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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey guys, I hope you enjoy these classic

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Speaker 1: episodes from the t D I h C Vault. I'm

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Speaker 1: currently researching a new crop of stories for next year,

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Speaker 1: so be sure to join me on January two when

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Speaker 1: we return with all new episodes. Talk to you soon.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com and from the desk of Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore

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Speaker 1: the past one day at a time with a quick

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Speaker 1: look at what happened today in history. Hello and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and it's December.

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Speaker 1: The discovery of the pilt Down Man was announced at

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Speaker 1: the Geological Society of London on this day. In The

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Speaker 1: word discovery should probably go in quotation marks, because the

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Speaker 1: pilt Down Man was a hoax or a fraud, depending

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Speaker 1: on exactly what happened, which isn't totally clear. In February

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Speaker 1: of nineteen twelve, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, who was the

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Speaker 1: keeper of Geology at the British Museum which is now

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Speaker 1: called the Natural History Museum, he got a letter from

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Speaker 1: his friend Charles Dawson, and in addition to being a solicitor,

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Speaker 1: Dawson was an amateur archaeologist, and he told Woodward he

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Speaker 1: had found something really exciting in some gravel beds and

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Speaker 1: pilt down Sussex. He said that some workers had been

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Speaker 1: digging in this pit and they had dug up something

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Speaker 1: that they described as being kind of like a coconut,

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Speaker 1: along with some other fragments, and they had thrown them away.

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Speaker 1: Dawson had gone and retrieved all of this stuff and

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Speaker 1: dug up some of the things, and had several pieces

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Speaker 1: of skull and jaw bone before writing this letter to Woodward.

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Speaker 1: This set of remains looked kind of human, but not exactly.

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Speaker 1: He compared it to another find that had been dug

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Speaker 1: up in Germany five years or so before. So the

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Speaker 1: two men, Dawson and Smith Woodward went back to the pit.

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Speaker 1: They did a lot more excavating before having that Geological

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Speaker 1: Society of London meeting, And when they got to the meeting,

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Speaker 1: they had an ape like mandible or job bone. Two

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Speaker 1: of its molars were there and had significant wear on them.

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Speaker 1: There were also the pieces of the brain case of

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Speaker 1: a skull, which seemed a lot more human than the

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Speaker 1: mandible part did. They also found some stone tools and

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Speaker 1: fragments of other non human mammal fossils. The coloring of

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Speaker 1: all of this was very similar to what was in

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Speaker 1: the gravel bed. Their conclusion was that these fossils were

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Speaker 1: at least five hundred thousand years old. Everyone was really

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Speaker 1: excited about this. People considered it to be a very

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Speaker 1: major find, not just because it seemed to be evidence

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Speaker 1: of a transitional fossil in the human family tree, but

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Speaker 1: also because it meant that England was a very important

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Speaker 1: place when it came to human evolution. OH lot of

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Speaker 1: papers were written about this fine, basically a huge chunk

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Speaker 1: of scientific literature. This chunk of literature was generally credulous

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Speaker 1: and uncritical of the find itself. It wasn't really looking

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Speaker 1: into whether the find was legitimate, but into what the

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Speaker 1: find meant. There were some doubters though, right from the start,

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Speaker 1: but things didn't really start to fall apart for the

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Speaker 1: pilt Down Man for about ten years. First, in ninety six,

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Speaker 1: it was discovered that those gravel beds where the fossils

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Speaker 1: had been found were not nearly old enough to have

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Speaker 1: five hundred thousand year old fossils in them. Then people

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Speaker 1: started finding fossils in other parts of the world that

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Speaker 1: showed a very different track of human evolution. And then

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties people started to develop isotopic testing,

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Speaker 1: and that quickly proved that these bones were nowhere near

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Speaker 1: five hundred thousand years old. It was more like maybe

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand years old at most. And that was from

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Speaker 1: the very earliest generation of these sorts of tests. Those

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Speaker 1: tests got better, and when they got better, the findings

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Speaker 1: got more precise, and when the findings got more precise,

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Speaker 1: the bones were even newer, more like about six hundred

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Speaker 1: years old, not anywhere in the vicinity of five thousand

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Speaker 1: at all. Further analysis showed that this jaw bone was

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Speaker 1: not from a human ancestor. It was from a young orangutan.

