#DrSeuss #Seuss #Geisel #Grinch #Christmas #TheCatInTheHat #ChuckJones #MelBlanc #LooneyTunes #BugsBunny #WWII #FrankCapra #ItsAWonderfulLife #BorisKarloff #Frankenstein #Halloween #ThurlRavenscroft #TonyTheTiger #FrostedFlakes #JimCarrey #RonHoward #Whoville

Source (info): Smithsonian Magazine, The Boys by Ron Howard & Clint Howard
Source (images): IMDB, Crime Reads, Ron Howard

Several other adaptations and enough merchandise to fill Mount Crumpit have cemented the Grinch, his dog Max, and all The Whos down in Whoville as indispensable elements of the Christmas season.

🎥 For the 2000 film adaptation, Jim Carrey was so disturbed by the Grinch makeup that director Ron Howard kept coming up with tricks to keep Carrey calm, including wearing some of the makeup himself.

🐅The 1966 special included the voice talents of Boris Karloff, best remembered for portraying Frankenstein’s Monster, and Thurl Ravenscroft who voiced Tony the Tiger of Frosted Flakes.
🎃An overlooked animated television special starring the Grinch was released for Halloween in 1978.

📺The 1966 animated television special reunited Dr. Seuss with wartime pal Chuck Jones, best known for working on Looney Tunes
🪖During WWII, Seuss & Jones worked on educational cartoons for troops alongside It’s a Wonderful Life director Frank Capra. The cartoons were voiced by Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny)

#Rudolph #RobertMay #MontgomeryWard #Chicago #Christmas #ChristmasEve #Santa #Hermey #YukonCornelius #SamSnowman #BurlIves #GeneAutry #JohnnyMarks #RankinBass

But the most famous reindeer of all began life as a department store promotion to help drive shoppers into stores.

Source (info): Yankee Magazine
Source (images): Smithsonian Institution, The Hill

Rudolph was immortalized in claymation for a 1964 television special by Rankin/Bass, forever to be associated with colorful characters like Hermey, Yukon Cornelius, and Burl Ives’ Sam the Snowman.

May recaptured the copyright to Rudolph in 1947, and two years later, he collaborated with brother-in-law Johnny Marks on a song version of the Rudolph story. Gene Autry’s recording of the song topped the charts.

In 1939, Robert May was a copywriter for Chicago’s Montgomery Ward tasked with creating a Christmas promotion. He created the story of Rudolph, a reindeer who comes to Santa’s rescue on Christmas Eve! The story was printed in illustrated booklets, becoming a hit with Montgomery Ward shoppers.

#Thanksgiving #President #POTUS #GeorgeWashington #Washington #Plymouth #AbrahamLincoln #Lincoln #CivilWar #Yankee #Gettysburg #Vicksburg #November #UlyssesSGrant #Grant #FranklinDRoosevelt #FDR #Roosevelt #Christmas #WhiteHouse #JohnFKennedy #JFK #Kennedy #RoseGarden #GeorgeHWBush #Bush

Source (images): Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives, The White House Historical Association
Source (info): Dinner with the President by Alex Prud’homme

When John F. Kennedy was president he said of his turkey, “Let’s keep him going,” and he pardoned him in the Rose Garden only three days before his assassination. The first official pardon of a turkey occurred in 1989, when George H.W. Bush said his turkey “will not end up on anyone’s dinner table.”

The tradition of pardoning a turkey can be traced through several presidencies. Lincoln allegedly pardoned a Christmas turkey who his son Tad had taken as a pet. In the 1870s, the tradition of sending a gift turkey to the White House was established and continues to this day.

Thanksgiving would be celebrated on various dates in November until Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution in 1942 declaring that the fourth Thursday in November would be the federal holiday.

Ulysses S. Grant signed the Holidays Act of 1870, which formally recognized Thanksgiving as a federal holiday. Texas refused and would not recognize Thanksgiving as a holiday until the 1880s.

Against the backdrop of Gettysburg and Vicksburg during the Civil War in 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national “Day of Thanksgiving” on the final Thursday of November. Southerners rebelled, calling the holiday an attempt to force Yankee values upon them.

George Washington himself promoted the idea of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, but well into the 19th Century, the only national holidays were Washington’s Birthday and Independence Day. At the time, only northern states were celebrating the legend of Plymouth Plantation with fall harvests.