Halloween Is Grinch Night
I never knew this Freleng-Depatie special existed until I saw it at the local Hollywood Video back during the age of rental video stores. Although it rarely gets any mention as a good holiday special it is actually an enjoyable and underrated cartoon that seldom gets any airplay nowadays. The best way to think of the special is to imagine it as the twisted sibling of Chuck Jones’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” with its dark tone and phantasmagorical imagery. The production also marks one of the few times it was not based on a Dr. Seuss book as the author wrote it originally for the TV special. It initially premiered back on October 28, 1977 on the ABC network and it would eventually earn the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program that year as well. The first noticeable difference you will notice right away is that this is not the Who-Ville we last experienced in the Christmas special. The town seems to be more like the village from Walt Disney’s “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence as the people quiver at fear over the creature that lives in the mountain top. There are no celebrations or festivities to be seen in the land as an atmosphere of fear and gloom is felt throughout the entire populace. Even the songs and music reflect this attitude as they convey a creepy and ominous presence in the storyline. This is in marked contrast to the giddy and joyous attitude of the citizens seen in the Christmas special. Some viewers may not like the idea of Who-Ville looking and feeling different from its earlier incarnation, but it is important to remember that Dr. Seuss himself always played around with the exact nature of the town. After all, in the story and special “Horton Hears a Who” the town itself is actually nothing more than a tiny speckle on a clover. So it is a bit unfair to say that Who-Ville has always been constant because in the Seuss universe it is anything but that. Another thing that may take some getting used to for viewers like me is the voice of the Grinch himself. Boris Karloff will always be the Grinch so it was going to be a tough act for any actor to follow up. Hans Conried, who voiced Horton the Elephant in the aforementioned special, takes up the role this time around. While he may not be on the same level as Karloff he still manages to hold his own. He gives a different reading of the character that renders him less sympathetic and more like a villain which suits the story. Unlike the Christmas special he does not change and he even continues to scheme in the very end which makes one wonder whether this takes place before or after the Christmas story. I don’t think it matters really, but personally I would say after because…well, he is the Grinch. And on one final note the best scene in the movie is the montage of surreal and bizarre visuals that place in the Grinch’s wagon. There is some real crazy stuff happening there that would give you goosebumps if you first watched it as a kid. You can tell the animators were really having fun with the sequence as it allowed them to experiment with the animation and backgrounds. I think probably the “Pink Elephants” sequence and some moments in “Fantasia” (1940) played a role in how well the trippy visuals were timed and edited to the chaotic music.
