How The Grinch Stole X-Mas 50th Ann. DVD

[MF TOON]

Does anybody own this set?

I was looking at it in a store the other day but was hestitant to pick it up because of some screen caps that I saw online last year. The colors seemed very unnatural to me and timed completely differently from previous releases. The contrast, saturation and tones and everything seemed to be boosted to extreme levels and I noticed far too much evidence of DVNR. Much moreso than previous versions. I'm just wondering what others think about this "Anniversary Edition" release and whether it seems like a waste or if my bias towards what I've seen online is not actually reflective of the quality of the new transfer? What does everyone think of this remaster? Is it a significant improvement over previous releases or do you agree that the look has been significantly altered for the worse?

[J. B. Warner]

"50th Anniversary"? What, it's 2016 already?

[Jon Cooke]

"50th Anniversary"? What, it's 2016 already?

This DVD came out last year in honor of the 50th anniversary of the original Grinch book, not the cartoon version.

[J. B. Warner]

This DVD came out last year in honor of the 50th anniversary of the original Grinch book, not the cartoon version.

Oh. I probably should have thought of that...:o

[geekzapoppin]

I've been watching the DePatie/Freleng Seuss films with my son and have been appalled at the amount of DVNR on them. It's obvious that the Universal folks just let the software run wild without any spot checking. I haven't seen the GRINCH disc, but I doubt it would be any better. I'm glad to have the flims available to share with my boy, but hate that they look so bad.

[Leviathan]

I've been watching the DePatie/Freleng Seuss films with my son and have been appalled at the amount of DVNR on them. It's obvious that the Universal folks just let the software run wild without any spot checking. I haven't seen the GRINCH disc, but I doubt it would be any better. I'm glad to have the flims available to share with my boy, but hate that they look so bad.

Do you have the Suess Celebration one-disc, or the individual discs Universal put out to coincide with the Cat movie?

I have the former and didn't notice any DVNR (but I'll go back and check)

[ltnut]

My wife just bought a Christmas DVD set for our 4 year old daughter that includes the Grinch 50th Anniversary edition and several Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. Why they had that combination (other than WB owning the rights to all of them) I don't know. My daughter wants to see the R-B shows because she LOVES Rudolph, but I wanted to see The Grinch and the related items.

I noticed that one thing that was included was a special from TNT in 1994 that included interviews with the widow of Dr. Seuss, Chuck Jones, Thurl Ravenscroft, and Albert Hague, and hosted by Phil Hartman. What is strange about this is that this very same special was shown as the 40th anniversary special with the cartoon on ABC last year, but the segments with Phil Hartman were replaced with Tom Bergeron doing the same narration almost word for word.

When I saw the 40th Anniversary special last year I thought that the clips of the different people interviewed were interesting but had to be older because I already knew that Chuck Jones and Thurl Ravenscroft had died a few years back, and I also found out later that Albert Hague had died as well. It wasn't until I saw the TNT version that I realized that WB recycled the special completely for ABC, replacing Hartman with Bergeron.

This isn't a comment on the original 1994 special so much as the 2006 recycling of it. Although the interviews were interesting, it seems pretty lousy to me that WB and ABC tried to pass this off as a new special last year. They could have at least made some changes in Bergeron's narration so it wasn't so obvious that this show was recycled.

[Matthew Hunter]

Whatever version of the Grinch special that ABC used this year was MUCH nicer looking than any I've seen in the past. It looked just as good as the Looney Tunes Golden Collection restorations. For once there was no time compression, no weird stuff...just the special with glorious colors and very few commercials. I see little reason to buy the Grinch on DVD, but if the version I saw is what's on there, it looks great.

[Barb Herholzer]

Whatever version of the Grinch special that ABC used this year was MUCH nicer looking than any I've seen in the past. It looked just as good as the Looney Tunes Golden Collection restorations. For once there was no time compression, no weird stuff...just the special with glorious colors and very few commercials. I see little reason to buy the Grinch on DVD, but if the version I saw is what's on there, it looks great.
That version did look very nice, but it was edited, apparently for time :eek: .

[Dell Comics Fan]

This DVD came out last year in honor of the 50th anniversary of the original Grinch book, not the cartoon version.

The book was originally published in 1957, so actually this year is the 50th
anniversary--and it's also the 50th anniversary of "The Cat in the Hat."

[dandu]

Did TNT show 16mm versions of this special? Since I have an old tape of TNT's version and it looked rather "filmic"...

[ltnut]

I saw on the schedule where The Grinch was on ABC last night as a 1 hour special, but I didn't get to see it. Did it turn out to be the same recycled special from TNT again?

[MF TOON]

I decided to pick up the 'Favorite TV Christmas Specials' box set from Warners which includes the new Deluxe disc of the Grinch albeit in a much more economical and favorable packaging. In light of this release and unless you already own all the Rankin Bass sequels on separate releases with no intention of unloading them and upgrading to this box, I don't see why anyone would bother with the Anniversary DVD. I haven't watched it yet so no comments on the transfer, but seeing as how I'd been meaning to pick up the remaining specials not included in the set from a few year's back, this was the perfect excuse to check out and compare the new DVD.

[MF TOON]

This would be the set I'm talking about:


http://images.dvdempire.com/gen/movies/1347359h.jpg

$19.99 at Amazon!

[ltnut]

This was the same set that my wife got at Wal Mart for about the same price.