The History of Grinchmas at Universal Studios Parks

In recent years, during the holiday season, Dr. Seuss's grumpy green character, the Grinch, takes over Universal parks around the globe during an event named Grinchmas.

In writing and researching this episode, I had assumed the Grinch character is famous enough in pop culture that he doesn't really need an introduction, but then we found some interesting details in its history that you may find interesting. Plus, it sets us up for when we talk about Universal, so let's do a quick overview.

First off, children's book author Theodor Seuss Geisel, we all know him as Dr. Suess, had been writing successful children's books since "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," which was published 1937.

In 1953, he first used the word "grinch" for a character, the Beagle-Beaked-Bald-Headed Grinch, which was a bird that appeared in the book "Scrambled Eggs Super!" A couple of years later, a yellow con artist character named Grinch tries to trick another character into buying a piece of string in The Hoobub and the Grinch, which was published as a 32-line poem in Redbook magazine in 1955. Neither of these are related to the book we're talking about today, though.

Sometime after March of 1957, soon after Geisel released the incredibly successful book The Cat in the Hat earlier that year, he decided to write a Christmas story to be published later that same year. There was an interview published in Redbook magazine in 1957, where he explained that the idea began while looking in the mirror brushing his teeth the day after Christmas the previous year. He felt that his face looked rather "Grinchish."

This Christmas season was particularly difficult for Theodor as his wife, Hellen, who was experiencing some serious health issues. He also started to realize that he wasn't a fan of how commercialized Christmas had become. And, at that moment looking in the mirror in 1956, he would later explain, "Something had gone wrong with Christmas, I realized, or more likely with me."

He explained that the majority of the story only took a few weeks for him to complete, but it took him a few months to figure out the ending. He would also later admit that the Grinch was a "nasty anti-Christmas character that was really myself". In fact, the Grinch says "for fifty-three years I've put up with it now," referring to the number of Christmas celebrations he's overheard from Who-ville. Dr. Seuss was 53 years old when he wrote the book! That being said, he wanted to avoid making the story seem overly religious, embracing more of a secular Christmas. Geisel was a non-practicing Lutheran, and he wanted the story to be about love and togetherness overtaking materialism, based on human experience, not about a requirement to join a specific religion. I have read that there were other books released around the same time as the Grinch that included at least a tinge of antisemitism, which he was trying to avoid.

The story was released on October 12th, 1957 - which was the December issue of Redbook Magazine. The first edition of the book would come out November 24th. While the story is pretty well known, I again will give a quick recap, as it will set us up for what's to come later in the episode. Feel free to say some of these lines with me in your best Grinch-y voice!

The story of How The Grinch Stole Christmas starts with the lines "Every Who Down in Who-ville Like Christmas a lot... But the Grinch, Who lived just north of Who-ville, Did NOT!" This line also appears in every official adaptation of the story that has been created to date. The book continues to explain that the Grinch hated Christmas, and that no one knows why, but the most likely reason is his heart was two sizes too small. He is shown living in a cave at the top of a hill above Who-ville, where he looks down on them, hating their noise, their feasting, and their singing. Then, while wondering how to stop Christmas from coming, he gets a "wonderful, awful idea" to impersonate "Santa Claus" and... spoiler alert, steal all of the Christmas decorations, presents, and food from the residents of Who-ville. 

In the book, the first house he visits is where he comes across "Cindy-Lou Who, who was not more than two." When she asks why he's taking their tree, he lies to her, saying, "There's a light on this tree that won't light on one side. So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear. I'll fix it up there... then I'll bring it back here." Without any other comment, she seems okay with this and goes back to bed, and then the Grinch goes on to rob the other Whos' houses. 

He takes his sled full of all their Christmas stuff to the top of Mt. Crumpit, with a plan to dump it over the edge. Just before pushing it over the edge of the mountain, he realizes that the Whos should be waking up soon, and he takes joy in the idea of hearing them cry about losing all of their stuff, and decides to stop and listen for the sound of sorrow coming from the town. Instead, though, he hears them singing, and realizes that he hadn't stopped Christmas from coming. He stood in the snow and "puzzled three hours" before coming to the realization that "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!" At this moment, his heart grows three sizes, and he brings back all of the stolen Christmas items. And in the end, he's shown carving roast beast, seated between two Whos.

