The holiday season is right around the corner, which means it's time for hot cocoa and Christmas movies, but there’s so much more behind the scenes of these Hollywood seasonal classics. Did you know that Charlie Brown ended the sales of aluminum Christmas trees? Or about Bruce Willis' injury on the set of Die Hard? Read on to find out the hidden holiday secrets of these famous festive films…
The Greatest Gift
Phillip Van doren couldn’t sell his short story “The Greatest Gift” to publishers. He eventually just put the story on 200 christmas cards and gave them out to his friends during the holiday season. One of those cards made its way to David Hempsted who bought the rights and made it into It’s A Wonderful Life.
Christmas Credits
Peter Billingsley might best be known for his role as cute little Ralphie in the 1983 movie A Christmas Story, but he actually has two big acting credits under his belt. The grown-up Ralphie plays the supervisor of Santa’s workshop in Elf. Talking about an impressive iMDB page!
Candy for Christmas
John Candy played the helpful band member in Home Alone, but his character was actually based on his character from Planes, Trains, & Automobiles. That scene about forgetting his son at a funeral home? That was all improv! All of his scenes were also shot over one 23 hour stint. Impressive!
Capra Crew
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation had a second assistant director. That man was Frank Capra III, who happened to be the grandson of the director of It’s a Wonderful Life Frank Capra. As homage, Rusty is watching the movie when the relatives arrive to the house.
Not Easy Being Green
The Grinch is the work of children’s author Dr. Suess. In the book, he was originally drawn to be black and white, but it was director Chuck Jones who thought a bright green Christmas-hating monster might look better in 1966 animated film. Now, he’s always drawn in signature Grinch green!
No Laughing Matter
Originally, A Charlie Brown Christmas was supposed to have a laugh track in the background. Charles Schulz took a hard stance against the traditional half-hour laugh track format, and executive producer Lee Mendelson let up on the funny business.
Bill Murray Returns
Bill Murray took a four year break from Hollywood during the mid-80s. His first role when he was ready to return to the big screen was the critically acclaimed comedy Christmas classic, Scrooged! Not too bad for a returning gig!
Lost in Love
Love Actually was actually going to be way more romantic. Like, way more. The movie was originally written with 14 couples coming together in the film. One of these even included the school headmistress’s relationship with her girlfriend. Ultimately though, these were all cut from the final film.
Accidental Director
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was the first movie Jeremiah Chechik ever directed. He had previously been a Vogue fashion photographer. Stanley Kubrick was a fan of his work and accidentally named him as his favorite director. The scripts started flowing in and soon, he really was a director!
All's Well That Sewells
In the movie The Holiday, Kate Winslet is in love with Rufus Sewell’s character, who can only be described as the absolute worst. The two had actually previously dated before shooting the movie. Bet that was a weirdly tense set to be on!
Santa Makeover
The Santa Clause was a 90s kids favorite, but it wasn’t so easy to make. The makeup and costuming to transform Tim Allen into Old Saint Nick took almost three hours every day. That’s a lot of work for a man who works one day a year! I wonder how long it takes the real Santa to get ready...
In Loving Memory
The Muppet Christmas Carol might not seem like a huge deal, but it was the first Muppet production without creator Jim Henson at the head. For the movie, his son Brian took over directing and actor Steve Whitmire took over the role of Kermit the Frog.
Grand Debut
Whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie is up for debate, but nevertheless, it can at least be argued to be one. Alan Rickman plays the villainous Hans Gruber, but did you know it was actually his first role in a feature film? Talk about a grand debut!
Turbo Man
Jingle All the Way features the popular Turbo Man toys flying off the shelves. Well, not long after, Walmart started selling the toys. They produced over 200,000 Turbo Man action figures for $25 each at over 2,300 Walmart locations. Now that’s life imitating art!
Elf Alternate
Though it premiered in 2003, the movie Elf was actually supposed to be released in 1993, starring Jim Carrey. Things didn’t work out for that version though, and the script was scrapped for a few years before it was looked at again with Will Ferrell in the role.
No Name Hal
You might not have noticed, but in A Christmas Story, Ralphie’s dad isn’t given a name. It was thought to be Hal due to a misheard line. “Damn, hell, you say you won it?” is often heard as being “Damn, Hal, you say you won it?” Quite the mystery man!
Decorative Clash
The idea for The Nightmare Before Christmas came from Tim Burton’s memory of Holiday and Halloween decorations overlapping in department stores. As the seasons changed, so did the decorations. The product became the spookiest holiday classic!
Buried Alive
The holiday classic The Grinch had a lot more military personnel on set than you might realize.He had to be trained by a CIA specialist to endure his heavy prosthetic makeup, because it was, as per his description “like being buried alive”. Scary!
Holiday Hoffman
The Holiday had a special cameo from Dustin Hoffman, but that was completely unplanned. Hoffman is a friend of writer and director Nancy Meyers. He was driving by the Blockbuster and decided to see what was being filmed. Once Nancy spotted him peeking in, she put him quickly into the scene.
