The Grinch is still a mean one, 50 years later

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — It's the 50th birthday of the children's classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" by Springfield's own Theodor S. Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

Random House is celebrating the milestone with a new edition of the book, which not only includes the original story, but also a 25-page retrospective by Dr. Charles D. Cohen, a Massachusetts dentist who has the largest private collection of Seuss-related items in the world.

The 50th-anniversary retrospective Cohen wrote traces the evolution of the drawings, describes Geisel's collaboration with Chuck Jones on the successful TV cartoon that followed the book and surveys the sequels and foreign-language translations.

"Who knew that the Grinch is called 'Trolli' in Iceland and 'Gorcs' in Hungary?" says Cohen.

In his retrospective, he also looks at the way the story has become part of the culture, with references to it popping up in literature, television and everyday speech.

"How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" is about a sourpuss who hates Christmas, especially the "noise" of people singing together.

He decides to disguise himself as Santa Claus, slip down all the chimneys in town and steal all the presents under the Christmas trees. While he's at it, he raids the fridges and the decorations, too.

As Christmas morning dawns, the Grinch looks forward to a different kind of noise — the wailing of disappointed children. But he has a surprise coming. He hears a noise, all right. But it's not wailing. It's people singing with joy.

So impressed is the Grinch to learn that the spirit of Christmas transcends material things that he returns all the presents and joins the others in a Christmas feast.

"The holiday-as-shopping-frenzy hasn't diminished since 1957, when the book was published," Cohen observes. "If anything, it has increased."

But to Cohen, the most important message of the book is not the "anti-consumerist" one. Rather, he says, the main message is about community.

The Grinch, he points out, hated the sound of the Who-ville residents singing together "because he was an outsider, and he envied the sense of community that the Whos shared."

"It's a story about redemption and hope and someone being changed by the spirit of Christmas," says Megan D. Lambert, an instructor of children's literature programs.

The Grinch is "the children's book version — the kissing cousin, the little brother — of Dickens' Scrooge," says Lambert.

"The power of goodwill among people is the real message that Ted was trying to communicate," says Cohen. "And that message is timeless."

In 1966, CBS aired the cartoon version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," which also has become a classic.

Geisel had always turned down television offers before, because he didn't want to be left out of the process and have the project turn out badly.

But he had known animator Chuck Jones since World War II, when they made films for the Army, according to Cohen. So when Jones called, Geisel knew that he would not be shut out. Together, they produced a cartoon film that was a huge success.

For TV, the Grinch acquired a color — green. "The book's simple black-and-white Grinch with pink eyes," writes Cohen, "grew into a Grinch with garlic in his soul, termites in his smile, and a heart full of unwashed socks."

Geisel was a bit of a Grinch himself. According to Cohen, the author said he got the idea for his famous character after looking in the mirror on the day after Christmas.

The Grinch says he is 53 in the story ("Why, for fifty-three years I've put up with it now!"), and Cohen points out that Geisel was 53 when he wrote the book.

Cohen quotes Geisel's stepdaughter, Lark Dimond-Cates, as saying that she thought of her stepfather as the "Cat in the Hat" on his good days — and the Grinch on his bad days.

In 2002, the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden was unveiled at the Quadrangle in Springfield. Dimond-Cates was the sculptor. She portrayed her stepfather at his desk, with the Cat in the Hat looking benignly over his shoulder.

Standing not far away is the Grinch.