In this video you’re going to learn 13 behind the scenes facts about the cartoon classic
How the Grinch Stole Christmas,
and without further ado
here’s the facts.
The 1966 cartoon adaptation of Theodore “Ted” Giesel,
(aka Dr. Seuss’)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
was directed by animator Chuck Jones
who was famous for making Looney Tunes and
Tom and Jerry cartoons.
The creation story of the animated TV special goes back to WWII
when Ted Giesel wrote scripts
for Private Snafu cartoons that Chuck Jones helped animate.
Several years later Jones approached the author about creating an animated version
of his popular Christmas book,
but at first Giesel had no interest at all
because he had already worked on a big flop called
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T
and he didn’t want to make that mistake again.
What eventually won him over though was when he heard the lyrics to “Welcome, Christmas”,
"Welcome, Christmas! Come this Way!"
which reassured him that the movie would have an authentic Seussian feel.
The cartoon was filmed at 24fps
which meant the animators had to make a new drawing
every two frames in order to make the movement look smooth.
This means there are twelve pieces of artwork for every second of film,
and it took about 6 months to create more than 17,000 drawings
to finish the whole cartoon.
The Grinch was voiced by Boris Karloff
who was most famous for his portrayal of old movie villains such as the Frankenstein monster.
Karloff was a gifted voice actor, but he wasn’t much of a singer,
so You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft,
(aka Tony the Tiger)
"They're Grrrrreeaaaat!"
and he nailed the performance of the Grinch’s famous theme song
after only a couple takes.
"You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch..."
Tony Award winner Albert Hague wrote the music for The Grinch,
and while he was being considered for the job
he had Ted Giesel come to his house to hear his ideas.
The day of the meeting Albert played him just one chorus of “Mr. Grinch”
and when he was finished Ted said,
“Any one that can slide an octave on the word “grinch”...
gets the job.”
The sounds of a movie world, especially an animated one, can come from sources that are
much different than what we see on screen.
[Noises of marker scratching a balloon]
For example, the sound of The Grinch sawing Max’s antlers
were made with a violin.
[Violin bow scratching violin strings]
The sound of The Grinch’s footsteps in the snow
[Potato chip crushing sounds]...were made from the sound of someone eating potato chips.
[Noises of fast footsteps in the snow] Karloff: "When he came to the first little house on the square..."
And the sound of the bags plopping on the roof
were made from the sound of someone taking
bites of an apple.
[Sounds of bags falling into the snow] Karloff: "And he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee..."
Some interesting parallels between Dr. Seuss and The Grinch
suggest that he saw a little bit of a grinch in himself.
"I must stop Christmas from coming!"
The Grinch is 53 years old and lives on Mt. Crumpit,
which overlooks the noisy commercialist town
of Whoville.
"All the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise!"
Compare that with Dr. Seuss who was 53 when he wrote the book,
and at the time he lived up on Mt. Soledad in southern California
that overlooks the ritzy La Joya suburb.
Dr. Seuss isn’t the only one who saw The Grinch in himself
because Chuck Jones incidentally sketched the Grinch to carry some of his own facial features,
such as his eyebrows and smile.
When a story is diagrammed the events leading up to and after the climax
look like the peak of a mountain,
and coincidentally The Grinch’s climactic moment
happens to take place at the peak of Mt. Crumpit.
[Celebrative musical fanfare]
If you want to learn more behind the scenes facts about other Christmas movies such as
The Grinch movie starring Jim Carrey
or The Nightmare Before Christmas
click on one of the videos you see on the screen.
And don’t forget to subscribe by clicking the round logo to learn more fun facts about
your favorite films.