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Speaker 1: And all these various pieces had been meticulously altered to

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Speaker 1: look like they were genuine. They had been stained to

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Speaker 1: match the material and the gravel beds, the mohlers had

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Speaker 1: been artificially worn down, and the other mammal fossils that

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Speaker 1: had been found they were genuine, but they weren't actually

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Speaker 1: mammals that lived in that area. It became clear that

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Speaker 1: someone had done this on purpose, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: people were extremely embarrassed and very worried about what this

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Speaker 1: said about the state of science and what damage it

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Speaker 1: might have done to people's understanding of science. So we

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Speaker 1: know a lot more today about exactly how these hoax

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Speaker 1: remains were doctored to look real, but there are still

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Speaker 1: some doubts about exactly who the hoaxer was. It's generally

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Speaker 1: pinned on Charles Dawson, with the idea that he was

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Speaker 1: trying to bolster his own career, but it's possible that

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Speaker 1: he might have been the dupe of some other person's deception.

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Speaker 1: You can learn more about this in the December sixteen

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Speaker 1: episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: k C. P. Grimmant Chandler Mays for their audio work

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Speaker 1: on the show. You can subscribe to the Stay in

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Speaker 1: History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: app and wire Reals You get podcast and you can

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Speaker 1: tune in tomorrow for a very famous Christmas story. Hey

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve and you're listening to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a podcast that proves history is always happening. The day

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Speaker 1: was December eighteen, eighteen ninety two. The ballet The Nutcracker

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Speaker 1: premiered at the Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. The

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Speaker 1: ballet has since been performed many times around the world,

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Speaker 1: and Pyotr Iliot Tchaikovsky's score is one of his most

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Speaker 1: famous compositions. Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffman wrote the

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Speaker 1: story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which was first

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Speaker 1: published in eighteen sixteen. In the story, a seven year

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Speaker 1: old girl named Marie stall Bomb gets a Nutcracker doll

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Speaker 1: for Christmas. When she falls asleep after getting her presence

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Speaker 1: on the night of Christmas Eve, the Nutcracker leads her

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Speaker 1: dolls in battle against the mouse King. In the end,

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Speaker 1: Marie breaks occurs that was on the Nutcracker, and he

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Speaker 1: comes alive and takes Marie to the doll Kingdom, where

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Speaker 1: she marries him and becomes Queen. French author Alexandra Duma

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Speaker 1: adapted the story in eighteen forty four. In Ivan Sevlowski,

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Speaker 1: the director of Moscow's Imperial Theaters, commissioned Russian composer Tchaikovsky

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Speaker 1: to compose a ballet and an opera. The opera he

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Speaker 1: composed was Iolanta, a lyric opera in one act. It

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Speaker 1: was his eleventh opera and the last one he completed

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Speaker 1: and the ballet was The Nutcracker, his last ballet. Tchaikovsky

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Speaker 1: was not too happy with using the story of the

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Speaker 1: Nutcracker as the subject of a ballet, but by March

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Speaker 1: he had composed some of the scenes. Tchaikovsky was a

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Speaker 1: fan of the celesta, a keyboard instrument, and he decided

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Speaker 1: to use it in a symphonic ballot the Voyevoda, as

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Speaker 1: well as The Nutcracker. The celesta is famously featured in

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Speaker 1: the dance of the sugar Plum Ferry in Act two.

