How the Grinch Stole Christmas might be one of the greatest Christmas specials of all time.

The special is based on the book of the same name written by none other than the legendary Dr Seuss.

The story follows the Grouchy old Grinch who hates everything about Christmas, He lives in a cave in a snowy mountain above the Town of Whoville. The Grinch hates the Who’s of Whoville because they love Christmas, The Grinch decides that he has had enough of Christmas and decides that he will dress up as Santa Claus and will take away all of the presents, the Christmas trees and all of the roast beast from every Who in town.

After taking away everything Christmas related from the town, The Grinch waits and listens for the angry parent’s and the weeping children but instead he is surprised to hear the sound of the Who’s coming together and singing.

After thinking long and hard about what happened the Grinch realises that maybe Christmas is not about the presents and the magnificent feasts but is instead about bringing people together and appreciating each others company.

The Grinch is voiced by none other than Boris Karloff who is most famous for playing the role of Frankensteins Monster in Frankenstein (1931).

No one could have done this role any better than Karloff did, he really helps show how evil the Grinch really is by providing the Grinch with a very sinister but angry voice, Karloff also narrated the entire movie and again he did a fantastic job.

The animation is very interesting because most children’s cartoons adapted from books tend to have an animation style which is more traditional and popular for that era but surprisingly this movie does not do that and instead the animation looks just like the book but with a little more polish, I think this works really well because it helps show that no changes needed to be made to the original illustrations and it helps give more life to the story the book is telling.

Here are some images from the book compared to some still shots from the special.

Book

special

I wasn’t super impressed with a lot of the songs in this special, I just didn’t enjoy them enough that I wanted to sing along, but one song I absolutely loved and that song was of course “Your’e a mean one Mr Grinch” which was sang by the amazing Thurl Ravenscroft, This song is so famous everyone from your little sister to your Great Grandmother probably knows some of the words.

To wrap things up (not an intended Christmas pun XD) How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a wonderful Christmas Special, It’s especially great for children as it helps show them the meaning of Christmas without shoving it down their throats and I really appreciate this

Its a fun and interesting 25 minute special that the whole family can enjoy

I hope you enjoyed this review

if you respect my opinion I will respect yours

By Padawan