The Anti-Santa

What better way (in a sort of opposite way) to celebrate St. Nicholas Day (today, December 6) than to spotlight that outrageous anti-St. Nick himself, the Grinch? The fake-Santy Claus of the classic animated TV special Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is everything good ol' St. Nicholas is not—until of course his Scrooge-like conversion at the end of the tale. Can we take a moment and appreciate how creatively impressive it is that Dr. Seuss created his own character and his own story, rather than doing something lazy and lame like producing another adaption/parody/version of A Christmas Carol—and in so doing, created a character that is equally well-known as Dickens' Grinch? This article from the December 1966 issue of Jack and Jill both celebrates and illuminates the creation of the then-new animated special. What color should the Grinch be in a sparkling new color TV special? The Grinch had been nobly portrayed in black-and-white book, published in 1957—but, as this article reveals, the ant-Santa could only be portrayed as a Grinchy-green.