Trivia / How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

• Adored by the Network: And how. Freeform (as ABC Family) loved playing this movie during the 25 Days of Christmas event. For 2016, the cable rights were reclaimed by HBO, but their Grinch obsession came back when they got the rights back the following year.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Where Are You, Christmas?" by Faith Hill was a crossover hit from the soundtrack.
• Cast the Expert
  • Many of the Whos seen performing over-the-top, gravity-defying business in the background of the Whoville scenes are played by Cirque du Soleil performers.
  • Reto-vaudeville performer and Clown Hall Of Fame inductee Bill Irwin plays the visibly clown-like Lou Who.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • In the Japanese dub, the narrator is voiced by film and television actor Masanobu Takashima.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub features TV presenter and actor Juan Ramón Huerta as the narrator.
  • The Brazilian Portuguese dub has film and television actor Antônio Fagundes as the narrator.
• Costume Backlash: As explained elsewhere on the page, Jim Carrey absolutely hated the makeup and costume he had to wear as the Grinch because they were extremely uncomfortable.
• Creator Backlash: Jim Carrey was not happy about the studio interference forcing raunchier jokes into the film, especially since he'd gone out of his way to ensure that all of his ad libs would be family-friendly, and admitted that he should have fought harder to prevent it.
• Dawson Casting: The 8-year-old Grinch, who was played by Josh Ryan Evans, a late-teenager with achondroplasia.
• Deleted Scene: There's a few on the DVD and Blu-Ray of the film, a couple of which were added back in on the broadcast version on ABC Family.
  • An extended version of the Grinch pulling various pranks on the residents of Whoville.
  • Cindy Lou's father coming to pick her up from school after she'd been in detention for announcing that she was doing her Wholiday Report on the Grinch.
  • A small scene that shows a few of the main characters getting ready for bed on Christmas Eve. First there's Lou, who's trying, and failing, to build a swing set. Then Martha May, who displays the trophy she won from the light display competition before going to bed. And finally, Cindy Lou, who looks out the window, saying that she hopes the Grinch gets everything he wants for Christmas.
  • A scene during the "stealing Christmas" montage in which the Grinch has a run in with the Police Chief, who's sleepwalking.
  • An extended sequence of the Lou Who family asleep in their beds. The Grinch easily knocks over the swing set Lou (badly) built, the noise waking up Lou and Betty. They think it's Santa, and immediately go back to sleep.
  • An extended version of Christmas morning, in which the Grinch actually watches through his periscope as the Whos wake up to see he had stolen everything. We see the Lou Who family (sans Cindy), Martha, and various other Whos start to cry "boo-hoo". The Grinch mocks them from Mount Crumpit, as Max looks on shamefully.
• Descended Creator: Ron Howard plays a townsperson in Whoville.
• Disowned Adaptation: The late Maurice Noble, who worked on the original 1966 animated special, was invited to the premiere of the live-action film. According to a close friend of Noble's, he was so upset by the film he cried, claiming Universal ruined it, as shown here.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Jim Carrey found the mask to be horrifyingly claustrophobic and the yak hair used in the suit was constantly itching his skin. The contact lenses used to make his eyes yellow-and-red were apparently even worse, resulting in some shots which were simply digitally altered in post. He seriously considered quitting during the first few weeks of the shoot and very little was shot; and it got to the point where an interrogation expert who specialized in training special forces to endure torture had to be brought in to help Carrey cope. The expert's suggestion was for Carrey to distract himself from the discomfort was to smoke constantly, to eat everything in sight, and occasionally punch himself in the thigh to give him something else to focus on, which Carrey did throughout production. Carrey also said that during the makeup process he would concentrate on spinning a smooth stone in his wrong hand. But according to Ron Howard, one thing Carrey never considered an option was pushing for the makeup/suit to be altered for the sake of comfort — because that would have compromised its fidelity to the Grinch's appearance. And once Carrey was actually before the cameras and performing, pain was the furthest thing from his mind.
• Executive Meddling: According to Ron Howard, the studio edited most of the raunchier ad libs out, then forced a few more of their own in.
