How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

December 24, 2014 4:23 PM

Chuck Jones' animated version of the classic Dr. Seuss book, narrated by Boris Karloff

100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Wikipedia entry.

Chuck Jones on 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas.'
Behind the scenes of " How The Grinch Stole Christmas.", narrated by Phil Hartman

posted by the man of twists and turns (11 comments total)

This movie is special to me and my family. Our son Jason is 20 now. He's autistic and severely intellectually disabled. I've written about him before on MetaFilter. He usually doesn't talk much, especially as he grows older. We watch this as a family several times each year during the holiday season. His face lights up and his whole body becomes animated as he joyfully repeats the entire dialog and sings all of the songs verbatim and pitch-perfect. It's an amazing transformation. Sometimes we watch it even when it's not the holidays. It's one of his favorite things in the whole world.
posted by double block and bleed at 6:38 PM on December 24, 2014 [13 favorites]

I have the song, "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch," on my iPhone playlists, and my youngest is nineteen. I love it, too. Merry Christmas!
posted by misha at 8:21 PM on December 24, 2014

I love that song because it's entered the cultural zeitgeist as a Christmas song that gets radio airplay, but when excised from its context it's just three minutes of Boris Karloff calling somebody an asshole.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:37 PM on December 24, 2014 [7 favorites]

That's not Boris Karloff, it's the magnificent Thurl Ravenscroft.
posted by misha at 9:49 PM on December 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

This makes me happy; as does the fact that the Jim Carrey abomination gets only 53%.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:13 PM on December 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

the magnificent Thurl Ravenscroft.

"If you're not standing on a windy cliff with a cape 24/7 then you are wasting that name." -- The Whelk
posted by sparkletone at 11:55 PM on December 24, 2014 [10 favorites]

I love this, as do all right-thinking people...except for one single line out of the song.

I object to the implication that having "garlic in your soul" is a bad thing.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:16 AM on December 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

The reference to the Grinch in Last Exit to Springfield was one of my all-time favorite Simpsons moments.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:50 PM on December 25, 2014

I am a huge, huge fan of this. So huge, I am actually posting on FanFare for the first time evah!

(My metafilter avatar got temporarily changed to The Grinch a few days ago. That big of a fan am I.)
posted by Michele in California at 1:21 PM on December 26, 2014

Still holds up. Magnificent work by all involved.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 8:04 PM on December 26, 2014

Maybe Christmas, he thought, meant a little bit more.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:49 PM on December 24, 2016