What Was the First TV Christmas Special?

If you grew up watching holiday specials like 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas and 1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer each year, it might surprise you to learn that the tradition of animated Christmas special didn’t begin with either of those classics. Rather, it started a few years earlier, with the first-ever animated Christmas special created specifically for television: Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, which premiered on NBC on December 18, 1962. It arrived as a one-hour musical production, a rarity for early television, and it set the template for many holiday specials to come. So, how did we get that first special, which led to so many others?

Why was the first TV Christmas special was created?

UPA, the animation studio that had been producing Mr. Magoo since 1949, was about to close up shop when it took on the project. The company poured everything it had into this special, from the casting to the production design. Jim Backus returned to voice Magoo, and the supporting voice cast included Paul Frees, Morey Amsterdam, Joan Gardner, Jack Cassidy and Jane Kean. The music was composed by Jule Styne, with lyrics by Bob Merrill. Director Abe Levitow and arranger Walter Scharf rounded out the creative team, with Scharf conducting the orchestral score.

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The choice to adapt A Christmas Carol was not unusual, as there are many, many versions, but the way the special approached it had a fun theatrical twist. Instead of simply turning Magoo into Scrooge, the story begins with Magoo hurrying to a Broadway theater where he is starring in a musical version of Dickens’ tale. Scrooge’s journey through Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come hits all the emotional notes with songs like “Ringle, Ringle,” “Winter Was Warm,” and “The Lord’s Bright Blessing.” The order of the ghost visits was changed slightly for the special, with Christmas Present appearing before Past, but the main story remains pretty much the same.

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A few details might be familiar to fans of UPA’s projects. Tiny Tim, for instance, resembles Gerald McBoing Boing, one of the studio’s earlier characters, and Jacob Marley has features from Worcestershire, another UPA creation. The special also runs a full hour, which was unusual for animated television at the time. It did so well that NBC reran it each December throughout the ’60s before it moved into syndication, where local stations kept it in rotation for years.

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As technology changed, Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol found new homes on cable and home video. It was released on VHS, Betamax and LaserDisc in 1982, then reissued several times on VHS throughout the ’80s and ’90s. The special was released on DVD in 2001 and finally on Blu-ray in 2010. Broadcast edits have varied over the decades, with some channels trimming songs for time, including “Winter Was Warm” and “We’re Despicable,” but fans generally agree that the uncut version is the best.

The special has also appeared in several pieces of pop culture, popping up in Scrooged, The Wonder Years and The Simpsons. There have even been live stage adaptations, including two Actors Fund benefit productions in New York City, one in 2014 and another in 2019, each staged with full musical arrangements inspired by Scharf’s original orchestrations.

Where can you Watch Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol?

You can stream it on Peacock with a subscription or rent it on places like Amazon Prime Video.

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December 2022

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