How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: Chuck Jones and the Making of an Animated Classic
Saturday, November 10, 2018 - Saturday, January 19, 2019
Chuck Jones and Theodore “Ted” Geisel first met during World War II, when Geisel commanded the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces, which created training films and documentaries. Geisel -- who would later go on to great fame as children’s book author and illustrator “Dr. Seuss” -- and Jones partnered on an animated series of short films called “Private Snafu,” in which the title character was a bumbling goofball who comically exemplified all the “do nots” of being a soldier.
After the war, Geisel/Dr. Seuss’s inventive and unique children’s books – including If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who (1955), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957) and Green Eggs and Ham (1960) – won him great acclaim and bestseller status. However, he was discouraged by the many negative experiences he had with Hollywood along the way, including writing the 1953 fantasy film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, which was a critical and financial failure.
So it was only because of his previous positive relationship with Jones during the war that Seuss trusted Jones to bring his Grinch to life on the small screen. CBS-TV’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, directed and co-produced by Chuck Jones, with a script drawn word-for-word from Seuss’s original book -- padded to a half-hour by songs and an extended wordless sequence toward the end – debuted on American television on December 18, 1966. It was noted at the time – with Seuss himself commenting on it – that the facial features of Jones’s version of the Grinch looked a lot like Jones himself.
All three major TV networks were broadcasting in full color by 1966, so Jones’s Grinch firmly established the character’s color as green (the book’s illustrations were in black-and-white). The TV special’s narration was by famed actor Boris Karloff, who also provided the voice of the Grinch. The song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft, best-known as the voice of “Tony the Tiger” for Kellogg’s. The great voice actor June Foray provided the voice of Cindy Lou Who.
Appearing first in an era when many other still-beloved Christmas TV specials were being created – including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) – How the Grinch Stole Christmas! received good but not spectacular reviews. In the decades since, however, it has been recognized as a true classic, airing each year since 1966 and continuing as a smash hit in the Nielsen ratings. Generations have now grown up watching the Grinch every holiday season. The special carries a 100% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which calls it “an adaptation that honors a classic holiday story – and has rightfully become a yuletide tradition of its own.”
Mary Platt, Director
Image:
Ben Washam (Lead animator)
"Close-up on Top of Mountain"
1966
Original background, gouache on art board. With its key-matching cel, gouache on acetate.
From the Collection of William Heeter and Kristi Correa
After the war, Geisel/Dr. Seuss’s inventive and unique children’s books – including If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who (1955), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957) and Green Eggs and Ham (1960) – won him great acclaim and bestseller status. However, he was discouraged by the many negative experiences he had with Hollywood along the way, including writing the 1953 fantasy film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, which was a critical and financial failure.
So it was only because of his previous positive relationship with Jones during the war that Seuss trusted Jones to bring his Grinch to life on the small screen. CBS-TV’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, directed and co-produced by Chuck Jones, with a script drawn word-for-word from Seuss’s original book -- padded to a half-hour by songs and an extended wordless sequence toward the end – debuted on American television on December 18, 1966. It was noted at the time – with Seuss himself commenting on it – that the facial features of Jones’s version of the Grinch looked a lot like Jones himself.
All three major TV networks were broadcasting in full color by 1966, so Jones’s Grinch firmly established the character’s color as green (the book’s illustrations were in black-and-white). The TV special’s narration was by famed actor Boris Karloff, who also provided the voice of the Grinch. The song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft, best-known as the voice of “Tony the Tiger” for Kellogg’s. The great voice actor June Foray provided the voice of Cindy Lou Who.
Appearing first in an era when many other still-beloved Christmas TV specials were being created – including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) – How the Grinch Stole Christmas! received good but not spectacular reviews. In the decades since, however, it has been recognized as a true classic, airing each year since 1966 and continuing as a smash hit in the Nielsen ratings. Generations have now grown up watching the Grinch every holiday season. The special carries a 100% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which calls it “an adaptation that honors a classic holiday story – and has rightfully become a yuletide tradition of its own.”
Mary Platt, Director
Image:
Ben Washam (Lead animator)
"Close-up on Top of Mountain"
1966
Original background, gouache on art board. With its key-matching cel, gouache on acetate.
From the Collection of William Heeter and Kristi Correa