fictional character created by Dr. Seuss. He is best known as the main character of the 1957 children's book '' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'' He has been portrayed and voiced by many different actors, including Boris Karloff ...

/ Narrator *

June Foray June Foray (born June Lucille Forer; September 18, 1917 – July 26, 2017) was an American voice actress. She was best known as the voice of such animated characters as Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, Nell Fenwick, Lucifer from Disney' ...

as Cindy Lou Who * Dallas McKennon as Max *

Thurl Ravenscroft Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (; February 6, 1914May 22, 2005) was an American actor and bass singer. He was known as one of the booming voices behind Kellogg's Frosted Flakes animated spokesman Tony the Tiger for more than five decades. He was also ...

as Singer

Credits

* Produced by Chuck Jones and

Ted Geisel Theodor Seuss Geisel (;"Seuss"
''

Chuck Jones * The Songs: ** Lyrics by

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel (;"Seuss"
'' Albert Hague Albert Hague (born Albert Marcuse, October 13, 1920 – November 12, 2001) was a German–born American songwriter and actor. Early life Hague was born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany. His father, Harry Marcuse, was a psychiatrist a ...

* Additional Music and Orchestra by Eugene Poddany * Production Design:

Maurice Noble Maurice James Noble (May 1, 1911 – May 18, 2001) was an American animation production designer, background artist and layout designer whose contributions to the industry spanned more than 60 years. He was a long-time associate and right-hand m ...

* Animation: Ben Washam, Ken Harris,

Lloyd Vaughan Lloyd Lincoln Vaughan I (January 2, 1909 – May 19, 1988) was an American animator known for his work at Warner Bros. Cartoons under the supervision of Chuck Jones. Starting in 1935 as an inbetweener, he became an animator in 1944 under Jones, a ...

, Richard Thompson, Don Towsley,

Tom Ray Thomas Archer Ray (August 2, 1919 – April 6, 2010) was an American animator. Career Ray was born in Williams, Arizona. He began work at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1937, working under Tex Avery for six months. He applied for a job at MGM and w ...

and Philip Roman * Layouts: Oscar Dufau and Don Morgan * Backgrounds: Philip DeGuard, Bob Inman and Hal Ashmead * Graphics: Don Foster * Additional Story: Irv Spector and

Bob Ogle Robert Allen Ogle (May 28, 1926 – February 25, 1984), known as Bob Ogle, was an American voice actor, animator and writer. Most characters he voiced are performed in the style of Bill Thompson's character Wallace Wimple from ''Fibber McGee and ...

* Co-Director: Ben Washam * Editors: Lovell Norman and John Young * Production Manager: Earl Jonas * Production Executive: Les Goldman

Production

Director Chuck Jones and children's-book author Ted Geisel (

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel (;"Seuss"
'' Private Snafu Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional adult animated shorts, ironic and humorous in tone, that were produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. The films were designed to instruct servi ...

'' 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 Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

and animation divisions of

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

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 (around $2,465,000 in 2018), more than four times what

Bill Melendez José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Melendez (November 15, 1916 – September 2, 2008) was an American character animator, voice actor, film director and producer. Melendez is known for working on the ''Peanuts'' animated specials. Before ''Peanuts'', he p ...

was offered to produce ''A Charlie Brown Christmas''. Jones questioned how to make a Christmas special without the typical elements (orthodox religion, Santa, etc.). Jones' answer: "Write our new carols in Seussian Latin. After all, 'Fahoofores, Dahoodores' seems to have as much authenticity as 'Adeste fideles' to those unauthored in Latin." The song "Trim Up the Tree" was written in a square-dance type form by

Albert Hague Albert Hague (born Albert Marcuse, October 13, 1920 – November 12, 2001) was a German–born American songwriter and actor. Early life Hague was born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany. His father, Harry Marcuse, was a psychiatrist a ...

