Why the Grinch Is My Yuletide Hero

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The Grinch is about to turn fifty, and he's spent forty of his years stealing Christmas on the small tube. I'm pretty sure I've watched it every one of those years-- in fact, the season doesn't kick in for me untill I've had my annual Grinch fix.

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See, I have an aversion to schmaltz that fringes on the clinically obsessive. The holiday season (which, I believe, now unofficially begins approximately 2.4 weeks before Halloween) only heightens my anxiety. The most insipid versions of Christmas songs are piped into every retail outlet, an insidious tactic that I'm certain is designed to make shoppers buy everything, anything without conscious thought. They'll buy and buy, and go to superhuman lengths to make their purchase-- anything to escape those morbidly mundane renditions of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

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Round the clock screenings of It's A Wonderful Life, peppered with commercials telling me why I need a Ford truck under the tree this year, make me think it's anything but. Then I have to be concerned about the possible faux pas, regardless of how I say "I wish you well."

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How the Grinch Stole Christmas brings a smile to my face, though. He's a character I can relate to. He's been unfairly villified, to the point his name is synonymous with a lack of Christmas cheer. In point of fact though, he didn't steal Christmas-- he liberated it. From his vantage point on Mt. Crumpit, he was able to look down on Whoville and see a populace obsessed with conspicuous consumption. It wasn't the spirit of Christmas that bugged him--it was the commercialization of the holiday that turned him desperately sour. So he took away all the commercialization--anarchistic, perhaps, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

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It was a flawed plan at best. But thanks to Theordor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, and legendary animator Chuck Jones (of Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian, etcetera, on and on fame), the exploits of the oft misunderstood Grinch became an integral part of the Holiday season.Dr. Seuss laid the foundation with his original book, and Jones added a dimension of frailty that universally resonates in us. After all , the Grinch has a dog named Max, who faithfully follows his master's plan. Jones's depiction of the hapless Max as he faithfully follows his master, is genius. With an arch of an eyebrow or a desperately dismayed drop of the jaw, we knew instinctively that the plan was going to go awry.

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Not a spoiler alert, at least, not for anyone born in the last forty years

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When the Grinch looks down from on high, and sees that the celebration goes on, without or without gifts, he rewards the citizenry of Whoville by personally returning the gifts. And Grinch, in an odd turn of events, gets the key to the city, so to speak, when he carves the roast beast. It gets dangerously close to schmaltzy, but it ends there--no fanfare, no lecture.

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For my money, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the absolute best holiday TV film. Period.

Dr. Seuss was a genius at wordplay, and his simple tale embodies the yuletide spirit. Chuck Jones, through his mastery of visual characterization and slapstick humor, fleshed out all the characters and imbued them with something that touches us all.

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The fact that it makes you laught, no matter how many times you've seen it, doesn't hurt at all. And isn't that what the season is all about?