Why the Grinch Is Darker Than You Ever Realized

We all know Grinch — the big, fluffy, green dude who can’t stand our favorite winter holiday. The character was created by Dr. Seuss, and he first appeared in his book in 1957. By the way, Grinch wasn’t green in the book — it was black and white. Also, if you were wondering how old Grinch is — he’s 53, the same age Dr. Seuss was when he wrote the book. But let’s learn more about the character. We all know how the story goes: a furry creature is living in seclusion, on a cliff outside the town of Whoville. The citizens are obsessed with the winter holiday and make a big fuss around it every year, and also a lot of noise.

Grinch lives on Mount Crumpit, away from everyone, but can still hear happy people. He is annoyed with joyful citizens, their happiness, and the holidays, so he decides to cancel the holiday. He steals all presents and decorations the night before it. His plan doesn’t work out quite as planned: the next morning, he finds the citizens singing joyfully anyways. This makes him understand that the holiday spirit isn’t about gifts and decorations. So, in the end, he comes around, returns everything he had stolen, and even celebrates with everyone else.

The original short story from Dr. Seuss which only takes about 12 minutes to read got immediate recognition and became a symbol of the winter holidays. There were offers to animate it, but the author was very resistant to animating any of his books, for several reasons. Reson number one — he didn’t want the series to become more famous than his books and didn’t want a movie or animation to be the first thing people think of when they hear about his work. The second reason is that Dr. Seuss was super meticulous, and he felt like no one could fit his standards. In the 1960s, a guy was continuously approaching him with the idea of animating the Grinch story. The guy was a great animator that was as perfectionist as Dr. Seuss himself, and he broke the ice by sending the author an amazing depiction of Dr. Seuss’s famous character, The Cat in the hat. After some negotiations, Dr. Seuss gave his permission for a TV adaptation of Grinch.

Nine years after the book was published, the first animated TV adaptation aired. Dr, Seuss, the author of the book, wrote the lyrics to all the songs in the movie. Also, even though Grinch was black and white in the book, in this TV adaptation, the director, inspired by the green rental cars he had driven, made him the same green color. We all think that this green makes Grinch kinda chic, even though the intention was the exact opposite. Anyways, since then, Grinch was established green. Also, in the book, the citizens of Whoville were furry and they weren’t wearing any clothes. They also didn’t have shoes, but female residents of Whoville had high-heeled feet. So, the cartoon was quite adjusted. The animation was an absolute success — it still sits with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, claiming the movie to be an ultimate holiday story. The Grinch was named one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time. The word “Grinch” is now used in everyday language: this is what people now call a grumpy person with an anti-holiday spirit.

People wanted more. Fans were constantly writing to Dr. Seuss, asking for more Grinch content. In 1977, which is over 20 years after the release of the original story, the author wrote a Halloween film “Halloween is a Grinch night”. The next appearance of Grinch was in the famous 2000 live-action movie starring Jim Carrey. The movie was so exciting that even Queen Elizabeth II herself attended the London premiere in London. The movie got mixed reviews, but it’s widely loved by people across the world, and Grinch is one of the actor’s most iconic performances.

Other actors who were considered to play Grinch were Eddie Murphy and Jack Nicholson. The role wasn’t easy for Jim because of the heavy makeup he had to get into every time to become Grinch. The first working day lasted about eight and a half hours. However, rumor has it the preparation was so long that the actor almost quit the movie, saying that it was too much. Gladly, a solution was found: a CIA counselor was hired to teach Jim suffering-resistance techniques to help him to go through the makeup process, which was pretty complex.

It would take around three hours to do the makeup and get into the costume. And an additional hour at the end of the day to scrape the makeup off of the actor’s face. Jim Carrey went through the makeup chair around 100 times. This is 400 hours, or 16 days in total of just sitting still in a chair, doing nothing, and not even being able to itch whatever was itching. The actor said that after going through it so many times, he learned to be the calmest person no matter what. Still, the way to Zen wasn’t easy. The director of the movie decided to support him: one day, he got all the makeup and the costume on too and spent the whole day on set directing, dressed as Grinch. When Jim first saw the director in the costume, he thought that it was a stunt double and got angry, saying that the dude looked nothing like him. Just imagine what it looked like when two Grinches were interacting on set — a taller one and a shorter one. I’m sure that everyone around had a blast.

By the way, the fur that is used in the costume is yak hair that is dyed green. The yellow lenses were important so that no one recognized Jim behind the costume and could only see Grinch. Those lenses were the biggest problem and were hurting a lot. At times Jim absolutely couldn’t tolerate them anymore, so in some scenes, he acted without them, and they were added later in post-production with CGI. But what happened to Grinch after the day when he decided to celebrate with the people from Whoville? He probably lived happily ever after there with his new friends. But fans have a theory even about his afterlife. They say that Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s movie is the Grinch in the afterlife. Let me spill some facts.

First, Tim Burton could have directed the 2000 Grinch movie, but in the end, the director’s chair was given to Ron Howard. Grinch’s heart grew three times bigger, symbolizing both that he became a better person, but also that his love for the winter holiday supposedly grew big.

Supposedly, Grinch loved the holiday for the rest of his life. So, if he really became Jack Skellington in the afterlife, it explains Jack’s sudden obsession with the holiday — he doesn’t remember his previous life, and he doesn’t remember the holiday, but he immediately gets obsessed with it, because his heart remembers the love, and it draws him. But also, both characters have cute sidekicks — both of them have dogs. Grinch’s dog is Max, and Jack’s dog is called Zero. Zero can very possibly be Max as a ghost dog. There’s no official confirmation or even comments regarding the theory, but it’s an interesting suggestion, and if the movie does exist in the same universe, I’d say that it’s a perfect way to combine them. There’s another fan theory that possibly explains how Grinch got his dog. As we know, Grinch lives on Mount Crumpit outside Whoville.

Every year, he gets unwanted gifts from the town that citizens dump in the trash chute. So, some fans suggest that one day, Grinch discovered Max there, who was once someone’s holiday present. But it’s not the only theory. Grinch occasionally visits the mail room in the town, so he could have picked up stranded Max somewhere there once. Another unofficial story called “The Grinch meets his Max” published in 1998 tells how the dog got lost on Mount Crumpit, and Grinch found him there and took him home. Both misfits found each other, and that’s what’s most important.