Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (U.S. special)

While the main setting of Sombertown and the Kringle family’s home was never mentioned in this special, it is greatly hinted that it takes place within Germany.

The first two letters S.D. in Kluger’s name stands for "special delivery". While Kluger is German for the word "smarter".

MGM Records had issued a soundtrack album around the time this special had first aired. The album was pressed in limited quantities as a promotional tool for radio station disc jockeys, all with an orange and black promo sticker on the back cover. The score has since been re-issued on CD, but the original vinyl remains one of the rarest and most prized Christmas collectibles of all time.

For the shooting script, the penguin's name was Topper and it was the name that was used for the original broadcast. In certain later broadcast versions, the penguin's name was changed to Waddles for reasons unknown. While current broadcasts and all home video releases have since reverted the name back to Topper.

The doctor who treated the Burgermeister after he tripped on a toy, and the father of the family that has their toys left in their stockings are the same stop motion puppet, complete with a pair of diamond-shaped eyeglasses. Even the drawing of the king in Tante Kringle's book is based on the same model.

During the song "Put One Foot in Front of the Other" when the Winter Warlock begins to take his own steps, the song switches to a 7/4 time signature. This creates an 'aksak" or " limping" effect, which reflects how the Warlock is struggling to move forward on his own feet.

When the children are naming off Santa's reindeer, one of them refers to Blitzen as "Blitster." This line was deliberately not corrected to make the dialogue more endearing since in reality, young children would often mispronounce words.

There were fewer commercials on network television when this special originally first aired. Upon being shown on ABC and ABC Family, sometimes the special was edited in order to accommodate more commercials. In the ABC version, the songs "Be Prepared to Pay" and "My World is Beginning Today" are cut, while the ABC Family version cuts out scenes that may be traumatizing for younger viewers, most notably the scene where Burgermeister Meisterburger burns the toys of Sombertown.

Kris Kringle doesn’t say his first line until eight minutes within the TV special.

While Kris Kringle is the other name for Santa Claus, it is also the name of another gift giver. This other Kris Kringle was a 5-year-old boy dressed in white and gold with wings, who was commonly popular within Germany.

Jessica is the only character in this TV special to not have a German origin name. Her name is believed to be a faux Jewish-Italian name created by William Shakespeare for his play "The Merchant of Venice".