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For many people, one of the holiday traditions is at least one viewing of 1966 animated classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The How the Grinch Stole Christmas TV show was adapted from Dr. Seuss’s equally famous children’s book by legendary animator Chuck Jones. Mental Floss dug deep into how the Grinch stole Christmas and here are some facts about the TV special that will surely make your heart grow three sizes this holiday season.

In the Army

The Army started the Grinch. During World War II, Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel joined the United States Army Air Forces and served in the Animation Department for the First Motion Picture Unit, a unit commanded by Frank Capra, tasked with creating various training and pro-war propaganda films. It was here that Major Geisel found himself working closely with Chuck Jones cartoon artist on an instructional cartoon called Private Snafu. Originally classified as for-military personnel-only, Private Snafu featured a bumbling protagonist who helped illustrate the dos and don’t’s of Army safety and security protocols.

The special almost didn’t happen. Television specials of the past, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, had to rely on company sponsorship to get made. How the Grinch Stole Christmas struggled to find a benefactor. With storyboards in hand, Chuck Jones, creator of some of my favorite Looney Tunes, pitched the story to more than two dozen potential sponsors until he finally found his sponsor in an unlikely source: the Foundation for Commercial Banks. “I thought that was very odd because one of the great lines in there is that the Grinch says, ”‘Perhaps Christmas doesn’t come from a store,’” Mr. Jones said of the surprise endorsement. “I never thought of a banker endorsing that kind of a line. But they overlooked it, so we went ahead and made the picture.”

Its budget was massive. Coming in at over $300,000, or $2.2 million in today’s dollars, the special’s budget was unheard of at the time for a 26-minute cartoon adaptation. It took 10 months to complete because as Mr. Jones explained the animators would create 3 drawings per foot for children’s shows, but the Grinch was drawn with 15 drawings per foot. The Grinch included 25,000 drawings and 200 backgrounds, “You have to do this for believability,” Mr. Jones wrote.

No credit for The famous voice actor and singer. Thurl Ravenscroft, best known for providing the voice of Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger, wasn’t given credit for his work in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Because of this, most viewers wrongly assumed Boris Karloff, the narrator of the special also sang “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch.”

Max is a filler. Because reading the book out loud only takes about 12 minutes, Mr. Jones had the challenge of extending the story. In order to extend the show, Chuck Jones explained to TNT that he turned to Max the dog.

That whole center section where Max is tied up to the sleigh, and goes down through the mountainside, and has all those problems getting down there, was good comic business as it turns out … But it was all added; it was not part of the book.

Mr. Jones would go on to name Max as his favorite character from the special, as he felt that he directly represented the audience.

The Grinch’s green color was inspired by a rental car. In the original book, the big green grump is illustrated as black and white, with hints of pink and red. Rumor has it that Mr. Jones was inspired to give the Grinch his iconic coloring after he rented a car that was painted an ugly shade of green.

The Grinch was censored. Over the years, How the Grinch Stole Christmas was edited to shorten its running time (to allow for more commercials). However, one edit—which ran for several years—censored the line “You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch” from the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” Additionally, the shot in which the Grinch smiles creepily just before approaching the bed filled with young Whos was deemed inappropriate for certain networks and was removed.

The Grinch’s success led to re-do’s

Two less memorable Grinch tales were produced to exploit the popularity of the Christmas special. Halloween is Grinch Night aired in 1977 and tells the story of the Grinch making his way down to Whoville to scare all the Whos on Halloween. In 1982’s The Grinch Grinches The Cat in the Hat, the green guy finds himself wanting to renew his mean spirit by picking on the Cat in the Hat. In addition, there have been several re-makes:

• 2000’s  dreary 2000 Jim Carey redo,
• 2010’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical,
• 2018’s computer 3D computer-animated re-take.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.