Now - when I just said all that, what color did you picture the Grinch? Well, if you were reading the book version in 1957, he wasn't green! All of the artwork in the book was in black and white with red thrown in here and there. The Redbook Magazine version had different colors used on different pages, but the majority of the artwork from the book was not included in the magazine. The first appearance of the Grinch actually had him shaded in a green, to more of a teal-green-looking color, depending on the photo or scan of the magazine that you've found. But, on other pages, he appears blue, then red, and also white with black outlined fur like in the book.

Also, in the book, his eyes were always pink-ish red, but in the magazine, his eyes changed between white, yellow, red, and teal. The last piece of artwork in both the book and the magazine depict that scene of the Grinch carving roast beast. In the magazine, the art is very colorful, with red, yellow, and blue colors used, but the Grinch character appears the same as he does in the book - in black and white - looking similar to the Cat in the Hat, while the Whos on either side of him are yellow. 

So, when did the Grinch officially become green? It wasn't until nine years later, when Dr. Seuss partnered with an old army friend he had met during World War II: world-famous animator, Chuck Jones. Together, they created the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas that premiered on December 18th, 1966. According to interviews with Chuck Jones, he decided the Grinch should be the same ugly shade of green as the rental cars he kept receiving when he would visit Theodor Geisel in La Jolla, California to work on the project. And, Theodor agreed. 

The twenty-six-minute-long TV special was produced by MGM Animation/Visual Arts, and was directed by Chuck Jones. It would stay pretty true to the book, with a few scenes added to stretch the roughly 15 minute read of the book. One of those scenes included the roughly three-minute-long song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." Geisel actually wrote the lyrics to the song, working with Albert Hague -a composer who had won two Tony Awards in 1959, for Best Composer and Best Musical for a show called Redhead. Though the rest of the show was narrated by Boris Karloff, famous for playing Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 Universal Pictures film, the song was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, most commonly known for being the voice of Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes, but known by theme park fans as the ghost host from Disney's Haunted Mansion. Other sections added to the TV special were more scenes with Max, The Grinch's dog. He appears very little in the book - in just one paragraph during the scene in which the Grinch ties an antler to Max's head. The animated special would feature Max in several new scenes, including struggling to run up Mt. Crumpit with the sled full of stolen items, and when Max joined the Whos in their celebratory dinner at the end of the story.

Now, that animated special originally aired on CBS, but was owned by MGM Animation/Visual Arts, which was a studio founded and led by Chuck Jones, that was owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

In 1985, Ted Turner, the guy who essentially created basic cable when he launched TBS (Turner Broadcasting System) -He would go on to create CNN, TNT, the Cartoon Network, and more- but yeah, he briefly bought MGM, before selling the company back its previous owners, but he kept the rights to all film and tv that had been created by the company before May of 1986. Which, obviously, included this 1966 Grinch special.

In October of 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting System for roughly $7.5 billion.

Today, the rights to the TV special are owned by Warner Bros.-Discovery. If you haven't been following the news, or if you're listening to this in the far-off future, at this moment in time, December 2025, there's been a lot of drama going on with the Warner Bros. film and tv library, with Netflix, Paramount, and Comcast trying to get a piece of the company. Just within this past week, news alerts went out saying that Netflix had won the bidding war, but the next day headlines about Paramount making a hostile takeover bid rippled through the news feeds. So, what's going to happen to the 1966 Grinch rights? As of right now while we're recording this... Nobody knows.

Okay, before I continue, I want to point out that The Grinch, as a character, as well as all other Dr. Seuss intellectual property, is owned by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P., a company that was created after Theodor Geisel's death in September of 1991.

So, let's get back to figuring out how we got Grinchmas in the parks.

