How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special) (alternatively titled "The Cat in the Hat Gets Grinched"), aired on ABC in 1982. Though credited to DePatie-Freleng, it was produced by Marvel Productions, which had taken over DePatie-Freleng in 1981. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special) How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (also known as Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!) is a 1966 Christmas animated television special directed and co-produced by Chuck Jones. It is based on the eponymous children's book by Dr. Seuss, the story of the Grinch trying to take away Christmas from the townsfolk of Whoville below his mountain hideaway. Originally telecast in the
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special) songs and animated sequences without words (the longest being an extended scene in which the Grinch and Max comically descend into Whoville) were added. As all the major networks had flipped to full color schedules by 1966, the special was likewise produced in color, establishing the Grinch's color (white in the two-tone illustrations of the original book) as green, a convention used in later television specials featuring the character as well as the 2000 and 2018 film adaptations. The half-hour (with commercials) short was originally telecast in the United States on CBS on December 18, 1966. CBS repeated it annually