• Fake American: The Canadian-born Jim Carrey affects an American accent as the Grinch.
• Fake Irish: The Irish officer Wholihan is played by the American Jim Meskimen.
• Hostility on the Set: According to Jim Carrey's makeup artist, Kazuhiro Tsuji (a.k.a. Kazu Hiro), Carrey spent a good chunk of the film's production being "really mean to everybody" and constantly going AWOL, stalling production to the point where they could only get three days' worth of filming done. Ron Howard eventually confronted Carrey when Hiro attempted to quit, and got him to keep his anger in check for the remainder of filming.
• In Memoriam: At the end of the film, there is a dedication to Ron Howard's mother Jean Speegle Howard ("...who loved Christmas the most."), who died three months before the film's release from heart and respiratory illness.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Wendy's had a set of six toys in the 2000 holiday season. There was a light-up sleigh, a pull-back figure of Max, a sticker dispenser, a viewfinder (with red, green, and yellow variants), a Christmas list ornament, and a mirror.
• Non-Singing Voice: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Mario Castañeda provides the speaking voice for the Grinch, while Rubén Cerda does his singing.
• The Other Marty: Musically, Faith Hill is this to Mariah Carey, who also co-wrote "Where Are You, Christmas?" James Horner and Will Jennings. Mariah did record it for the movie but due to Executive Meddling from Sony and interference from her ex-husband Tommy Mottola (chairman and CEO of Sony Music at the time), which she and he were in an ongoing legal battle after they divorced, her version has never been released.
• Production Posse:
  • A good amount of people from previous Ron Howard films return, including regular composer James Horner and producer Brian Grazer.
  • Additional orchestrators Steve Bernstein, Richard Stone and Julie Bernstein previously worked together as composers on Freakazoid!, Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Ron Howard's brother, Clint Howard, portrayed Whobris, and his daughter, Bryce Dallas, plays one of the surprised Whos.
  • Taylor Momsen's sister Sloane plays a uncredited role as a "Little Girl Dreaming of Sugarplums".
• Role Reprise: Frank Welker returns to voice Max after previously voicing him in The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat.
• Saved from Development Hell: Dr. Seuss had been approached about a live-action version of The Grinch several times in his twilight years, always turning it down because he didn't want a repeat of The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T. His widow Audrey Geisel, who founded Dr. Seuss Enterprises shortly after his death, only relented when she saw a stage production at The Old Globe Theater in San Diego in the mid-90s.
• Throw It In!:
  • One afternoon during shooting, Jim Carrey stole Ron Howard's hat and started riffing and doing an impression of him and his directing style. Howard was so amused that he added the scene of the Grinch "directing" Max on how to be a reindeer, all of which was ad-libbed.
  • The Grinch reading his schedule out loud was similarly improvised.
  • In the script, the Tablecloth Yank was supposed to fail. Carrey actually pulled it off, so he improvised the new punchline where he just knocks all the stuff off the table anyway... And the table as well.
  • Carrey even came up with the line "Maybe you need a time out" for Taylor Momsen to say so she could get a laugh!
• Uncredited Role: Ron Howard appears as a townsperson in Whoville and Richard Steven Horvitz is the automated voice on the Grinch's answering machine, but both actors are uncredited.
• Underage Casting: The older Grinch is played by then 37-year-old Jim Carrey despite the character being over 50 years old. Mario Castañeda was also the same age as Carrey when the former dubbed the Grinch in the Latin American Spanish dub.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Robin Williams, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Tim Curry, Tom Hanks and Eddie Murphy were considered for the Grinch. Amusingly, the movie was shot at the same studio as Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, so Carrey and Murphy got to interact in-costume during filming.
  • Tim Burton was offered a chance to direct, but could not due to a conflict with another project (presumed to be what would become, many years later and without his involvement, Goosebumps) he was working on at the time.
  • The Grinch was originally going to have white fur like in the book, but Ron Howard also wanted it to be an adaptation of the 1966 cartoon.
  • A lot more CGI post-production work was planned, including a completely "digital backlot" where actors would perform entirely in front of green screens. Max was originally conceived as an all CGI character.

---