Clickable Advent Calendar: The unedited ending to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Tonight, Dec. 18, ABC Family broadcasts the live-action Jim Carrey film How The Grinch Stole Christmas from 2000. Let us not speak of it again lest it sully our memories of the classic 1966 cartoon “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” which isn’t just one of the best Christmas specials, but is one of the best pieces of animation made for television of any kind. Chuck Jones, who directed some of the greatest Looney Tunes shorts, was at the height of his powers for characterization and sight gags in rendering the Grinch and his hapless dog Max. (Here’s a fun bit of trivia: June Foray, who voiced Cindy Lou Who, was apparently the inspiration for the title of the Whos’ Christmas carol “Fah Who Forays.”)

Famous as the story is on page and screen, many don’t know that Dr. Seuss’s original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! has a “lost” ending, which was altered from the original manuscript to make the book more commercial. Here’s the book’s original conclusion:

… Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mt. Crumpit!

He rode with his load to the tiptop to dump it!

“Pooh-Pooh to the Whos!” he was grinch-ish-ly humming.

“They’re finding out now that no Christmas is coming!

“They’re just waking up! I know just what they’ll do!

“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two

“Then the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!”

“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch,

“That I simply MUST hear!”

So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.

And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.

It started in low. Then it started to grow …

But the sound wasn’t sad!

Why it sounded … mad!