After picking it up today this evening I sat down to watch the original 1966 animated How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
I just flat out LOVE this animated feature. And I've loved it since first seeing it in the mid to late '60s when I was small. When I was young I always made a point of catching it when rerun during the holidays. But as I got older there were quite a few years when for one reason or another I'd miss it. When I started collecting DVDs for my own little library I promised myself that I'd collect all those Christmas treasures I enjoy to make sure I never miss them. And How The Grinch Stole Christmas is finally in my collection. I've only a few more to get now (should have them all by the end of the week) and then my collection will be complete.
I can't help but reflect that like most Christmas music pretty much all the best holiday specials date back several years to some decades. It's like they just can't seem to put these things together anymore with that same cleverness and wit and feeling. In the '60s and early '70s we got A Charlie Brown Christmas, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty The Snowman, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and The Little Drummer Boy. Before that we had the live-action films that were treasures even then such as It's A Wonderful life, The Bells Of St. Mary's, The Bishop's Wife, Remember The Night, the 1951 A Christmas Carol and the original Miracle On 34th Street. The only ones that came after that that I still think are good are The Homecoming, The Christmas Story (the kid wants a red rider BB gun) and The Man Who Saved Christmas. Okay, I gotta admit the first Home Alone was rather funny. And any sequels to these usually weren't anywhere near as good as the originals.
But the animated Grinch rocks. Over forty years old and it's still light years superior to the overblown Jim Carrey version.
Bring on Christmas! And welcome the Grinch!
I just flat out LOVE this animated feature. And I've loved it since first seeing it in the mid to late '60s when I was small. When I was young I always made a point of catching it when rerun during the holidays. But as I got older there were quite a few years when for one reason or another I'd miss it. When I started collecting DVDs for my own little library I promised myself that I'd collect all those Christmas treasures I enjoy to make sure I never miss them. And How The Grinch Stole Christmas is finally in my collection. I've only a few more to get now (should have them all by the end of the week) and then my collection will be complete.
I can't help but reflect that like most Christmas music pretty much all the best holiday specials date back several years to some decades. It's like they just can't seem to put these things together anymore with that same cleverness and wit and feeling. In the '60s and early '70s we got A Charlie Brown Christmas, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty The Snowman, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and The Little Drummer Boy. Before that we had the live-action films that were treasures even then such as It's A Wonderful life, The Bells Of St. Mary's, The Bishop's Wife, Remember The Night, the 1951 A Christmas Carol and the original Miracle On 34th Street. The only ones that came after that that I still think are good are The Homecoming, The Christmas Story (the kid wants a red rider BB gun) and The Man Who Saved Christmas. Okay, I gotta admit the first Home Alone was rather funny. And any sequels to these usually weren't anywhere near as good as the originals.
But the animated Grinch rocks. Over forty years old and it's still light years superior to the overblown Jim Carrey version.
Bring on Christmas! And welcome the Grinch!
