50 Fun Facts About Hallmark

Where has Hallmark Cards been headquartered since its founder settled there in 1910?

The company is still privately held and family-owned, and about 2,700 of its employees work at the headquarters campus.

In what year did Joyce Clyde Hall arrive in Missouri with little more than two shoe boxes of postcards?

He had quit high school that year; his brothers' Norfolk, Nebraska bookstore had been selling postcards since 1905.

Hallmark's founder sold door-to-door at eight for the company that became which brand?

His father, a traveling Methodist minister, had left the family, and young Hall felt the Lord could use a little help providing.

In 1917 the Hall brothers 'invented' modern gift wrap by selling what when colored tissue ran out?

The substitute sold out again the following year, so the brothers began printing wrapping paper of their own design.

The brand name Hallmark, introduced in 1928, borrowed a mark used by which 14th-century London tradesmen?

That same year the company began printing the name on the back of every card and became the first card maker to advertise nationally.

Hallmark's first national advertisement, written by J. C. Hall himself, appeared in which magazine?

It made Hallmark the first company in the greeting card industry to advertise its product nationally.

In what year did Hallmark adopt its slogan 'When you care enough to send the very best'?

Marketing executive C. E. Goodman came up with the line, which the company has kept ever since.

The company was called Hall Brothers until it changed its name to Hallmark in what year?

The Hallmark brand name had already been printed on the back of every card for a quarter century by then.

Hallmark Hall of Fame debuted in 1951 with which work, the first opera written for television?

The broadcast went out live from NBC Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, and Hallmark restaged the opera several times over the next fifteen years.

Which composer wrote the one-act opera that opened the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1951?

He took his inspiration from Bosch's The Adoration of the Magi at the Met, and finished the score so late that his partner Samuel Barber helped complete the orchestrations.

The original host of Hallmark Television Playhouse was an actress and the daughter of which world leader?

She was the third of five children and was named after her ancestor the Duchess of Marlborough.

Roughly how many Emmy Awards has Hallmark Hall of Fame collected, the most of any anthology of its kind?

It has also picked up nine Golden Globes and dozens of Peabody and Christopher awards, and remains one of the last shows with its sponsor's name in the title.

After NBC dropped Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1979, which network carried it for the next decade?

The series bounced to ABC in 1989, back to CBS in 1994, and finally moved exclusively to Hallmark Channel in 2014.

Hallmark began manufacturing its dated Keepsake ornaments in what year?

Each design is available for one year only, which is exactly what turned collecting them into a hobby.

How many ornaments were in Hallmark's very first Keepsake collection?

Six of them were glass balls; by 1998 some 11 million American households were collecting the line.

Which astronaut sued Hallmark in 1994 over an ornament using his name and his famous quote?

The settlement money went to Purdue University, and the case made NASA far more careful about licensing astronaut likenesses.

In 1984 Hallmark bought Binney & Smith, the Pennsylvania maker of which brand?

The subsidiary renamed itself after its star product in 2007 and also owns Silly Putty.

How much did Hallmark pay for crayon maker Binney & Smith in 1984?

The same year it spent $52 million on the 114-year-old British card maker W. N. Sharpe.

Which children's TV host molded the 100 billionth crayon at the Easton, Pennsylvania plant in 1996?

The brand's crayons had already been featured on both Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

The name of Hallmark's crayon brand pairs 'ola' (oily) with the French word 'craie', meaning what?

Alice Binney, a former schoolteacher and the co-founder's wife, coined it in 1903.

Which architect drew up the master plan for Crown Center, around Hallmark's headquarters?

The complex is named after Hallmark's corporate crown symbol; the city approved the plans at the end of 1967.

Which Crown Center hotel was the site of the 1981 walkway collapse that killed 114 people?

It remains the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure in American history; the hotel is now a Sheraton.

When the founder retired in 1966, which member of the family took over as Hallmark's chief executive?

The founder spent his retirement pushing to revitalize the downtown around headquarters, which became Crown Center.

What is the name of the bull terrier who often accompanies Hallmark's Maxine?

The pair got their own animated special, Maxine's Christmas Carol, in 1999.

On August 6 of what year did the Odyssey Network rebrand as Hallmark Channel?

Executives said viewers had mistaken 'Odyssey' for a travel or science-fiction channel.

