I must have miss this one, because I usually start the Christmas posts mentioning this. NORAD was once accidentally called about Santa Claus become some store ad used the wrong phone number for their Santa hotline. Since then, NORAD has been running a Santa Tracker even before there was an internet. “NORAD Tracks Santa” has a website now (and an app I hope they worked the bugs out of) complete with games, Christmas music, and other Christmas-themed activities for kids, plus on Christmas Eve they’ll let you know when it’s time to get the kids to sleep before Santa himself arrives. It’s one time that extra use of funds I’m okay with…given how much time and money the government usually wastes on stupid crap that only benefits themselves. Be careful in Russian and Ukraine this year.
PIlots are how a TV show is sold, but not every pilot becomes episode 1. Changes are asked for by the studio or the station (now also the streamer), cast changes happen for various reasons, and other events require the first pilot to be reshot or scrapped altogether. For example the original pilot of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers bears little resemblance to the actual first episode. The same for the pilot episode of Star Trek, which we would know nothing about if it wasn’t for the two-part episode “The Menagerie” that used it for stock footage. The Power Rangers pilot aired as a special occasion on Fox Kids. Not every first pilot is available to us.
It’s kind of funny that with all of the actual episodes of Doctor Who missing thanks to poor archiving on the BBC’s part that somehow the original version of “An Unearthly Child” still exists, and was released on DVD as part of a box set with the aired version and following episodes. Having seen it via my DVD copy there are a lot of differences. If you thought the Doctor was different from his early years to the tortured action hero he/she became in New Who, here’s a video about the unaired pilot and the changes between versions. The script is the same and that’s pretty much it.
The Cat In The Hat may be Seuss’ mascot, having appeared not only in two of his own specials, a crossover with the Grinch, the main character of a Muppet take on the Seussiverse, and even had his own TV show or two. However, How The Grinch Stole Christmas is his most famous work, thanks to Chuck Jones convincing him to make the adaptation. It wasn’t even the first time a Seuss book was adapted into animation. Merry Melodies (an alternate name for Looney Tunes that fell by the wayside outside of a namesake homage character on Tiny Toon Adventures) produced an adaptation for Horton Hatches An Egg in 1942, directed by Bob Clampett, but it was done in the usual Looney Tune style. There may even be one before that which I’m not aware of.
Seuss got fed up with movies after co-writing the screenplay for The 5000 Fingers Of Doctor T, but Jones really wanted to make a Christmas special without Christ or Santa Claus. Learning this bit of information made me sad. As a Christian I don’t like the idea of pulling the reason for the season out of the season, while I’m not sure what Jones had against Santa. Still, it’s not like you couldn’t do it, just it’s odd to want to do both. At any rate, the 1966 special was a hit and led to more adaptations and original stories featuring Seuss’s visual and storytelling style, including two more appearances for the Grinch. They were all about a half hour in length and everyone was okay with that.
Except 21st century Hollywood, who seem to believe something is only good when you do it in live-action, and special effects have taken enough of an upgrade that the idea of doing animated gags in live-action sounds plausible. Look at how the Oscars banished animation to its own section so as not to “taint” the Best Picture nomination after Beauty & The Beast got a nomination for Best Picture and the “real” actors had a temper tantrum. Also look at how Disney is remaking their animated classics…and making lesser movies out of them. So we got Ron Howard’s 2000 live-action adaptation with Jim Carrey in the role. The response was kind of mixed, with many preferring the animated half-hour special over the live-action theatrical film. So Illumination tried to give us an animated version in 2008 simply titled The Grinch…and nobody talks about it. Like, at all.
How is that the short version is superior to the theatrical versions, that have more time to really explore the characters? Maybe that’s the problem. First, an audio adaptation of the book to get us close to the same page.
BW Media Spotlight 
Why The 1966 Animated Grinch Steals Christmas
The Cat In The Hat may be Seuss’ mascot, having appeared not only in two of his own specials, a crossover with the Grinch, the main character of a Muppet take on the Seussiverse, and even had his own TV show or two. However, How The Grinch Stole Christmas is his most famous work, thanks to Chuck Jones convincing him to make the adaptation. It wasn’t even the first time a Seuss book was adapted into animation. Merry Melodies (an alternate name for Looney Tunes that fell by the wayside outside of a namesake homage character on Tiny Toon Adventures) produced an adaptation for Horton Hatches An Egg in 1942, directed by Bob Clampett, but it was done in the usual Looney Tune style. There may even be one before that which I’m not aware of.
Seuss got fed up with movies after co-writing the screenplay for The 5000 Fingers Of Doctor T, but Jones really wanted to make a Christmas special without Christ or Santa Claus. Learning this bit of information made me sad. As a Christian I don’t like the idea of pulling the reason for the season out of the season, while I’m not sure what Jones had against Santa. Still, it’s not like you couldn’t do it, just it’s odd to want to do both. At any rate, the 1966 special was a hit and led to more adaptations and original stories featuring Seuss’s visual and storytelling style, including two more appearances for the Grinch. They were all about a half hour in length and everyone was okay with that.
Except 21st century Hollywood, who seem to believe something is only good when you do it in live-action, and special effects have taken enough of an upgrade that the idea of doing animated gags in live-action sounds plausible. Look at how the Oscars banished animation to its own section so as not to “taint” the Best Picture nomination after Beauty & The Beast got a nomination for Best Picture and the “real” actors had a temper tantrum. Also look at how Disney is remaking their animated classics…and making lesser movies out of them. So we got Ron Howard’s 2000 live-action adaptation with Jim Carrey in the role. The response was kind of mixed, with many preferring the animated half-hour special over the live-action theatrical film. So Illumination tried to give us an animated version in 2008 simply titled The Grinch…and nobody talks about it. Like, at all.
How is that the short version is superior to the theatrical versions, that have more time to really explore the characters? Maybe that’s the problem. First, an audio adaptation of the book to get us close to the same page.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on December 14, 2022 in Animation Spotlight, Book Spotlight, Christmas Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged Christmas movies, Christmas special, commentary, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Review.
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