SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT: HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT

Among the sacred texts of my childhood is the aforementioned battered VHS tape (now thankfully transferred to DVD) on which was recorded a quartet of Halloween specials, all taped off TV back in the early days of the Disney Channel in the 1980s.  My sister and I would watch the tape twice a year: once at Halloween and once during the summer as part of our “Halloween In August” celebration (a nice compliment to our annual “Christmas In July”). 

The first special on the tape was Halloween Is Grinch Night, a little known animated sequel to How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  Although not quite up to par with its' yuletide predecessor, many of the same elements are here: the Seussian wordplay, great day-glo animation and a smattering of surprisingly advanced vocabulary.  One year while watching Grinch Night I remember calling into the kitchen to my mother, AKA The Human Dictionary, for the meaning of the word “euphemism”, which remains one of my most beloved and overused keywords to this day.

The special, which was originally aired in 1977, bring us back once more to Whoville, which looks strange denuded of snow and all of the Christmas geegaws.  It is a placid autumn evening, that is until the “sour-sweet wind” starts blowing, leading to a series of complicated rhyming events that all herald the Grinch’s imminent arrival.  The Whos take shelter while the Grinch, up atop Mount Crumpit, hitches up his sad-sack dog Max to the “Paraphernalia Wagon” and makes his way down to presumably do something horrendous to the Whos.

An ill wind is a blowin'

On the trip down we get an EXTREMELY melancholy song in which poor Max laments his position as the Grinch’s slave.  This was always my least favorite part of the special, a real downer.  Here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Why am I the slave of this grinchy old crock?

And I say how I wish I could turn back the clock

And have the fine future I had once before

And again be an innocent puppy once more

It gets even worse, with the Grinch taunting Max about missing his dear “Auntie Woofy-Woofoon.”  This version of the Grinch is much more of a bastard than his Christmas incarnation: in addition to whipping Max he destroys flowers, chases an endangered species (which looks like a living, pink Hostess Snowball) and does all sorts of other horrible things.

Meanwhile a young Who with the oddly Biblical-sounding name of Euchariah has been swept away by the sour-sweet wind during a trip to the Euphemism (AKA the outhouse).  He ends up in the path of the wagon and seizes the opportunity to prevent the Grinch from arriving at Whoville.  The Grinch first attempts to scare Euchariah by singing an impossible to transcribe song (something like “oompah doompah deepah da”…. or something) while his detached eyebrows turn into a bird-like creature and fly around.  Trust me, it gets weirder.  Euchariah is un-phased and bonds with Max so the Grinch pulls out the big guns, opening up the door to his wagon and unleashing… some stuff.

Flying eyebrows = tip of the iceberg

Now things gets REALLY trippy.  Imagine M.C. Escher on acid and you’re somewhere close to the musical head trip that follows.  Euchariah is chased around by a large variety of Seussian creatures of all shapes and sizes: giant, headless feet creatures, gnashing, disembodied teeth, stained-glass eyes.  Amid all the sheer weirdness there are some creepy moments but this is as about as Halloween-like as the show gets.  All of this set to a maddeningly infectious song that has been stuck in my head for the last twenty plus years: “Euchari-AH/Euchari-AH/Grinch is gonna get YA/Grinch is gonna get YA!” 

In a word: Yikes!

Euchariah emerges unscathed and points out to a dejected Grinch that he’s managed to stall long enough to get the Whos through Grinch night.  He then departs, with a grateful Max in tow, while the Grinch vows to make his return on the next Grinch night.

Whew!  There is a lot to digest here and I bet a shrink could have a field day interpreting all of those wacky creatures (some blue wriggly things look suspiciously sperm-like to me).  Continuity-wise it makes no sense, as Max runs off at the end, suggesting that How The Grinch Stole Christmas took place before this, meaning that the Grinch didn’t stay so sweet after his turnaround at Christmas.  Sort of disappointing, no?  And here the Grinch displays all sorts of weird powers: able to change his size and make his eyebrows float off his face and fly around.  Even at a young age I suspected the use of psychotropic drugs went into the making of this cartoon; it was the 70s, after all.  And it is called a paraphernalia wagon, as in drug…. it’s all making sense.

As you can also tell, this special does not have the usual Halloween elements, with nary a jack-o-lantern in sight save in the opening titles, substituting for the “O” in Halloween.  And not even a mention of the actual word Halloween the entire time.  I actually appreciate how offbeat and different Grinch Night is; it was always the opening salvo for the more traditional Halloween specials to follow. 

Halloween Quotient: Despite a lack of traditional Halloween elements this scores major nostalgia and creativity points, earning a 4.

See It, Skip It, Own It?

Own it and make it a part of your annual holiday viewings.  It’s currently up on YouTube and available for cheap on a Seuss compilation DVD.