Three for Three
Tim Allen was a triple threat in 1994, one weekend specifically. Opening weekend of The Santa Clause, Tim Allen had the number one performing movie, the top rated television show for Home Improvement, and the number one New York TImes bestselling book for Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man.
Summer Sales
Miracle on 34th Street is known today as a Christmas movie, but it was actually released in the early summer of 1947. The chief of 20th Century Fox, Darryl Zanuck, wanted to increase the profits. Since more people attend movies in the summer, he set it for May 2nd. His idea worked though, and it made $2,650,000 in the US alone.
Frosty the Oh, Man
Though the TV special is a favorite for kids, Frosty the Snowman was a song before it was a story. It was written in 1950 by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson, who were trying to capitalize on the popularity of talking Christmas icons, like the debut of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Sadly, Frosty didn’t take off quite like Rudolph did.
Sound Shot
Die Hard features Bruce Willis as John McClane. In one scene, McClane is shooting through a table to murder the terroists, and the prop gun was set to fire extra loud balnks. They were loud all right, they left Bruce Willis two-thirds deaf in his left ear. Hey, art is pain.
Major Flop
It’s a Wonderful Life is a classic today, but when the movie first premiered, it was a total flop. It lost $525,000 in the opening weekend, leaving it’s director (Frank Capra) in a bit of a tough spot. He could barely afford to produce his next movie, State of the Union.
Come Alive
There was a cut scene from Home Alone of a nightmare dream sequence in which the house came alive and tormenting young Kevin. There were evil nutcrackers and a living furnace, but the scene was too expensive to actually complete.
Penniless Picture
How the Grinch Stole Christmas was struggling to find sponsorship and almost didn’t get made. Today, production companies pay for it, but back then, it was the Foundation for Commercial Banks who paid for the film. Chuck Jones was surprised that they overlooked the anti-commercialism theme, but didn’t bite the hand that feeds!
A Minute of Film
The Nightmare Before Christmas was a stop-motion movie, which takes a long time to create. A single minute of footage would take about 120 crew members to fully complete over the course of a week. Now that’s dedication to the craft!
Sheet Music Sells
Santa Claus is Coming to Town was a song before it was a holiday special. In 1932, sheet music outsold records. Eddie Cantor sang the song for his wife on the radio in November 1934. Despite the belief that children’s songs would always fail, the sales of the song’s sheet music skyrocketed.
Buddy the Middle-Aged Elf
Will Ferrell has no interest in doing another Elf movie. In 2013, he was offered $29 million to reprise the role, but turned it down saying “I just think it would look slightly pathetic if I tried to squeeze back in the elf tights...Buddy the middle-aged elf.”
The Real Deal
Natalie Wood played the little eight year old girl in The Miracle on 34th Street. She was so young and excited that she believed that her co-star Edmund Gwenn was the real Santa Claus. Unfortunately, the real one couldn’t leave the North Pole for that long!
Yak Hair
How the Grinch Stole Christmas features Jim Carrey in a green suit to portray the Grinch. The suit was made of individual yak hairs that were dyed and sewn onto a spandex suit. Rick Baker made the costume over the course of four months.
Family of Scrooges
Did you realize that Scrooged was a family affair? Bill Murray has three brothers, and they all appear in the film with him. John, Joel, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Bill all have a shining moment (or more!) in the movie.
Home Address
In The Polar Express, one of the children’s addresses is announced as “11344 EdBrooke.” This is a real location! The director, Robert Zemeckis, grew up on 11344 EdBrooke Lane as a child in Chicago. He slid in that Easter egg for his parents.
A Royal Shakespeare Company Christmas Carol
Michael Caine has since been praised for his portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol, mostly due to how seriously he acted. He apparently told Henson he intended to play Scrooge as if he was opposite the Royal Shakespeare Company and not a room full of muppets!
Lost and Found
Maybe the most famous Christmas movie of all time, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was done using claymation. For years, the clay puppets were lost, but in 2006, two of them (Santa and Rudolph) appeared in an antique store. A woman had had them stored in her attic for the last 35 years!
Winter Wonderland
For a long time, most winter productions used cornflakes as fake snow. Capra wanted the sound of snow to be authentic, not cruny like the cereal. He and Russell Shearman made a new type of fake snow using sugar, water, and foamite for the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
Snowy Spinoffs
Love Actually features adorable love stories for both Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, but there was a time when director Richard Curtis wanted them to both become separate single movies. He decided against it because it’s better to “do the 30 best scenes from ten movies instead of one movie with three good scenes.” Fair!
A Really Bad Santa
Bad Santa is all about a Santa Claus without the heart of gold audiences have come to expect from the King of Christmas. In the Czech Republic though, translations have changed the title to Santa Is a Pervert. I mean, it's not too far off!
Improv Icon
Scrooged is based on a lot of Bill Murray’s improvised lines. His director described honing his talent as “Standing on 42nd Street and Broadway, and the lights are out, and you’re the traffic cop.” It must be truly overwhelming trying to contain that much talent to the lines he was given!
German Gibberish
Die Hard is an international favorite. In the theatrical version of the iconic action thriller, the German language that the terrorists speak isn’t German at all, it’s just gibberish! The film fixed the chatting in post production.
