The Final 12 Things You May Not Know About Your Favorite Christmas Movies
I know we said we were only going to do this as a trilogy, but it was pointed out that we missed such Christmas classics like 'Miracle on 34th Street' and the much loved Christmas specials, so here we go again. We decided we were only going to do a fourth one if we liked the facts we found in our research and it could live up to the previous three, unlike a certain film series about an adventurous archeologist. Honestly, we jokingly called this "Christmas Trivia and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." But as Christmas is just two days away and we're pretty tapped out for loved Christmas movies to talk about, this is going to be the Final 12 Things You May Not Know About Some of Your Favorite Christmas Movies... at least for this year.
All trivia via IMDB
'Trading Places'
1. For the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act, a rule was created which barred anyone from using inside information to corner markets, similar to the climax of ‘Trading Places’. Due to this connection, the rule has come to be known as “The Eddie Murphy Rule”.
2. Don Ameche’s strong religious beliefs made him uncomfortable when performing his line late in the film, “F*ck him!”, when Ralph Bellamy’s character has a heart attack. The scene had to be accomplished in a single take as Ameche refused to say the line again.
'Miracle on 34th Street'
3. In the non-translated scene where Santa speaks to the Dutch girl, he asks her what she wants for Christmas and she says she doesn't want anything as her gift was being adopted by her new mother.
4. The scenes of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is footage of the actual parade from 1946. Edmund Gwenn actually served as the Santa Claus for the parade, unknown to most of the crowd, and participated in the standard duties of Santa during the parade including addressing the crowd at the end of the parade and unveiling the mechanical Christmas display that symbolized the opening of the Christmas shopping season.
'How The Grinch Stole Christmas!'
5. Though his voice changes throughout the story, Boris Karloff actually recorded the entire dialog in his normal narrator tone. In post production his voice was altered to give the Grinch a different sounding voice.
6. Thurl Ravenscroft, the singing voice for “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was not given screen credit for his work. Dr. Seuss took it upon himself to fix the oversight by personally sending letters to every major American columnist to identify Ravenscroft as the singer. Ravenscroft is also known for voicing cereal icon Tony the Tiger.
'The Nightmare Before Christmas'
7. Horror film icon Vincent Price was originally cast as Santa Claus in ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, but Price’s poor health harmed his vocal performance. His performance was deemed unsuitable for the project and the role was recast.
8. The most difficult shot for the crew was the quick shot of Jack’s hand reaching for the doorknob on the door to Christmasland as the surrounding forest was visible in the doorknob’s reflection.
'Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer'
9. The original aired version of 'Rudolph, the Red-Nose Reindeer' has Rudolph, Hermey, and Yukon Cornelius visit the Island of Misfit Toys and promise to help them, only for the island and toys to not be seen again. After the airing the producers received many letters from children complaining about the lack of closure with the Misfit Toys. Rankin-Bass then produced a small scene at the end showing Santa delivering the Misfit Toys to new homes, and the scene has been a standard part of the show ever since.
10. TV Guide was so impressed with the articulated metal frame technology used to create the puppets for the show that they dedicated a 4-page article to the story, forgetting to mention that this impressive technology had been introduced 31 prior in the film ‘King Kong’.
'A Charlie Brown Christmas'
11. ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ went against several established traditions for the animated holiday specials at the time by not using a laugh track, using Biblical references, and using actual children to voice the characters instead of seasons adult actors imitating children’s voices.
12. Kathy Steinberg, the voice of Sally Brown, had not yet learned to read at the time of recording her dialogue and had to be fed her lines one word, or even one syllable, at a time. This resulted in several of Sally’s lines having a very choppy delivery.