. Due to Cindy Lou Who's appealing cute design, Jones redesigned her as seeming to be the great-granddaughter of the Grinch in appearance, reluctantly having her role pared down, which broke Jones' heart. The character Max was set up as an observer and victim, and, according to the animation director, in the same way as Porky Pig and

Daffy Duck Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character created for Leon Schlesinger Productions by animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Styled as an anthropomorphic black duck, he has appeared in cartoon series such as ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Mel ...

in ''

Duck Dodgers Duck Dodgers is the metafictional star of a series of cartoons produced by Warner Bros., featuring Daffy Duck in the role of a science fiction hero. He first appeared in the 1953 cartoon short ''Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century'', directed by ...

'' or ''

Robin Hood Daffy ''Robin Hood Daffy'' is a 1958 Warner Bros. '' Merrie Melodies'' cartoon, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on March 8, 1958, and stars Daffy Duck as Robin Hood and Porky Pig as Friar Tuck. It was t ...

''. The special required eleven to fourteen months of production time, 15,000 drawings and cels, 250 background layout drawings, 1,200 character layout drawings, and 60 musicians working for 8 hours to finish the special. 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 (the longest being an extended scene in which the Grinch and Max comically descend into Whoville) were added. As all the major networks had flipped to full

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...

schedules by 1966, the special was likewise produced in color, establishing the Grinch's color (white in the two-tone illustrations of the original book) as green, a convention used in later television specials featuring the character as well as the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

live-action and

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...

3D animated film adaptations.

Broadcast

The half-hour (with commercials) short was originally telecast in the United States on

on December 18, 1966.Grinch
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on February 5, 2016. CBS repeated it annually during the Christmas season until 1988. It was then seen multiple times per year on

Turner Turner may refer to: People and fictional characters *Turner (surname), a common surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Turner (given name), a list of people with the given name *One who uses a lathe for turni ...

-owned properties – first

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

, then TBS, and then Cartoon Network – and

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...

returned it to broadcast television by adding its own annual screening in 2001.

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

took over the special after The WB ceased operations in 2006.

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

acquired the rights in 2015; its deal with

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

allows two broadcasts per season, currently scheduled for the night after Thanksgiving and Christmas night. The Christmas night broadcast has been later followed by the airing of the 2000 film of the same name. In 2022 the second airing of the special was aired on December 23 instead of Christmas Day due to a NFL game between the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The cl ...

and Arizona Cardinals. TBS and TNT both continue to air the special annually many times during the

holiday season The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novembe ...

Reception

The special was released in the midst of a wave of animated holiday specials, joining a number of other 1960s productions (such as 1964's ''

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer created by Robert L. May. Rudolph is usually depicted as the ninth and youngest of Santa Claus's reindeer, using his luminous red nose to lead the reindeer team and guide Santa's sleigh on ...

'', 1965's '' A Charlie Brown Christmas'', 1968's '' The Little Drummer Boy'', 1969's ''

Frosty the Snowman "Frosty the Snowman" is a popular Christmas song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later recorded by Jimmy Durante. It was written after the success of A ...

'', and 1970's ''

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" is a Christmas song featuring Santa Claus written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie. The earliest known recorded version of the song was by banjoist Harry Reser and his band on October 24, 1934. It was the ...

'') 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 Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, which gives the special a 100% approval 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 (the last of many times it had aired that year) winning its time slot among persons 18 to 49 and finishing second in overall viewers. ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008. Corpora ...

'' ranked the special No. 1 on its 10 Best Family Holiday Specials list. ''

Fatherly Fatherly is a digital lifestyle brand that provides news, expert advice, product recommendations and other resources for parents. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in New York City. Overview Fatherly offers articles, videos, and ot ...

'' included the special on its list of the 100 best family-friendly films widely available to the public, one of only two productions made for television (''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' being the other).

Home media

''How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'' was released to VHS, Betamax, CED, and LaserDisc by

MGM/UA Home Video MGM/UA may refer to: *Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, American film and television production and distribution company **United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital p ...

in the 1980s, and was reissued several times. The special was released to the VHS and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

formats in 1999 and 2000 by

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Vide ...

