Halloween Is Grinch Night

Halloween is Grinch Night is not going to appeal to everybody, people will find it hugely entertaining and others will find it bizarre. I do belong in the former category, but I can certainly understand the latter opinion as well. It is not as good as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but is still very impressive. The animation is very good, it is full of colour and the Paraphanelia Wagon sequence is memorably trippy. The music is wonderful, I love the jauntiness of the incidental scoring and the songs are very catchy. Max also sings and his song I found touching as a child and still do at 20. There are more faithful Dr Seuss adaptations out there, but the rhymes that form the dialogue are witty and elegant at the same time, while the story is briskly paced and bewitchingly oddball. The characters are ones you engage with, The Grinch himself will live long in the memory, and the voice acting is superb especially the soothing then terrifying narrator/Grinch of Hans Conreid, a worthy successor to Boris Karloff. So all in all, a great and underrated special. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Halloween Is Grinch Night (1977)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This twenty-five minute television special is a sequel to HOW THE GRINCH STOLE Christmas but of course this doesn't feature Boris Karloff's voice sadly. As far as the film goes, this time out the Grinch decides he needs to return to Whoville and make sure they don't have any fun at Halloween time.

HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT certainly isn't the masterpiece that the original film was but to be fair one really shouldn't turn this on and expect it to be. For the most part this is a mildly entertaining special that will probably keep the kids a lot happier than their parents. Once again we're treated to some wonderful animation and there's no question that the Grinch character is one of legend. The major problem that I had with the film is that I didn't really care for any of the musical numbers. They were decent but just not good enough to hold my attention throughout the running time.

The second animated TV special featuring Dr. Seuss' arguably most famous creation, The Grinch. This one isn't the absolute must-see classic that "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is, but it is decent on its own. The animation is good, especially by the standards of television animation at the time. The voice work is solid. Yes, Boris Karloff is missed but Hans Conried is an admirable replacement. I found the songs unimpressive. Certainly no standouts like in the Christmas special. All in all, it's an interesting effort that should please most Seuss fans. Just try to go into it not expecting anything on the level of the more famous Grinch story.

I never heard of this movie, and when I discovered there was an Emmy- winning Grinch sequel written by Dr. Suess, I had to see it. Unfortunately, it's not very good. I realize I'm going against the tide here, but I suspect all these glowing reviews are by those who first saw the movie as a kid, and thus have an opinion based on a child's mind. From an adult perspective, it's really not very good.

The most surprising thing is how poor the writing is compared to classic Dr. Suess books. I had to check the credits to make sure this was really written by Dr. Suess, because the meters and rhymes are much less elegant than one would expect; it actually sounds like someone trying to copy Suess and failing. I can only suspect that he simply wasn't putting the same effort into perfecting the rhymes of the show as he did in his books.

While the original Grinch story had a wonderful fable-like quality, this is pretty much just standards kid fare, with an overly busy plot and poor songs. But apparently if you're a kid there's a good chance you'll love it.

Parts of this special is really good and other parts are way too odd. It seems they could have created a better story than this one for the Halloween season but it's not a total snore either. The parts that are good are good - very visually stimulating!!

Hans Conried did The Grinch's voice in this one... he's OK but does not have the menacing voice that Boris Karloff gave in his performance in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". I realize Karloff was Karloff and his voice is very hard to replace but I'm sure they could have found a voice more befitting of the Grinch in this Halloween Special than Conried's (his voice sound too nice).

6/10