Revisiting “Halloween is Grinch Night” October 30, 2024

With the season of All Hallow’s Eve in full-swing, it gives us late-stage Gen-Xers and first-wave Millennials the occasion to pause and reflect on the great Halloween shows we enjoyed as kids.  One such special show worth revisiting is “Halloween is Grinch Night”.  Note that some vague spoilers are forthcoming.

The short TV movie (25 minutes long) from 1977 is highly entertaining, has a couple of legendary cast members, and offers plenty of fertile ground for discussion within the broader world of Dr. Seuss.

The very concept of the story is a highly intriguing one.  Early on in the special, it becomes clear that the Grinch is the titular…villain?  But wait, 20 years earlier, in the Seuss story that birthed the legendary character, he starts out as a bad guy, but sees the light in the end and becomes good.  In the process, he saves the day…granted by cleaning up the mess he himself created, but everyone is better off for it since he is now friendly instead of antagonistic.  The same thing applies to the timeless animated adaptation of the story from 1966.

Yet in this fine Seussian animated film, the Grinch is a villain again.  What gives?  Perhaps the best way to explain it is to look at the setting in a broader context.  The Whoville of “Halloween is Grinch Night” looks markedly different from its layout in its Christmas counterpart story.  So do the features of Mount Crumpet.  Other geographic features make this setting distinct from the earlier story.  Even the very color palette of the landscape is distinct from the original story setting.

So, to answer the natural question of “what gives”, the best surmise is that this is some parallel dimension to the Whoville of Yuletide.  In this dimension, the Grinch has not yet realized that “perhaps Christmas means a little bit more”, and there sadly is no indication that he’ll ever come to such an epiphany.  Moreover, this alternate-dimension Grinch revels in “Grinch Night”, an evening where he can unleash a vast array of spooks on Whoville, specters who form a ghoulish gala called the “Grinch Night Ball”, where the Grinch himself is the man of the hour.

How “Grinch Night” is triggered in the story is creatively explained as only Dr. Seuss, who wrote the film’s teleplay, could articulate.  In clearly a Fall setting (red-colored leaves falling on the ground), a very strong, near-hurricane-like “sour-sweet” wind starts blowing.  Mind you, the audience has no way to verify that the wind actually smells “sour-sweet”.  You simply take the characters’ words for it as they describe it while they experience it.  This wind in turn sets in motion a Rube Goldberg device in nature, causing one group of wild animals to agitate another group, until the agitated ruckus echoes up Mount Crumpet to the Grinch’s lair, where he himself, apparently, gets perturbed.  The apparent agitation puts him in the mood for Grinch Night.  Again, surmises.

In any case, the dialog is vintage Suess.  The author is adept as ever at making non-sensical words sound eloquently poetic.  Some of such Seussian poetry is most adeptly expressed by two legendary voice actors, one being Hal Smith.  His credits include voicing Flintheart Glomgold in “Ducktails”; Owl in some of the Winnie the Pooh animated films; even Goofy-as-Jacob Marley in “Mickey’s Christmas Carol”, and many other roles in animated films and shows.  Meanwhile, the Grinch himself was voiced by Hans Conried, whom the readers might better recall as the voice of Captain Hook from Disney’s “Peter Pan” from 1953.  Captain Hook became the Grinch in part because Boris Karloff, the original voice of the Grinch from 1966, was by 1977 eight years under the sod.

If that is not enough, two of the film’s three producers were Seuss, along with Friz Freleng, the accomplished director of so many Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.

Perhaps most fascinating about this TV movie, though, is a look into Dr. Suess’ unique take on ghouls and goblins.  Even the bats — an inseparable icon of Halloween — as shown in different settings within the story, are decidedly, uniquely Seussian in their visual appearance.

Clearly Dr. Seuss relished the opportunity to portray Halloween spooks in his own unique way.  The latter part of the film shows many a cutscene where Suess’ imagination ran delightfully wild, and the audience is all the more entertained as a result.  The musical soundtrack will stay in your mind for a long time to come as well, helping you to associate it with the month of October itself, similarly to how songs from the Christmas Grinch have become part of that holiday season.

The only unfortunate aspect of this special is that the Grinch does not seem to show any character development.  Whereas in the prime dimension, the Grinch eventually sees the light and thwarts his own nefarious scheme in the process, in this alternate dimension, the Grinch is thwarted from throwing his “Grinch Night ball” this time, but vows to try again when the next opportunity arises.  Meanwhile, this version of the Grinch is even too much for his dog Max, who quickly finds a more loving home elsewhere.  Too bad for the Grinch, but good for Whoville, who is spared a night of ghoulish harassment.

Of the many Dr. Seuss animated films/adaptations dating back to 1942 (which started with the Warner Brothers cartoon adaptation of “Horton Hatches the Egg”), this one merits a place near the top of the heap.  Is it as legendary or poignant as the original Christmas Grinch adaptation from 11 years earlier?  No, but of all the many Seuss films over so many decades, this one is one of the greatest visual feasts for the eyes, and a delightfully unique contribution to timeless Halloween animated specials.  Thus it is worth a re-watch this Halloween, and worth sharing with your kids, too.