Now, if you've been listening to or reading the Where In The Park Podcast for a while, you've hopefully already heard some of our episodes about Universal Studios Florida, as well as our episode about Jay Stein that aired last month. The original Florida park by Universal opened June 7th, 1990, and a year later, Jay Stein held a meeting about "Project X," an idea that would evolve into the concept for a second theme park at the Orlando resort named "Cartoon World."

An early plan for what they were hoping to be that park's primary kid-focused land, was an area based on the characters by Dr. Seuss. By the time they were ready to move forward with trying to get the rights to the stories and characters, Geisel had already passed away, so they had to convince his second wife, and now widow, Audrey Geisel that they had a good idea.

There is an article by Alicia Stella at orlandoparkstop.com from 2020 about Universal's Cartoon World concept, where in the section about "Dr. Seuss as Fantasyland," she explains that Audrey was protective of Theodor's works, and that they had a back-up plan to create a land based on Hanna-Barbera or Tiny Toon Adventures if they weren't able to make a deal. Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director, was a creative partner in the Universal parks back then, as he is today, and when he tried to reach out to Audrey, even he was ignored. Someone at Universal was eventually able to get her literary agent to visit them in Orlando to see what they had been designing, and he liked what he saw, and called her to take a look at the plans. And she did, and she apparently liked what she saw as well.

Over on the Security & Exchange Commission website, you can find the original 1994 Formal Agreement contract between Dr. Seuss Enterprises and MCA INC., the parent company of Universal Studios at the time. There is a line in the contract that states "Dr. Seuss Enterprises grants to MCA the worldwide exclusive license to use Dr. Seuss Elements in Attractions at Theme Parks."

So, with that, Universal, and only Universal, could now bring Dr. Seuss elements, with approval of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, to any of their theme parks in the world. Which, at the moment, only included Hollywood and Florida.

There was an amendment in 2009 which appears to narrow down the countries where they have theme park exclusivity to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and the People's Republic of China.

Now, with all of that laid out, the only Universal parks with Grinchmas this year, are in the USA. Universal Studios Japan, Singapore, and Beijing all have Christmas celebrations being advertised on their websites, but none of them include the Grinch, and none of them currently include any elements from Dr. Seuss in their parks at all.

Okay, so Universal has the theme park rights to Dr. Seuss as of 1994, and Seuss Landing opens with Islands of Adventure on May 28th, 1999.

A year and half later, both Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal's Islands of Adventure would debut Grinchmas as their quote "Who-liday" celebrations. In Hollywood, this included a "Who-vian procession" parading through the park several times a day, acrobatic Seussian street performers, singing Whos, real snow to play in, and up-close encounters with Grinch and his dog, Max. This event also included a 41-foot-tall Mt. Crumpit Snow Plummet sledding hill, The Grinch's Cave Maze, and original props from the movie. Meanwhile, in Orlando, the entire Seuss Landing area was decorated for Grichmas, they had a meet-and-greet with the Grinch is his lair, which was located where the queue for The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley is today, and they had a street show reenacting the story from the book in three parts, concluding the event with a daily lighting of the Who-ville tree.

If you're wondering why that sounds like a lot more than what we get these days, especially for the Hollywood park, it's because these events were likely paid for by the marketing budget for the live-action movie. 

That movie, also named How the Grinch Stole Christmas, was produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment, directed by Ron Howard, starred Jim Carrey as the Grinch, and it was distributed by Universal Pictures.

It might seem like a no brainer, but Universal went through all of the trouble to get the theme park rights to Dr. Suess, so of course, they would also get the film rights. But, it wasn't exactly that simple. 

In the book "How the Grinch Stole Hollywood," an official Universal Studios Publishing book by Andy Lipshultz, there is a foreward by Ron Howard. In that forward, he tells a story about how Brian Grazer told him he was pursuing the screen rights for a live-action adaptation for their company, again, that's Imagine Entertainment, to produce. Their company, which had been founded in 1985, after they had worked together on the film Splash, for Disney, in 1984, had worked with many different film studios to distribute their movies. Later in the book, the author explains how Theodor Geisel had a bad experience turning his ideas into a live-action movie, with the flop of the 1953 film "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.," which he wrote. Also, he was happy with the way the animated special had come out, so he wasn't interested in redoing it. Audrey, again, she's Theodor's widow, is on the record referring to the technological advances in filmmaking that had occurred between 1991 and 1998 were what made her feel like the time was right to bring The Grinch to live action. So, in 1998, she put the movie rights up for auction.

