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Fridge / How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

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For examples specific to the 2000 film, see here.


The animated special:

Fridge Brilliance

  • The story arc of the Grinch's mindset towards Christmas reflects a lot of adults'. Hating Christmas largely due to the stress of the grueling month-long deathmarch up to it but enjoying the holiday itself.
  • During the climax, the Grinch eyes change to blue to signify his Heel–Face Turn, but then alternate back to red in certain scenes. This seems like an animation error, but most of the instances this happens is when the presents are at risk of being destroyed, and thus his newfound love for Christmas risks being disillusioned.
  • One could enjoy the movie and not question the "you really are a heel" line in "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch", until joining TV Tropes and the line makes perfect sense. The narrator is a) foreshadowing the Heel–Face Turn and b) giving a Genius Bonus to wrestling fans!

Fridge Horror

  • You'll notice that at the exact same time the narrator mentions that reindeer are scarce, the camera goes to a frame of a pair of antlers hanging on the Grinch's wall. You can let that sink in for a minute.
    • Doubles as rather dark Fridge Brilliance; of course The Grinch would be the reason Whoville reindeer aren't very common.
    • Well, he has to eat something.
      • He may have simply found them lying about outside somewhere.
  • Speaking of eating, the Grinch stole all of Whoville's food and drink, leaving only a few crumbs that would not satisfy a mouse, and the Grinch even steals that crumb in the animated special. Had the Grinch not returned what he stole soon after Christmas dawn, Whoville could have starved.
  • A bitter, cave-dwelling humanoid creature that loathes the noise of celebration, who breaks into homes by night to stop it and has a name that starts with "Gr"? Was the Grinch related to a certain legendary monster, and if so, weren't the Whos lucky he only snatched gifts and decorations?

Fridge Logic

  • He stole everything else in Whoville, but he didn't steal the bells needed for the singing at the end. Why not?
    • He did steal them. The faded vision of the ringing bells is meant to be a memory, like the shining star in their midst where the Christmas Tree should have been. If you listen at the beginning of the cartoon, you will hear a very distinctive set of bell chimes when the bells are rung to draw them outside; those chimes are utterly missing from the climax.
  • If he had just realized that Christmas "doesn't come from a store," why did he risk his and his dog's lives trying to save the presents?
    • Because even if Christmas shouldn't be about material things, stealing other people's things is still wrong. Returning them wouldn't make up for breaking into peoples' houses, but at least it's better than letting them be destroyed.
  • When one considers that he only left "a crumb that was even too small for a mouse," one would think that he'd leave it. Instead, he reached back and took it.
  • He stuffed the entire tree up the chimney in Cindy Lou's house, leaving enough ornaments on that one fell off, but he still wasted a few minutes (at least) removing the ornaments.
  • If he hated children's toys, and he didn't want to wake the kids in the houses he was robbing, why was he spending all his time playing with the toys?
    • He's mostly playing with the quiet toys. He doesn't hate the toys themselves, he hates all the noise (noise noise noise) that the louder ones make.
    • Secretly he could be jealous because he never gets any toys.
    • He was "playing" with the toys to send them into the sack. Perhaps he thought it would be quicker or simply more fun to move them that way.

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