Christmas themes have long been an inspiration to artists and writers. A prominent aspect of Christian media, the topic first appeared in in literature and Christmas music. Filmmakers have picked up on this wealth of material, with both adaptations of Christmas novels, in the forms of Christmas films, Santa Claus films, and Christmas television specials. It also includes animation, comics, and children's books, including A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and Frosty the Snowman. Films Many Christmas stories have been adapted to movies and TV specials, and have been broadcast and repeated many times on TV. Since the popularization of home video in the 1980s, their many editions are sold and re-sold every year during the holiday shopping season. Notable examples are the many versions of the ballet The Nutcracker, the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, and the similarly themed versions of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by ghosts and learns the errors of his ways. By contrast, the hero of the former, George Bailey, is a businessman who sacrificed his dreams to help his community. On Christmas Eve, a guardian angel finds him in despair and prevents him from committing suicide, by supernaturally showing him how much he meant to the world around him. A few films based on fictionalized versions of true stories have become Christmas specials themselves. The story behind the Christmas carol "Silent Night" and the story of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" are two examples. Sometimes, family films and classics boasting special effects and/or uplifting messages, but having no real relation to Christmas, are telecast during the season as part of the holiday programming. The Wizard of Oz, for instance, was always telecast during the Christmas season between 1959 and 1962. Other films often seen around the Christmas period are Singin' in the Rain, Some Like it Hot, Casablanca, The Golden Compass, Great Expectations, Annie, Grease, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Johnny Depp's Alice Saga, Sunshine on Leith, The Star Wars Saga, The Simpsons Movie, Cinderella, Maleficent, Into the Woods, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Paddington, Around the World in Eighty Days, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, Crocodile Dundee, The Railway Children, The Sound of Music, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the Marvel Cinematic Universe