“How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” (1966)
Retro Review #18: Spoiler Alert - By abusing his poor little dog, that's how!
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” (1966) — Spoiler Alert: By abusing his poor little dog, that's how!
+ TV special, @ 26m
+ Based on literature (short story) “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” (1957)❗🔜⭐ by Dr. Seuss⭐
+ 6️⃣/24 videos in Seuss multiverse⭐
+ 1️⃣/11 TV specials in Seuss multiverse⭐
+ 1️⃣/3 TV specials in Grinch series⭐
A+^
Grade: A+^ (20.0) / HOF: 6
EQ 👍? | 📖? 👥? 📽️? 🎼? (Coming soon upon re-review)
DW 😎🕶️🚫?.? | 🌚? 🌝? (Coming soon upon re-review)
POPCAP 💯n/a 🍿n/a 🧢n/a
L-R 💻⬆️⬇️? 👀⬆️⬇️? 🛐⬆️⬇️? (Coming soon upon re-review)
Three of the authors I consider to be early to mid 20th Century Masters of Dark Whimsy are known primarily as children’s authors: L. Frank Baum, Roald Dahl, and Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Of these, only Seuss was also an illustrator, making him a two-way threat on par with Shohei Ohtani. Unlike Ohtani, Seuss never betrayed his fans by dumping them to play for hated rivals, but I digress.
Back to Dark Whimsy...
While the works of Seuss always break the Whimsy scale, some register low on the Dark scale, especially compared to Baum’s wicked witches and flying monkeys or just about anything from Dahl. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” is definitely not one of Seuss’s lighter works though.
Grinch is the 14th children’s book both written and illustrated by Seuss, first published in 1957, and scores high on both scales of the Dark Whimsy meter.
A big fan of Seuss’s work was animator Chuck Jones, known for writing, directing and producing many of the classic Looney Tunes shorts, as well as Merry Melodies and Tom and Jerry cartoons. He and Seuss had previously collaborated on a series of animated instructional shorts called “Private Snafu” during World War Two. Jones convinced Seuss to adapt Grinch into an animated special.
After the success of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, CBS wanted more Christmas specials and provided Jones more than four times the budget given to Bill Melendez for the “Peanuts” special. In todayʼs money, it was around four million dollars.
Casting perfectly, Jones and Seuss hired Boris Karloff, another big fan of Seuss’s work, to narrate and voice the Grinch. The iconic and darkly whimsical song “You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was performed by accidentally uncredited Thurl Ravenscroft. With the TV special catapulting the character higher into pop culture than the book alone could, the Grinch trails probably only Ebenezer Scrooge from the Dickens novella, A Christmas Carol. in the rogues gallery of Christmas villains.
While not overtly Christian like the Charlie Brown Christmas special, the underlying message of the Grinch special is a Christian message of repentance and redemption, and, like the Peanuts special, that message makes this Seuss special timeless. Nearly sixty years later it’s still a great choice for family holiday viewing.
The original book as written, was animated faithfully. But it would only have run about twelve minutes, so additional scenes were created. In all, over 20,000 sketches and drawings were created during the animation process. Jones had promised Seuss there would be no limit to the quality of the animation. To this day it’s clear he kept his word, and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” is a Dark Whimsy holiday masterpiece.
Onwards!
+ last viewed (~5) 2024-12-07, HDX7, 1.33, 1M
+ first viewed ~1960s, bw, sd2, 1.33, 1
+ 👨👩👧👦🎈⛄🎄🎅🎶🧌🦄🧚🥸🐾🐶
+ ✅❌? NR (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 😡? 😵💫+? 🤬+? 🤭+? 🫣+? (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 👀 (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ ✝️ (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ ✡️ (Coming soon upon re-review)
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Originally posted to text group 2024-12-09
Last updated 2025-06-26
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Beautiful pictures. I enjoyed the bright happy colors