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Speaker 1: Of the ballet selections were first performed as an orchestral

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Speaker 1: suite in March of eighteen ninety two. Pyoder jurgen Sen

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Speaker 1: published the full score of the ballet and the piano

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Speaker 1: arrangements by Surgegey tan Yabef. That same year, Ivan Sevloski

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Speaker 1: and Marius Petipa based the libretto or the text of

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Speaker 1: the ballet on Duma's version of The Nutcracker. The ballet

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Speaker 1: premiered along with Io Lanta at the Imperial Marinsky Theater

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Speaker 1: on December eighteen, eight nine two. Ricardo Drigo was the conductor,

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Speaker 1: and lev Ivanov produced the ballet. Some of the principal

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Speaker 1: performers were Stanislava Blinska as Clauda Surge Lagat as the

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Speaker 1: Nutcracker Prince, and Tom faced Coolkin as jossel Meyer. Previously,

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Speaker 1: Chaikovsky and Petipa worked on The Sleeping Beauty together and

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Speaker 1: it was a success. So The Nutcracker opened to a

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Speaker 1: full house, but the ballet got poor reactions. Tchaikovsky wrote

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Speaker 1: that it was staged well, but the audience did not

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Speaker 1: like it and was bored. Critics thought the choreography and

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Speaker 1: libretto were lackluster, and years later, the turbulence and danger

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Speaker 1: caused by the Russian Revolution of nineteen o five lead

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Speaker 1: dancers in the Marinsky Theater to flee Russia. Though the

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Speaker 1: original production of the ballet was unsuccessful, Tchaikovsky compiled a

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Speaker 1: suite of eight numbers from the ballet for concert performance

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Speaker 1: that was successful. As performances of The Nutcracker began to

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Speaker 1: be staged throughout the West, the ballet itself grew more popular.

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Speaker 1: It's spread to Hungary, England, the US, and other places

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Speaker 1: in Europe and North America. Many movies have since used

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Speaker 1: the Nutcrackers music, including Disney's nineteen forty film Fantasia, and

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Speaker 1: more people have seen The Nutcracker than any other ballet.

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Speaker 1: It's a Christmas time favorite for many ballet companies around

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Speaker 1: the world, and plenty of productions have made the libretto

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Speaker 1: and choreography their own. I'm each Jeffcote and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Spend some of your daily social media time with us

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Speaker 1: at t C I eight see podcast, and if you

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Speaker 1: would like to write me a letter, you can scan it,

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Speaker 1: turn it into a PDF, and send it to us

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Speaker 1: via email at this Day at I heeart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again tomorrow. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History class, a show

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Speaker 1: that dares to touch history without the aid of a

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Speaker 1: thirty nine and a half foot poll. I'm Gabe Bluesier,

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Speaker 1: and today we're talking about the time when the Grinch

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Speaker 1: tried to stop Christmas from coming and forever linked himself

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Speaker 1: with the holiday in the process. The day was December eighteen,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six. Dr Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas

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Speaker 1: aired for the very first time on CBS. The special,

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Speaker 1: directed by Chuck Jones and Ben Washam is fondly remembered

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Speaker 1: for its expressive animation and clever songwriting, as well as

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Speaker 1: for its message of kindness over commercialism. It tells the

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Speaker 1: story of a grumpy mountain dwelling hermit known simply as

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Speaker 1: the Grinch. Annoyed by his Christmas loving neighbors in the

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Speaker 1: town below, the Grinch decides to ruin their holiday so

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Speaker 1: that he can mope around in peace. His plan is

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Speaker 1: nearly thwarted along the way by a surprise encounter with

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Speaker 1: the adorable Cindy lou Who, but the Grinch recovers and

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Speaker 1: manages to steal all the trappings of Christmas. However, the

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Speaker 1: Grinch later has a change of heart, or more precisely,

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Speaker 1: a growth of heart, when he sees proof that the

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Speaker 1: holiday wasn't as hollow as it had looked from a distance.

