The Grinch: Difference between revisions

There seems to be no shortage of things to like about Christmas: [[It Was a Gift|presents]], [[Thicker Than Water|family]], at the very least a little time off. Who could possibly hate this most hallowed of holidays?

 

 

 

In a more general sense, the Grinch is any character who is utterly disgusted with something (or many things) that everyone else likes, and whose alienation drives him to be so completely unhappy that he finally decides to spread the misery around.

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[The Joker]] takes on the role of the Grinch in ''[[The Long Halloween]]''; complete with his own version of the poem.

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

* The eponymous character of ''[[Monk]]'' hated the Christmas season, although he had a very sympathetic reason for doing so, as it was around that time of year that Trudy, his wife and pretty much the only person who ever had him see the positives of Christmas, was murdered via Car Bomb, and his early experiences with Christmas were admittedly quite horrible (for instance, in 1964, his mother fell ill, his dad was what he usually was, and Ambrose Monk locked himself in the basement for the whole Christmas season [Monk implies by saying "he was no fool" that Ambrose did this deliberately], and he himself received [[Convenience Store Gift Shopping|only one walkie talkie out of a set]], which his dad explained that he gave the gift to him because he only ever needed one because he didn't really have any friends).

* Britta on ''[[Community]]'' makes a series of rather smug and snide dismissals of the trappings of the festive season, such as Christmas songs, see her come off as a bit of a killjoy. Curiously, in the Christmas episode in season 1 ("Comparative Religion") she came off as a lot more easy-going about it.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Guild Wars]]'' [[You Mean "Xmas"|Wintersday]] celebrations, Grenth and his followers work to spoil the holiday for everyone else. There are a pair of [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] to the [[Trope Namer]]: Grenth has minions called Grentches, and one Dwayna-supporting quest is called "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grenth."

* The [[Villain Protagonist|protagonists]] and supporting characters of ''[[Garden Gnome Carnage]]'' and ''[[Hyper Princess Pitch]]'' hate Christmas. For the latter game it's explained that none of them got any presents as kids/kits, and Pitch herself is heavily implied to have spent all her life on the "naughty" list.

* In ''[[DC Universe Online]]'', Larfleeze stole a bunch of Christmas presents, which Hal Jordan tasks the players with recovering.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

{{quote|'''''Roz Poodle:''''' She wouldn't DARE ban my handcrafted singing Santa cookie jar!

'''''Ben Bruin:''''' Are you kidding? She'd ban snow if it didn't fall fall out of the sky on a regular basis. }}

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[Olive the Other Reindeer]]'': The Postman.

* Professor Hinkel, the magician who wants to steal his hat back from ''[[Frosty the Snowman]]''.

* The 90's cartoon ''[[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]]'' had a [[Christmas Episode]] where [[Wolverine]] took on this role.

* Bushroot in the ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' Christmas episode. His motivation for being a Grinch, though, is that he has great difficulty doing his Christmas shopping and swears to make everyone else feel his pain.

* Herman the Hermit and Snively in ''[[Yogi Bear|Yogi's First Christmas]]''.

** The Simpsons family also attempted to steal some Funzos before Christmas Day. Subverted in that they actually had a very ''good'' reason for doing so, as apparently the toy company that created Funzo also programmed it to destroy any and all toys that are not part of its own line, meaning allowing them to survive would have made Christmas worse.

** Mr. Burns in one episode was also stated to have stolen Christmas in 1986.

*** In one [[Distant Finale|future episode]], a character again alludes to Mr. Burns having stolen Christmas, this time apparently permanently.

* Turns out ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' is a Grinch. Growing up with two erratic parents who spend their holidays too busy arguing about Santa's existence gave him a deep hatred of Christmas and probably the only child negligence story involving possessed turkey. He gets over, though.

* [[Shrek]] starts out as one of these in ''Shrek the Halls''.

* Princess Morbucks in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' Christmas episode.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** This was largely for pragmatic reasons; at the time most American Protestants didn't really consider Christmas a festive holiday, while the Hessians did and thus spent the day enjoying themselves, thus letting their guard down.

* Admiral Yamamoto. Striking just at the beginning of the holiday season on Dec 7. Of course you know [[This Means War]].

** Also, some Christmas songs are ''extremely'' annoying. Particularly bad offenders are "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," and "12 Days of Christmas."

*** Even the Christmas songs that aren't on this level of annoyance tend to get old very quickly, as every year there are always about a million different remixes and covers of the same "classic" songs, and they get just as annoying. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is not a bad song, but when you've heard over 100 different versions of it, you quickly reach the conclusion that you never want to hear it again.

** Historically this would include the Puritans, in both early America and Cromwellian England, who not only refused to celebrate Christmas but actually made it punishable by law to do so.

** In our own era, "secular-progressives" (ironically, in many ways the complete opposites of the Puritans) are often accused of trying to ruin Christmas, though their meddlings are usually limited to the promotion of more culturally neutral terms like "holidays" or "seasons," or trying to keep Christmas celebrations strictly private.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Christmas Tropes]]

[[Category:The Grinch]]