Remembrance of Things Past

Francis J. Gavin

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In December 1964 — 60 years ago — the holiday classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was aired in the United States for the first time.1 The following year, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was televised.2 One year later, in December 1966, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” premiered.3 All three were tremendous successes, and for many American families, watching them has become an annual ritual, marking the season of joy and holiday celebration. I loved them as a child, loved introducing them to my children even more, and anticipate viewing them with my grandchildren, should, inshallah, I get any.

There are at least two puzzling questions, however, about the seemingly timeless success of this Christmas triumvirate.

First, why were arguably the three most popular American Christmas specials produced within two years of each other, in the mid-1960s, and never dethroned or replaced? Consider the financial and cultural incentive to produce a holiday classic watched year after year, embraced by every new generation. There have been some contenders to this classic status — I watch Will Ferrell’s Elf every December, and The Muppet Christmas Carol with the inestimable Michael Caine is underrated. But in the animated world, despite profound advances in technology and vast improvements in the quality of television overall since my childhood, no show has even come close to matching the holiday staying power of Rudolph, Charlie Brown, and the Grinch. They were not produced in some golden age of television — the most watched shows produced by these networks at the time included such unwatchable dreck as Hogan’s Heroes, The Beverly Hillbillies, and a hilariously terrible Batman (shown two nights a week!). The success of the Christmas specials is all the more surprising as the creators of these shows never anticipated such long-term success. Why should they have? Rudolph’s stop-action animation was directed by an artist who had previously made propaganda films for both Imperial Japan and Communist forces in China, the creators of the Peanuts special thought after screening the special that “they had ruined Charlie Brown,” and the production of the Grinch was fraught and over budget.