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Speaker 1: Softened by this realization, he returns all the stolen goods

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Speaker 1: and joins the residence of Whoville for a grand holiday feast.

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Speaker 1: The How the Grinch Stole Christmas TV special was based

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Speaker 1: on the nineteen fifty seven story of the same name

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Speaker 1: by Theodore ted Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss. In

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Speaker 1: an interview with Red Book Magazine. Upon the book's release,

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Speaker 1: the author revealed that the character of the Grinch was

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Speaker 1: actually based on himself, as he explained, quote, I was

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Speaker 1: brushing my teeth on the morning of the twenty six

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Speaker 1: of last December when I noted a very grinch ish

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Speaker 1: countenance in the mirror. It was SEUs. Something had gone

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Speaker 1: wrong with Christmas, I realized, or more likely with me.

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Speaker 1: So I wrote the story about my sour friend, the Grinch,

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Speaker 1: to see if I could rediscover something about Christmas that

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Speaker 1: obviously I lost. It took the author just a few

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Speaker 1: weeks to sort out the problem and the story, with

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Speaker 1: Geissel later describing it as the easiest book to write

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Speaker 1: of his whole career. How the Grinch Stole Christmas was

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Speaker 1: well received upon release, and the book continues to be

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Speaker 1: a top seller over sixty years later. But it was

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Speaker 1: the TV special in the nineteen sixties that gave the

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Speaker 1: story a wider audience and made the Grinch a true

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Speaker 1: icon of Christmas, right up there with Frosty and Rudolph.

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Speaker 1: NBC had launched the trend of animated holiday specials when

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Speaker 1: they aired Mr Magoose Christmas Carol in nineteen sixty two.

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Speaker 1: The network followed it two years later with the stop

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Speaker 1: motion classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and that's when

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Speaker 1: things really started to heat up. In nineteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: CBS jumped on the holiday special bandwagon with a Charlie

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Speaker 1: Brown Christmas, and a year later it was the Grinch's turn.

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Speaker 1: The project began not with the MGM Studio or the

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Speaker 1: CBS Network, but with legendary cartoon animator and director Chuck Jones.

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Speaker 1: He felt the Grinches story was perfectly suited for its

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Speaker 1: own animated special, a project he took on while under

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Speaker 1: contract with MGM. Jones had actually worked with Ted Geissel

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Speaker 1: years earlier. During World War Two, Geissl had served as

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Speaker 1: commander of the animation department for the Army's first motion

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Speaker 1: picture unit. In that role, he worked closely with Jones,

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Speaker 1: who was still under contracted Warner Brothers on a humorous

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Speaker 1: instructional cartoon series called Private Snaff Foo. The black and

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Speaker 1: white shorts featured the bumbling title character trying and often failing,

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Speaker 1: to demonstrate the dues and don'ts of Army say d

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Speaker 1: insecurity protocol. The shorts were originally classified for military personnel only,

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Speaker 1: but they have since been released to the public and

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Speaker 1: are definitely worth a look for fans of either artists.

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Speaker 1: It was because of this prior working relationship that Geisel

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Speaker 1: ultimately agreed to grant Jones the rights to make an

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Speaker 1: animated Grinch special for television. The author had been burned

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Speaker 1: by adaptations of his work before, including one production that

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Speaker 1: had left his name out of the credits. The experiences

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Speaker 1: had soured his view of Hollywood and made him reluctant

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Speaker 1: to part with the screen rights for his books. But

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Speaker 1: in the end, Geisel couldn't refuse a personal request from

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Speaker 1: an old collaborator, and with Jones at the Helm, he

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Speaker 1: knew his story would be in good hands. However, getting

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Speaker 1: Geisel on board was only half the battle for Jones.

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Speaker 1: He still needed to convince CBS to air the special,

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Speaker 1: and to do that he would first have to find

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Speaker 1: a sponsor to cover the production costs. At the time,

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Speaker 1: television specials weren't funded by studios and production companies like

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Speaker 1: they are today. Instead, the projects were paid for by

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Speaker 1: company sponsors, like when Coca Cola sponsored the Peanuts Christmas Special.