Which partner joined Hallmark Entertainment in buying major stakes in the Odyssey Network in 1998?

The two had already partnered on the 1996 Gulliver's Travels miniseries and an Asian pay-TV venture called Kermit Channel.

Hallmark Channel held its first Countdown to Christmas programming event in what year?

It was the first cross-promotion between the channel and Hallmark Cards, complete with a hoops&yoyo movie night on Fridays.

How many original movie premieres did the first Countdown to Christmas feature?

By 2013 the event had grown to 12 new films, and by 2017 to 33.

The 2014 film Christmas Under Wraps drew a record audience for a Hallmark premiere; who starred?

Its success is why Hallmark ramped up its original movie output so sharply in the years that followed.

How many original holiday films did Hallmark Channel premiere in 2017, up from 28 in 2016?

By then its library held 136 Christmas-themed originals.

What was the first movie made as a collaboration between Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Cards, in 2014?

Three years later the Christmas in Evergreen franchise went further and was built on a Hallmark greeting card line.

Through 2023, Hallmark's Countdown to New Years ended on January 1 with which TV event?

The Countdown to Christmas ran from the last weekend of October through New Year's Day; Great American Family took over the parade as cable broadcaster in 2024.

Hallmark's tongue-in-cheek holiday movie ratings include 'F for Family' and 'J' for what?

Its most-used stars are promoted as the 'Queens of Christmas'.

The first Hallmark Channel Christmas Con in 2019 took place in which city?

That year Countdown to Christmas movies also ran on Friday nights all year long.

Where are many Hallmark Channel movies shot to keep costs down?

The channel prefers real location shoots over sound stages; a 2007 original was budgeted at about $2.2 million.

In which 2004 teen comedy did the 'Queen of Hallmark Christmas Movies' co-star as Gretchen Wieners?

She has since appeared in more than 40 Hallmark films and launched her own line of Hallmark cards and ornaments in 2025.

In an eighteen-film Hallmark Movies & Mysteries series, the star of Full House played whom?

She left in 2022 to become chief content officer of a rival network run by Hallmark's former boss.

Mariah Carey directed and co-starred with Lacey Chabert in which 2015 Hallmark holiday film?

Shot in Ohio, it drew 3.95 million viewers, and Carey followed it with a three-film deal.

When Calls the Heart is inspired by a novel by which author?

Michael Landon Jr. and Brian Bird created the series, which has run for 13 seasons and five specials.

Who plays teacher Elizabeth Thatcher in When Calls the Heart?

The role was originated by Poppy Drayton in the movie that spawned the series.

When Calls the Heart was originally planned for Colorado but is filmed on a farm near which city?

Some set trimmings and a stagecoach were inherited from the Hell on Wheels set.

After the mine closed in season two, the town in When Calls the Heart was renamed what?

It started life as Coal Valley, set in 1910 just south of Robb, Alberta.

Hallmark cut ties with Lori Loughlin in March 2019 after her arrest in what scandal?

Her season-six scenes were edited out, though Hallmark later announced she would return for season 14 of When Calls the Heart.

Which 2013 drama starring Andie MacDowell as a judge was Hallmark Channel's first scripted series?

It was based on Debbie Macomber's novels and lasted three seasons.

Who played Cassie Nightingale in Good Witch, which ran on Hallmark from 2015 to 2021?

The series finale made network history with the first same-sex kiss between main characters on a Hallmark show.

After leaving Hallmark in 2020, Bill Abbott acquired the GAC channel and relaunched it under what name?

The rival copied his Hallmark playbook of holiday-themed originals and hired away several of the channel's regulars.

The mystery-focused sister network launched in January 2004 under what original name?

It became Hallmark Movies & Mysteries in 2014 and took its current name in March 2024.

Hallmark+ began life in 2007 under what name, before becoming Feeln and then Hallmark Movies Now?

Its founder Robert N. Fried had produced Rudy and Hoosiers; Hallmark bought the service in 2012.

At its 2015 peak, Hallmark Channel reached roughly how many US pay-TV households?

By late 2023 that figure had slipped to about 70 million as cord-cutting spread.

A 'Hallmark holiday' is one perceived to exist primarily for what?

Boss's Day, Grandparents Day and even Groundhog Day have all been tagged with the label.