A Communist Christmas
The film It’s a Wonderful Life was considered a piece of Communist infiltration film. It was mentioned in a memo written for the FBI during 1947. It cites the character of Mr.Potter as a villainous banker to be a trick commonly used by the Communist regime.
Bad Billy Bob
Though it could be hard to imagine anyone else playing the Bad Santa, originally Bill Murray was meant to play the titular role. However, he dropped out to be in Lost in Translation. The part fell to Billy Bob Thornton. The rest, as they say, is history.
Myth Busted
The TV show Mythbusters did an episode that tested whether or not you could actually get your tongue stuck on a metal pole the way one kid did in A Christmas Story. Spoiler alert: yes you can, so no double dog dares unless you want to be frozen outside!
Restless Elves
Elf is one of the sweetest Christmas classics of recent years, and no one can attest to that more than Will Ferrell. On set, Will Ferrell had quite a lot of difficulty falling asleep at night due to the high amount of sugar his character had to consume on set. After all, an elf’s four main food groups are candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup!
Walking Muppets
The scene in The Muppet Christmas Carol in which Kermit and Robin are walking and dancing down the snowy street was incredibly difficult to film. It involved 10 puppeteers, a rotating drum covering Kermit’s feet, and a blue screen. That's a lot of work for a puppet to walk!
Gory Gremlins
Gremlins isn’t exactly a family fun film, but the original script was even darker. Earlier versions of the screenplay saw the gremlins eating Billy’s dog, decapitating his mother, and tossing her skull down the stairs. Yeah, everyone agreed that those were all steps too far if they wanted to appeal to a younger market.
Motion Capture
The Polar Express was a marvel of filming. It was the first ever film to be created using entirely performance capture. I mean, you have to make sure you’re getting the peak intricacies of a Tom Hanks role, right? It's also what gives it the signature animation style.
"Woof!"
In Home Alone, Buzz’s girlfriend gets properly mocked when Kevin picks up a photo of her and says “Buzz, your girlfriend...woof!” However, that’s actually the art director’s son dressed as a girl! Producers thought it would be mean to use a real little girl’s photo.
New Muppetry
The original muppet casting for The Muppet Christmas Carol was originally quite different. Scooter was going to play the Ghost of Christmas Past, Miss Piggy would be the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Gonzo for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The team decided to use all new muppets for these roles instead.
Bloody Lip
Carol Kane played the Ghost of Christmas Past in Scrooged, but she had an accidental violent act on set. She once grabbed Bill Murray’s lip so hard in a scene that she drew blood! The filming was stalled for several days after the incident.
Beautiful and Unguarded
In Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when Neal is thinking about Del, Steve MArtin had been unaware of the rolling camera. It was just some B-Roll that John Hughes had kept in because he liked Martin’s “beautiful and unguarded” expression.
Oh, Fridge!
Joe Pesci perfectly portrayed the burglar in Home Alone, but he had a real problem on set with casually dropping the F-Bomb, even in a few scenes! He was told to use the word “fridge” instead. There were lots of young kids on set who learned a lot from Joe.
French TV Programming
In the movie Home Alone, the family can be spotted watching another Christmas classic in their Paris hotel room, It’s a Wonderful Life. I bet Kevin would have liked to watch the famous film with the family, but he had other things in store with taking down the bandits!
Dancing Grant
Hugh Grant was very against dancing in the movie Love Actually. He wanted to part to be grounded, not whimsical. He eventually agreed on the very last day of filming. The only problem was that he mouthed the words to the song, but they had changed the selection in post. With some clever editing, you can’t tell!
Based on True Events
John Hughes got the inspiration to write Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when he had a terrible trip from New York to Chicago. Due to snow delays, his plane got diverted to Denver then Phoenix. Due to this travel time, he managed to write the first 60 pages of the film in only 6 hours.
A Real Actor
Though Scrooged is a Christmas comedy, director Richard Donner considers it one of Bill Murray’s best roles. “On the last take I saw something happen to Billy,” he said to reporters, “I saw Billy Murray became an actor.” It's still one of his favorite roles!
Shouldn't Be Alive
Harry and Marv were some tough fighters in Home Alone...maybe too tough. The Wet Bandits would have likely not survived their tiny attacker according to Dr. Ryan St. Calir. They would have endured a blowout fracture, a disfigurement, double vision, destroyed skin and bone tissue, and a skull so damaged it would have required a transplant. Ouch!
Father Deerest
Rudolph is apparently a father. The reindeer had three cartoons based on his offspring, including a son named Robbie. His famous father is never mentioned in the movie though because the network couldn’t get permission to use the name (or maybe they didn’t want to pay for it!)
Tree Topples
In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie refuses to get a fake tree. Around that time, fake trees were all the rage. The animation swayed public thinking, and fake tree sales plummeted. By 1969, the once popular aluminum trees had been phased out of public favor.
Alien Christmas Crossover
Spielberg is perhaps best known for his film E.T, which appears in his Amblin Entertainment logo. However, the first time this logo actually appears in his films is during the opening of the Gremlins introduction. That’s history being made!