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Speaker 1: Jones made storyboards to show his intentions for the special

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Speaker 1: and pitched them to over two dozen companies, none of

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Speaker 1: whom we're willing to pony up the cash. Finally, at

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Speaker 1: the eleventh hour, Jones found a sponsor in of all things,

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Speaker 1: the Foundation for Commercial Banks. The director later remarked on

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Speaker 1: the irony of the endorsement, saying, quote, I thought that

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Speaker 1: was very odd because one of the great lines in

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Speaker 1: there is that the Grinch says, perhaps Christmas doesn't come

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Speaker 1: from a store. I never thought of a banker endorsing

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Speaker 1: that kind of a line, but they overlooked it, so

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Speaker 1: we went ahead and made the picture. It was no

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Speaker 1: small investment either. All told, the twenty six minutes special

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Speaker 1: costs more than three hundred thousand dollars to make, which

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Speaker 1: would be nearly two and a half million dollars today.

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Speaker 1: For reference, Charlie Brown Christmas had a budget of about

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Speaker 1: nineties six thousand dollars. Spending three times that amount on

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Speaker 1: a special of the same length was unprecedented, but the

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Speaker 1: money was put to good use. The substantial budget allowed

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Speaker 1: for more detailed animation and higher production values than other

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Speaker 1: TV cartoons of the era apologies to Peanuts. The extra

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Speaker 1: money came in handy because Jones and his fellow animators

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Speaker 1: had to fill in a lot of missing details when

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Speaker 1: adapting The Grinch for television. The original book had been

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Speaker 1: illustrated with simple line drawings and a limited color palette

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Speaker 1: consisting mostly of black and white, with occasional splashes of

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Speaker 1: light pink and read. Jones knew the two tone style

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Speaker 1: wouldn't fly for a TV special, so one of the

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Speaker 1: first changes he made was to color The Grinch green.

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Speaker 1: He reportedly chose the now iconic shade because all of

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Speaker 1: his rental cars in Washington State had been the same

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Speaker 1: ugly green color. Geisel approved of the change, but when

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Speaker 1: Jones first showed him the new design, the author exclaimed,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't look like the Grinch. That looks like you. Jones,

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Speaker 1: who had often used his own gestures and expressions as

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Speaker 1: models for his characters, replied, well, it happens. Aside from

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Speaker 1: fleshing out the illustrated world of the story, Chuck Jones

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Speaker 1: also had to supply new story details in order to

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Speaker 1: fill out the twenty six minute run time. The entire

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Speaker 1: text of the book was incorporated in the special, with

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Speaker 1: a few minor tweaks here and there, but it only

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Speaker 1: takes about twelve minutes to the whole book out loud,

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Speaker 1: Jones came up with a few solutions for extending the story.

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Speaker 1: The first was to beef up the role of Max,

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Speaker 1: the grinches long suffering dog and only companion. Jones viewed

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Speaker 1: Max as the stand in for the audience, a disapproving

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Speaker 1: observer who is powerless to stop the Grinch's scheme, but

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Speaker 1: hoped it would fail all the same. The other additions

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Speaker 1: to the story were three songs featuring lyrics penned by

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Speaker 1: Dr Seuss himself. One of those songs, titled Welcome Christmas,

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Speaker 1: was written in what Jones referred to as Susian Latin.

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Speaker 1: This was an attempt to write a new secular carol

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Speaker 1: that mimic the sounds of a classical religious carol, such

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Speaker 1: as Oddiste fidelis, or, as it's known in English, Oh

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Speaker 1: Come all, ye faithful. Jones didn't think it mattered that

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Speaker 1: their carol was composed of non se Its words, because,

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Speaker 1: as he put it, quote fa who forres dahu doores

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Speaker 1: seems to have as much authenticity as adeste fideles to

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Speaker 1: those unauthored in Latin. The director was later proven right

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Speaker 1: on the matter because, after the special aired numerous viewers

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Speaker 1: wrote to CBS requesting translations of the quote unquote Latin lyrics.

