How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special) Director Chuck Jones and children's-book author Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) had worked together on the "Private Snafu" training cartoons at Warner Bros. Cartoons during World War II. Jones was interested in adapting one of Geisel's books into a television special and approached him to turn "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" into one in time for the holiday season. Although Geisel was initially reluctant due to his unpleasant experiences making the film "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.", he eventually agreed. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" was produced by The Cat in the Hat Productions in association with the television and
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