For the Christmas season let's start off with a few quarterly anniversaries of vintage children's media. For Part II, I will add many more classic films, radio programs, and television specials from the month of December.
25 Years Ago
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| The Wish That Changed Christmas, VHS Cover. From Christmas Specials Wiki |
December 20, 1991 - McDonald's beloved Christmas special "The Wish That Changed Christmas" debuts on CBS. Based on the children's book The Holly and The Ivy the special was created to inspire children to have a love of reading. Being sponsored by McDonalds led to a minor controversy over who should sponsor certain children's programming. This special has not aired on television since an ABC repeat in 1993 (?). Never released on DVD, the VHS is still available at some websites like Amazon.
50 Years Ago
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| Chicago Tribune, December 16, 1966 - This edition is especially sad as Disney was born in the Hermosa community of Chicago. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/12/16/ |
December 15, 1966 - Walt Disney dies from complications of lung cancer, ten days after his 65th birthday. Production of "The Jungle Book" (1967) would have to continue without him and Sundays nights on television weren't quite the same again.
December 18, 1966 - The popular animated special How the Grinch Stole Christmas premieres on CBS. Horror legend Boris Karloff is the Grinch and the narrator. He would win a Grammy two years later for Best Children's Album from a reading of The Grinch.
75 Years Ago
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| Cover to Radio Life, November 30, 1941. From American Radio History. For the complete magazine as a PDF |
December 5 - 26, 1941 - Shirley Temple Time For Elgin (or Shirley Temple Time) was a four episode Christmas season radio program which featured the worlds most famous child star in her first regular radio series. Two of the four episodes have survived and are widely available as downloads or CDs. Each episode paired Temple with a popular Hollywood leading man. For the definitive guide to this series go to this page from the Digital Deli.
100 Years Ago!
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| Motion Picture Magazine, March 1917. http://www.archive.org/stream/motionpicturemag13moti#page/n247/mode/2up From Media History Digital Library |
December 25, 1916 - Snow White - The first film ever seen by Walt Disney - premieres in theaters. That this film left a lasting impression on the 15 year old Walt is a serious understatement. This adaption of the fairy tale was thought lost until a print was found in Amsterdam in 1992. For more information about the film visit this site from the San Francisco Film Festival.
It's Christmas Time and there will be much more coming up from this blog and my YouTube Channel this month.
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