Carrie Buell and Yarrow Cheney met during their first week as animation students at California Institute of the Arts in 1992. They quickly discovered they had much in common ... including a love for the classic animated Christmas specials they had grown up watching on television.

Fourteen years after meeting, a decade after starting an animation business together, and four years after marrying, Carrie and Yarrow Cheney's dream of creating an animated Christmas classic has come true with the release of The Very First Noel™.

“We talked about how much we loved the old Christmas specials from the 1960s and early '70s,” Carrie says. “Those shows had a charm and sincerity that brought so much to us as kids. We talked about how someday as professionals we'd try to create a new show with the same warmth and heart.”

What began as a dream went into production on a part-time basis in 1999. Carrie and Yarrow then spent 18 months working on it full time before putting it aside when it lost its original focus (and they ran low on money).

When Yarrow became Production Designer for Curious George in 2003, Carrie revisited their Christmas special. She rewrote the script from scratch, this time paraphrasing the story of the Wise Men through rhyme. With script in hand, the couple knew they wanted unique music and an iconic voice to narrate. They found both.

“Andy Griffith was the perfect fit for our narrator, Melchior. We wanted someone people would gladly welcome into their homes,” Carrie says. “And we had the perfect musical find in the Brothers Cazimero! Their amazing arrangements of traditional carols (from the 1999 release “Cazimero Christmas Favorites”) give the project such a unique musical voice.”

Having the look, the story, the sound, and the voice for The Very First Noel, all the Cheneys needed was a partner. In July 2006, they hooked up with Exclaim Entertainment,™ home of BOZ, The Green Bear Next Door.™