How The Grinch Stole Christmas! :Let's Try to Be Logical With Dr. Seuss!

Hello to all the Whos down in Whoville! And to anyone who feels their shoes are too tight!

This week we have our Holiday Special (we're time traveling a bit here) and are discussing Chuck Jones' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! from 1966.

Aly starts us off with a lengthy biography of Dr. Seuss himself. We learn his real name, what he was doing during WWII, and how he lived out his later years.

Sarrah has another artist spotlight with Ken Harris! He is an animator who worked with Chuck Jones for 30 years, one of the longest partnerships between a director and an animator in the industry!

Together we go over all the different Grinchy and Seuss-y things that have been made over the years, with a serious sidebar for the 2000 movie starring Jim Carrey.

Our walkthrough has Aly very confused about how exactly Whoville works, Sarrah making some lovely comments on the colour and character design, and us relating just a little to our green friend.

So microwave up a plate of roast beast, and let's all come together and grow our hearts three sizes today!

Happy Holidays Listeners!

This is a very special week here at Cartoonin’ In, it’s our Holiday Special week! Which means we’re saying “screw it!” to our usual timeline and instead are talking about one of our favorite holiday-time movies. This year we’re going back in time to 1966, with How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

The Grinch means that it’s Aly’s time to research good ol’ Dr. Seuss! So we start off (after we ramble on a bit about our Grinch memories) with a lengthy biography about the legendary children’s author. In our source material notes, you’ll see a link to the amazing (and long) New Yorker article written about Seuss in 1960, if you’re a fan we recommend you read this article. It has a lot of in-depth information and the interesting perspective of being written while he was alive and in his hey-day. We find out lots of fun facts like Seuss’ real name, how he got his start in the film industry with wartime documentaries, and how he lived his later years in an observatory!

Dr. Seuss' Political Cartoons

Sarrah chimes in with a new artist spotlight! This week we talk about one of Chuck Jone’s longtime cohorts, Ken Harris. Sarrah talks us through his long and established career in art and animation. Did you know he and Jones had one of the longest artistic partnerships (between an animator and a director) in the history of the industry?

We, of course, end up talking about the live action 2000 How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Because we both love that movie (Fun Fact: After Sarrah went home from this recording session, we both ended up watching the live action Grinch that night. Great minds…).

Our walkthrough has Aly very confused about certain aspects of the Whos and their Christmas holidays (particularly Santa), we relate to the Grinch when it comes to noise, and Sarrah has some lovely things to say about colour and character design.

So put down your weird Who instruments , microwave your plate of roast beast, and let’s grow all of our hearts three sizes today!

Some things we discussed this episode:

 

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Our Sources:

IMDb page for How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Wikipedia Article for How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Wikipedia Article on The Grinch

PoetryFoundation.org page for Dr.Seuss
Biography.com page for Dr. Seuss
Wikipedia Article on Dr. Seuss
New Yorker Article on Dr. Seuss (By E.J. Kahn New Yorker 1960 issue)
Wikipedia Article on Ken Harris

Web page for The Grinch Musical
Springfield Museum Web page
Dr. Seuss Official Website
Web page for Universal Grinchmas Celebrations

TheAtlantic.com Article on Seuss Political Cartoons
HollywoodReporter.com Article on Johnny Depp as Seuss

How The Grinch Stole Christmas!. Dr. Seuss. Random House