The Grinch

About

The Grinch is a Dr. Seuss character from the children's book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! In the story, The Grinch is a large green creature who hates Christmas and attempts to ruin Christmas by stealing all the Christmas gifts and food from the neighboring town Whoville. Despite his successful thievery, the Whos in Whoville celebrate Christmas just the same, leading the Grinch to realize the true meaning of Christmas is togetherness with ones friends, family and neighbors, and he returns all the stolen goods. The story has been adapted into several films and a 2018 remake of the film led to multiple memes.

History

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was written by Dr. Seuss and published by Random House on October 12th, 1957.^[1] Dr. Seuss considered it one of the easiest books to write of his career, save for the ending, which he had trouble perfecting without sounding preachy. The book was well received by critics, who loved The Grinch as the character and the book's prose and illustrations by Dr. Seuss.

Film Adaptations

The book has been adapted to film three times. The first is an 1966 animated special directed by Chuck Jones and Ben Washam featuring Boris Karloff as the narrator and voice of the Grinch. It also features the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," written by Dr. Seuss and performed by Thurl Ravenscroft.

In 2000, a live-action feature-length adaptation directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey in the title role was released. The film added backstory to The Grinch and the citizens of Whoville.

In 2018, Illumination Entertainment developed a 3D-animated adaptaiton of the book titled The Grinch, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character. Trailers for this film would have a large online presence in memes in the late months of 2018.

Online Presence

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Roster Leak

On October 24th, 2018, a French Snapchat user posted images of what appeared to be the side box-art for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, which featured art of the entire cast of the game. The post was deleted but not before being shared online (shown below). Online users were able to deduce that several unannounced Ultimate fighters could be in the image: Shadow the Hedgehog, Geno, Ken from Street Fighter, Isaac from Golden Sun, Mach Rider, Banjo Kazooie, and the Chorus Kids from Rhythm Heaven.

According to a lengthy thread by Twitter user @LeakReview internet sleuths were able to discover several clues that helped give the leak legitimacy. For example, the background for the artwork is a never-before-used template for the Battlefield stage of Super Smash Brothers, making the artwork likely legitimate. Additionally, the name of the French Snapchat user, blocked out in the original leaked image, was able to be uncovered. The name found was Eric Bricard. A 4chan user was able to discover an Eric Bricard on LinkedIn who worked with a French marketing firm, Marina workshops, that handles displays for numerous companies. It was confirmed that Bricard works for the company and that Marina was working with Bandai Namco.

Furthermore, there were several as-yet unused promotional artworks for the upcoming film The Grinch in the original photo, confirming that Bricard had access to unused promotional materials. The inclusion of the Grinch led to jokes about the Grinch being involved in Smash, either as a playable character or the force behind the leak (examples shown below).

Related Memes

Grinch Poster Parodies

The Grinch Poster Parodies are series of photoshopped promotional posters for the 2018 animated feature film Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, elevating the gentle trolling of the original posters and making them more explicitly offensive for humorous effect.

In fall 2018, a number of promotional posters for the The Grinch, which attempted to gently troll the area in which they were placed, began gaining notice online. On October 17th, 2018, Twitter user @Yassammez tweeted a series of these posters (shown below, left). The post received more than 10 retweets and 60 likes.

Two days later, Twitter user @bugmanetv tweeted, "I don't like this new grinch." They attached a photograph of one of the trolling posters; however, the tagline has been photoshopped to read "I'm gonna drown you to death in green cum." The post received more than 2,200 retweets and 9,900 likes in four days (shown below, right).

When Guac Is Extra

When Guac Is Extra is an ironic meme based on an exploitable advertisement animation for the 2018 animated film The Grinch.

On September 16th, 2018, the @grinchmovie Instagram feed posted a promotional video for the film in which The Grinch character falls to his knees below a caption that says "When Guac Is Extra" (shown below).Over the next month, the post gained over 1,300 comments, many of which mocked the post as cringeworthy and out-of-touch.

On October 9th, 2018, the @grinchmovie Twitter feed reposted the animation. On October 16th, a screenshot of the tweet was posted to the /r/ComedyCemetary subreddit. On October 20th, Redditor megadriive submitted a deep fried version of the screenshot
to /r/DeepFriedMemes (shown below, left). On October 19th, a photoshopped variation of the image was uploaded by Instagram user @stripe_the_dude_bro (shown below, right).

Just Like My Nuts

On November 9th, 2018, Imgur user Twistable69 posted a picture of a poster advertising pistachios featuring The Grinch saying "Green and Salty. Just like me" (shown below).

On November 12th, Instagram user @jaunty_jenkhead posted a doctored photo which had the advertisement read "Green and Salty. Just like my nuts," gaining 97 likes.

Nevertheless, the image began to spread and some people assumed it was a real advertisement. User @teddybearisms tweeted the image as if it were a real advertisement and gained over 52,000 retweets and 191,000 likes (shown below, left). User @iamalmostlegend did the same (shown below, right).

The idea that the "Just like my nuts" poster was real became popular enough that Snopes posted a fact check debunking it.

Grinch's Failed Scare

On November 14th, Twitter user @justindoublem posted a clip from the 2000 Grinch film in which Jim Carrey's Grinch is attempting and failing to scare Cindy-lou Who by making gross gestures at the camera.

The clip was viewed more than 39 million times, as Twitter users took it and added their own captions to the clip. For example, user @nairobiwilliamx tweeted that the clip was reminiscent of dogs barking at passersby from behind a fence (shown below, top. User @dracomallfoys joked it is what their laptop sees when they pretend to film a music video at 3 am (shown below, bottom).

Search Interest

External References