With the holidays in full swing, everyone is celebrating with their favorite Christmas movies and specials, and that includes one particular creature based on the book by Dr. Seuss who hates Christmas. I'm talking of course about The Grinch. The Grinch has been in television specials, movies, and musicals making him one of the most recognizable figures of Christmas. However, in this editorial piece of mine, that may be a problem.
When the original Grinch special came out in 1966, it came out at a great time when all the great classics came out such as Rudolph, Charlie Brown, and Frosty. Because it was done by Chuck Jones at MGM, it too would age very well. Fast forward over 30 years when Universal put out the live action version of The Grinch starring Jim Carey as the mean one himself. The movie turned The Grinch into something different. The movie has since become a classic istelf.
Now for some disclaimers: when I was a kid, I loved this version of The Grinch. In fact I liked it just as much as I did the animated special. It was one of my favorite stories about a creature who lives on Mt Crumpet, out of the blue disguises himself as Santa Claus, goes down on his sled to Whoville, and steals everything from every house. Looking back on the movie now, it still is actually pretty good. Even I've caught myself quoting from the movie. Carey as The Grinch was perfect. He was able to perform in all that makeup and a heavy yak hair suit.
However, so has nearly every single millenial who grew up watching. I remember one of them in college showing us a video of the live action Grinch in a Yoga class suddenly screaming only to respond with...."Im a little messed up". As everyone was laughing and going "OMG....I can totally relate to him" the guy who showed us the video said, "the original special will always be around, but the Jim Carey one will always be my favorite." When I heard that, I right away thought, "With talk like that....the original will soon be obscure".
And the proof seems to be in the putting. A recent poll shows the Jim Carrey movie is the favorite of the 3 Grinch adaptations. Many people who dress up as the Grinch for kids usually dress as the Jim Carey version or some unreasonable facsimile. Probably it's cheaper to get a rubber mask. Posts on the Internet shows a quote than some millenials relate to such as "Hate hate hate...hate hate hate.....double hate" or "That's it, I'm not goin". Finally at Universal's holiday celebrations at the parks, the Jim Carey version of Mr. Grinch comes out for meet and greets. Guess how long the wait is. 15 minutes, 45 minutes?????? Try 2-4 HOURS. That's right......HOURS. Whereas on regular days at Seuss Landing and special appearances at Hershey's Chocolate World, the wait is not so long as it's the cartoon version. While it was clear the movie was made not to compete with the original at all, the movie, as I see it, has pretty much replaced the original. And that's why I yell and scream every time a live action version of a Disney classic gets made because I know it's there to REPLACE THE ORIGINAL.
Again, I like The Grinch, but I have to call balls and strikes. And the big strikeout is that Jones and whoever was still alive from his unit at the time of the movie's release hated it. In fact, some members of his unit were said to have cried tears claiming that they ruined what they worked so hard making. Now Jones has been known to be a little grumpy and opinionated, and that always been the case even during the days at Termite Terrace under Leon Schlesinger who he hated, but considering it was a good number of people who made the original didn't like it tells me this is valid criticism.
The big question, what does the Seuss estate think of this movie? Well, it seemed as though they didn't mind at first, so they then greenlit a Cat in the Hat movie in the same style. However, this one was well disliked by both fans and the general public. Now I liked it as a kid, but looking back....yeah....it's not very good. This caused Audrey Geisel, the late widow of the great Ted Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, ordering no more movies of that type to be made ever again. Fast forward to recent years and official social media accounts of Dr. Seuss began making new content with a guy dressed as The Grinch in the same style as how they dressed Jim Carey. This tells me that the Seuss estate realizes the money maker it is causing Grinch merchandise sales to go up including the original book. There have been many talks about a sequel to The Grinch. Jim Carey recently said that he would love to, but as motion capture. He did not like dressing in that suit. It took hours to put on and it gets really hot inside the costume. In the meantime, Illumation did their own version of The Grinch, but it's not as well liked.
There is some hope for the original classic however. The special continues to air on Turner networks and has been airing on NBC. In addition, Comcast was able to get the streaming rights for Peacock despite being a Warner owned product. The special out of all the animated classics from Warner Bros. was the one to get restored the most rather than a one and done. Recently, a 4K restoration was done from the original negs and has been released on 4k disc. And the original Thurl Ravenscroft recording of You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch continues to air on the radio. So long as this all continues, the future may still be bright for this special. Here's hoping the original Chuck Jones classic continues to be a part of a Christmas tradition for many years to come.
That said, I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays. May there be peace on Earth and unity throughout the world.
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