It's Andy Fish!

I love the original 1966 animated version of THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS- it’s a true classic.

I hate the Jim Carrey film. When the boys were little I had the option of taking the little one to RUGRATS THE MOVIE or the two older ones to the Carrey film and for some reason I thought I made the easy choice by going to The Grinch.

There are two problems here;

1- I hate Jim Carrey. HATE. He doesn’t know how to turn it off– and if you’ve ever known someone like that you know it gets old really fast. I was at a comic show one year and sitting in the green room with some of the other guests when ¾ of The Monkees came in the room. Mickey Dolenze walked in, saw people in the room so he decided to show his comedic charm by climbing backwards over a chair, taking a sandwich and making it talk like a puppet and then either imitating a monkey or having a stroke, I wasn’t sure which.

Monkee Peter Tork picked up his own sandwich after taking a plate, getting in line with Monkee Davey Jones when Davey looked at Mickey and said;

“It never gets old, Mickey.” And he scooped something from the catering pan onto his plate.

Mickey laughed and kept going. See, Davey was saying “enough Mickey” but Mickey wouldn’t hear it. He was convinced he was funny and everyone was laughing.

Same deal with Jim Carrey– watch him in COMEDIANS IN CARS WITH COFFEE or whatever the Jerry Seinfeld show was called and you will see the same thing.

Filming BATMAN FOREVER Carrey found out his co-star Tommy Lee Jones was eating at the same restaurant he was and asked the maitre de to bring him over– Tommy stood up as he approached and said to take his buffonary elsewhere because he’d had quite enough of it.

Way to go Tommy.

So The Grinch which is a charming 26 minute cartoon was a dreadfully dull stretched out 98 minute film. At one point I did the only thing I could think of doing to survive it– I took a nap. My #2 son who was little at the time panicked, thinking I had either died or wouldn’t wake up when the movie ended, but sadly for me I did wake up before it ended, desperately I leaned into him and asked him in a whisper;

“Did he bring the presents back yet?”

“He hasn’t even stolen them yet.” Came his reply.

I slogged my way through that wretched waste of film and spent the next 14 years groaning every time I even saw mention of it.

But then I saw ELF.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I surely was tricked the same way I saw that Bobby Patterson film with the sparkly vampires— it made Carrey’s buffoonary look like Shakespeare by comparison and it got me to hate something even more than the grinch, even more than Jim Carrey.

That’s the gift Will Ferrel gave to me. Luckily his career is at such a high point he’s making commercials for PayPal so he should be gone like Carrey soon enough. I heard James Caan couldn’t stand Ferrel during the filming, so maybe Tommy he and I will sit down to Christmas dinner sometime and toasts the buffoons.