The Cat In The Hat may be Seuss’ mascot, having appeared not only in two of his own specials, a crossover with the Grinch, the main character of a Muppet take on the Seussiverse, and even had his own TV show or two. However, How The Grinch Stole Christmas is his most famous work, thanks to Chuck Jones convincing him to make the adaptation. It wasn’t even the first time a Seuss book was adapted into animation. Merry Melodies (an alternate name for Looney Tunes that fell by the wayside outside of a namesake homage character on Tiny Toon Adventures) produced an adaptation for Horton Hatches An Egg in 1942, directed by Bob Clampett, but it was done in the usual Looney Tune style. There may even be one before that which I’m not aware of.
Seuss got fed up with movies after co-writing the screenplay for The 5000 Fingers Of Doctor T, but Jones really wanted to make a Christmas special without Christ or Santa Claus. Learning this bit of information made me sad. As a Christian I don’t like the idea of pulling the reason for the season out of the season, while I’m not sure what Jones had against Santa. Still, it’s not like you couldn’t do it, just it’s odd to want to do both. At any rate, the 1966 special was a hit and led to more adaptations and original stories featuring Seuss’s visual and storytelling style, including two more appearances for the Grinch. They were all about a half hour in length and everyone was okay with that.
Except 21st century Hollywood, who seem to believe something is only good when you do it in live-action, and special effects have taken enough of an upgrade that the idea of doing animated gags in live-action sounds plausible. Look at how the Oscars banished animation to its own section so as not to “taint” the Best Picture nomination after Beauty & The Beast got a nomination for Best Picture and the “real” actors had a temper tantrum. Also look at how Disney is remaking their animated classics…and making lesser movies out of them. So we got Ron Howard’s 2000 live-action adaptation with Jim Carrey in the role. The response was kind of mixed, with many preferring the animated half-hour special over the live-action theatrical film. So Illumination tried to give us an animated version in 2008 simply titled The Grinch…and nobody talks about it. Like, at all.
How is that the short version is superior to the theatrical versions, that have more time to really explore the characters? Maybe that’s the problem. First, an audio adaptation of the book to get us close to the same page.
Dr. Seuss’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a 1966 TV Special, originally airing on CBS and based on the 1957 children’s book by Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel. I’ll be talking more about the special itself and the two theatrical versions in a later post this week (tomorrow if nothing else shows up that demands attention). Directed by Chuck Jones, I’d be surprised if I have to explain this story’s plot to you. It’s that famous a story.
It’s also one of those rare Christmas productions where the song famous from it has actually aired on the radio and been done by celebrities other than the original singer on other Christmas albums. “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” only has one real singer however, and if you only know Thurl Ravenscroft for being the voice of Kellogg’s mascot Tony The Tiger (whatever happened to Tony, Jr?) check out his singing range, while horror legend Boris Karloff acts as the narrator of the special and doubles as the Grinch. The song plays over the Grinch stealing all the Who houses, taking the Who feasts, and all the Who toys. The song is really good on it’s own and don’t be confused when I say…being part of a Christmas classic is the only reason it’s part of stations’ Christmas music. On it’s own it really isn’t a Christmas song.
There’s a second song, both meant to pad out the run time (again, more on that in the next article) of the special. The combined songs of “Welcome Christmas” (which gets a reprise as part of the ending) and “Trim Up The Tree” don’t get nearly as much play, and yet of the songs offered it’s easily the more Christmasy of the two. For this year’s Christmas song examination let’s take a look at them both, starting with the big one.
Chapter By Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
Last week’s chapter was kind of short. This one is normal length but I’m not convinced this couldn’t have been one chapter from the skimming. It’s already getting harder to make this intros as long as I’d like, even with the opening narration.
Jake is trying to get in touch with a contact (after more beating the reader over the head with The Future) but gets distracted when he sees what appears to be a prostitute being chased by an overzealous client. That’s where we are headed into this chapter. It’s the last third of the book but it’s a long book. Let’s dive back into it.
Why The 1966 Animated Grinch Steals Christmas
The Cat In The Hat may be Seuss’ mascot, having appeared not only in two of his own specials, a crossover with the Grinch, the main character of a Muppet take on the Seussiverse, and even had his own TV show or two. However, How The Grinch Stole Christmas is his most famous work, thanks to Chuck Jones convincing him to make the adaptation. It wasn’t even the first time a Seuss book was adapted into animation. Merry Melodies (an alternate name for Looney Tunes that fell by the wayside outside of a namesake homage character on Tiny Toon Adventures) produced an adaptation for Horton Hatches An Egg in 1942, directed by Bob Clampett, but it was done in the usual Looney Tune style. There may even be one before that which I’m not aware of.
Seuss got fed up with movies after co-writing the screenplay for The 5000 Fingers Of Doctor T, but Jones really wanted to make a Christmas special without Christ or Santa Claus. Learning this bit of information made me sad. As a Christian I don’t like the idea of pulling the reason for the season out of the season, while I’m not sure what Jones had against Santa. Still, it’s not like you couldn’t do it, just it’s odd to want to do both. At any rate, the 1966 special was a hit and led to more adaptations and original stories featuring Seuss’s visual and storytelling style, including two more appearances for the Grinch. They were all about a half hour in length and everyone was okay with that.
Except 21st century Hollywood, who seem to believe something is only good when you do it in live-action, and special effects have taken enough of an upgrade that the idea of doing animated gags in live-action sounds plausible. Look at how the Oscars banished animation to its own section so as not to “taint” the Best Picture nomination after Beauty & The Beast got a nomination for Best Picture and the “real” actors had a temper tantrum. Also look at how Disney is remaking their animated classics…and making lesser movies out of them. So we got Ron Howard’s 2000 live-action adaptation with Jim Carrey in the role. The response was kind of mixed, with many preferring the animated half-hour special over the live-action theatrical film. So Illumination tried to give us an animated version in 2008 simply titled The Grinch…and nobody talks about it. Like, at all.
How is that the short version is superior to the theatrical versions, that have more time to really explore the characters? Maybe that’s the problem. First, an audio adaptation of the book to get us close to the same page.
Continue reading →
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on December 14, 2022 in Animation Spotlight, Book Spotlight, Christmas Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged Christmas movies, Christmas special, commentary, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Review.
4 Comments