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Speaker 1: Another of the special's original songs is Trim Up the

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Speaker 1: Tree with Christmas Stuff, a jaunty square dance style number

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Speaker 1: written by German composer Albert Hague. It's a delightful, tongue

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Speaker 1: twisting ode to the excesses of Christmas celebration and probably

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Speaker 1: the only song ever written that encourages the listener to

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Speaker 1: quote hang Dang danglars on the bathtub and trim the

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Speaker 1: occupant with fluke. There's not a bad track in the special,

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Speaker 1: but the standout is, of course, You're a Mean One,

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Speaker 1: Mr Grinch. While the other two songs were sung by

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Speaker 1: an uncredited chorus representing the who's of Whoville, You're a

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Speaker 1: Mean One was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft. You may not

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Speaker 1: know the name, but you certainly know his booming voice,

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Speaker 1: which he lent to the Frosted Flakes mascot Tony the

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Speaker 1: Tiger for more than fifty years. Thurle was also a

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Speaker 1: frequent voiceover artist for many classic attractions at Disneyland, including

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Speaker 1: The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and My personal

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Speaker 1: favorite Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. Thurle didn't receive an

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Speaker 1: on screen credit for singing You're a Mean One, and

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Speaker 1: as a result, most viewers mistakenly thought it was sung

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Speaker 1: by the special's narrator, Boris Karloff. Geissl, who had gone

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Speaker 1: through the experience of not getting a credit, tried to

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Speaker 1: correct the oversight. He encouraged columnists to credit thorough in

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Speaker 1: their publications, But going off of the continued misattribution, I'm

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Speaker 1: guessing the effort to get the word out wasn't very effective.

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Speaker 1: It likely didn't help that many critics of the time

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Speaker 1: gave the special a lukewarm review. For instance, one critic

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Speaker 1: could only muster enough enthusiasm to say it was quote

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Speaker 1: probably as good as most of the other holiday cartoons.

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Speaker 1: I can't see why anybody would dislike it. Others said

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Speaker 1: the specials themes were two on the nose and that

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Speaker 1: a lot of the magic had been lost in the

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Speaker 1: stories translation from page to screen. The New York Times

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Speaker 1: was especially protective of the Sacred Susian text, calling it

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Speaker 1: quote a creation that should be left undisturbed on the

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Speaker 1: printed page. In the end, it didn't really matter what

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Speaker 1: the critics thought. The special's premiere was watched by thirty

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Speaker 1: eight million viewers and has since gone on to become

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Speaker 1: required holiday viewing for millions of families worldwide. The Grinch

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Speaker 1: proved so popular that CBS eventually commissioned two more specials

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Speaker 1: featuring the character. The first, a prequel called Halloween Is

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Speaker 1: Grinch Night, premiered in nineteen seventy seven, and the second

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Speaker 1: a crossover called The Grinch Grinches, the Cat and the

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Speaker 1: Hat in two. Both specials went on to win Emmy Awards,

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Speaker 1: but neither became a perennial classic. Like the original, The

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Speaker 1: Grinch may have failed to steal Christmas, but he succeeded

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Speaker 1: in stealing the public's heart, something he seems destined to

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Speaker 1: hold onto for years and years to come. I'm Gabe

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Speaker 1: Louizier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to

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Speaker 1: keep up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at T D I HC Show. You can

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Speaker 1: also write to us at this day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. I'd love to know what kind of

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Speaker 1: Christmas stuff you trim up your tree with. I'm partial

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Speaker 1: to whiffer bluths myself, but I'd never say no to

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Speaker 1: a good Pantuca. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history class. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, vis the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.