, which acquired the rights to the

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

library in the late 1990s via their purchase of

Turner Entertainment Turner Entertainment Company is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner in 1986. Purchased by Time Warner in 1996 as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was largely responsible for overseeing th ...

. MGM had earlier released it on DVD in 1997. The 1997 DVD release featured another Seuss-based special, ''

Horton Hears a Who! ''Horton Hears a Who!'' is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss. It was published in 1954 by Random House. This book tells the story of Horton the Elephant and his adventures saving Whovi ...

'', while the 2000 DVD also added an audio commentary by lead animator

Phil Roman Philip Roman (born December 21, 1930) is an American animator and the director of the ''Peanuts'' and ''Garfield'' animated specials. He is the founder of animation studios Film Roman and Phil Roman Entertainment. Early life Philip Roman was ...

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 A digital copy is a commercially distributed computer file containing a media product such as a film or music album. The term contrasts this computer file with the physical copy (typically a DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, or Ultra HD Blu-ray disc) w ...

. On October 18, 2011, It featured on the ''Dr. Seuss: Holidays On The Loose!'' DVD set, along with ''

Halloween Is Grinch Night ''Halloween Is Grinch Night'' (titled ''It's Grinch Night'' for the 1992 videocassette release and ''Grinch Night'' for the sing-a-long videocassette release) is a 1977 children's animated Halloween television special and is the prequel to the 1966 ...

'' and ''

The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat ''The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat'' (also known as ''The Cat in the Hat Gets Grinched'') is a 1982 American Emmy Award-winning animated musical television special and crossover starring ''The Cat in the Hat'' and The Grinch. It premiered ...

''.

Soundtrack

Three songs with lyrics were included in the special: "Welcome Christmas", "Trim up the Tree" and "

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is a Christmas song that was originally written and composed for the 1966 animated special '' Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!''. History The lyrics were written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, the music ...

". The last of these was performed by

; 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,

released a soundtrack LP in conjunction with the television special. CD releases include albums produced by Island (1995) 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 Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the catalog division for Warner Music Group. Its current CEO is Mark Pinkus. History Founded in 1978, Rhino was originall ...

released a new CD soundtrack (which included the soundtrack for another Dr. Seuss cartoon, ''

''). 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 Hans Georg Conried Jr. (April 15, 1917 – January 5, 1982) was an American actor and comedian. He was known for providing the voices of George Darling and Captain Hook in Walt Disney's ''Peter Pan'' (1953), Snidely Whiplash in Jay Ward's '' Dud ...

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 ''The Lorax'' is a children's book written by Dr. Seuss and published in 1971. It chronicles the plight of the environment and the Lorax, the titular character, who "speaks for the trees" and confronts the Once-ler, a business magnate who cause ...

''. Karloff received a Grammy Award in the Spoken Word category—the only major performing award of his career—for the album.

Prequels and follow-ups

A television special called ''

'', created by

DePatie–Freleng Enterprises DePatie–Freleng Enterprises (also known as Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng Productions when involved with the Mirisch brothers and Geoffrey Productions; and DFE Films) was an American animation production company that was active from 1963 to 1 ...

, aired on

in 1977, eleven years after the Christmas special. This special involved a tale of the Grinch coming down to haunt the Whos every Halloween. Though less successful than the original, it was awarded an Emmy. A later cartoon, ''

'' (alternatively titled ''The Cat in the Hat Gets Grinched''), aired on ABC in 1982. Though credited to DePatie–Freleng, it was produced by

Marvel Productions New World Animation Ltd., formerly known as Marvel Productions, was the television and film studio subsidiary of the Marvel Entertainment Group, based in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It later became a subsidiary of New World Entertainment ...

, which had taken over DePatie–Freleng in 1981.

References

Sources

External links