“How The Grinch” Continues To “Steal Christmas “ — Over Five Decades Later

Before untraditional animated holiday media fare like Tim Burton’s full-length theatrical film The Nightmare Before Christmas was released in 1993, there was television’s mere half-hour How The Grinch Stole Christmas, an edgy, yet ultimately warm-hearted musical that debuted on CBS December 18, 1966, and which has aired every year since.

With a script by Irv Spectre and Bob Ogle, The Grinch was based on the beloved 1957 book by Dr. Seuss, a.k.a. Theodore Seuss Geisel, who passed away in 1991. Seuss had also subsequently penned lyrics to show’s tunes by Eugene Poddany and Albert Hague, primarily a Broadway-based composer who, after 1980 and until his death in 2001, was also a busy film and TV actor.

Fellow thespian Boris Karloff, a master or horror, vocalized the grumpy Grinch lead and doubled as Narrator. June Foray, best-known as the voice of Rocky the Squirrel from TV’s Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon (and still with us at 99 years old), spoke tiny words as little Cindy Lou Who from the depravedly-designed small town of Whoville;

Dale McKennon delivered sounds for Max, the sleigh-dog that literally helps carry out the Grinch’s evil plan to destroy the Whos’ Christmas; while Thurl Ravencroft sang the show’s theme, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” and also performed in the…