It may not get much publicity with the rights scattered over several networks, but How the Grinch Stole Christmas (!) turns the big 4-0 this year. It's always been in a dead heat with Rudolph in the battle for my vote for the very best holiday special. (while Jim Carrey did probably the best he could at feature-length, the material is truthfully best suited for a half hour); like many today I saw the show before I read the book and couldn't help comparing the latter to the former. It's perhaps natural that Dr. Seuss would have gone to Chuck Jones to film it, having worked together on several of Warner Bros.'s wartime Private Snafu cartoons, and although they had several disagreements along the way (Seuss didn't initially want the Grinch to be green, prefering to stick with his black, white, and red book scheme), they still brought the tale to life beautifully. It's the little touches that make this work, be it Max falling behind the sled and trying to hitch a free ride, the Grinch literally slithering and slinking with a smile most unpleasant as he takes every present, him opening and closing Whoville's main tree like an umbrella, or Max running right off the top of Krumpet and scrambling frantically back for solid ground. And unlike so many other big specials over the years, its message rings even truer today than it ever has, and you don't even need to practice Christianity to know that Christmas, more than perhaps, means a little bit more. Why CBS ever let the rights go (anyone happen to know the exact last year they had it? I've been trying to pinpoint this for a long time and have gotten conflicting date from between 1987-1992) is one of the worst decisions any network ever made if not THE worst--and that's realizing CBS also let Charlie Brown slip away and walked away from the Wizard of Oz twice. Regardless, the special will live well forever no matter who has it.
What are you favorite memories of watching the Grinch?