On September 16th, 1998, multiple news outlets reported the big news that Universal and Imagine Entertainment had won the bidding war for Seuss. There is an article from Variety from that date which shares that the runner-ups in the auction were Fox and Warner Bros. Reporters from the time, aware of the upcoming Islands of Adventure Seuss land, mentioned that a reason why Universal would likely be willing to outspend Fox and Warner Bros. on the film rights was because of their theme park and the synergy that it would enable. That price? The articles refer to "sources" saying Universal paid $5 million for the Grinch rights, and possibly another $4 million for the rights to "Oh, the Places You'll Go." But, that wasn't all, they would also have to pay 4 percent of the box-office gross, and 50 percent of money earned from merchandise sales. Back in the 1990s, this was huge, to put it in perspective, five years earlier, in 1993, after the success of Jurassic Park, author Michael Crichton (CRY-Ton) received a record tying $2.5 million for the film rights to his next book. So the $5 million price tag for Seuss made big news in the industry.

The Variety article also mentions that the Grinch would be placed on a "fasttrack," hoping for a Christmas 1999 release, while an LA Times article from the same day reported that Universal Pictures Chairman, Casey Silver, had said he hoped to have the film in theaters either Christmas 2000 or the following year's holiday season. Well, the movie would release, as I had said earlier, in November 17th of 2000, which is the same day that Grinchmas premiered on both coasts.

I am not sure exactly who decided on the word "Grinchmas" at either Universal or Dr. Seuss Enterprises: it does not appear in the book, nor follow-up books. But, I did find an article that was posted in the LA Times in December of 1995 about Geoffrey and Carole Landon, who would run a special tour of Newport Bay on Kids Night at the Newport Harbor Christmas Boat Parade. They would take children, including terminally ill, homeless, or survivors of life-threating diseases, on a free tour of the harbor's Christmas lights. Geoffrey was known in the boating community as Mr. Grinch, and had t-shirts made for the children that read "Merry Grinchmas." According to the article, they had been using the book as their decorating theme since 1986, and had taking kids on tours on their 50-foot boat since 1989. 

Also, in 1998, there's an article about a live production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, which ends with a quote from Audrey Geisel where she says, "Merry Grinchmas and Happy Who-year."

It's always possible that the Geisels had used the term Grinchmas for years. Theodor Geisel used to drive around in a Cadillac with a California vanity plate with the word "GRINCH" on it. The car is currently on display at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, located in Springfield, Massachusetts, which is the city where Geisel born and raised. Interestingly, the Museums of Springfield also hold their own annual Grinchmas festivities every year, but it seems likely that they're borrowing the term from Universal.

Okay, so, where were we... There was a hit movie, with a popular theme park event that tied into it, so the next year, 2001, Grinchmas returned to Orlando... But, over in Hollywood, guests could see some of the buildings that were used in the film during the Studio Tour, but that's about it. They would eventually add a scene to this section of the tour, with residents of Whoville and the Grinch dancing and singing.

The event would return annually in Florida through 2005, but they decided to not run Grinchmas in 2006. In 2007, though, they would bring the event back to Florida, this time with a stage show that included music from Mannheim Steamroller.

The next year, Hollywood brought back Grinchmas as well, with a "real-snow playground" and Who-ville activities set up in The Adventures of Curious George water play area, while it was turned off for the winter. Today, most of that area was replaced with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

In 2009, the Grinchmas area was moved to the Wild Wild West arena.

And from there, the events have kind of been on autopilot. There have been a few changes here and there, with celebrities reading the book.

There was a change in 2013, when the Hollywood Wild Wild West arena was removed and the Universal Plaza was installed to replace it, but Grinchmas kept being added to that section of the park, but with a larger 60-to-65-foot tree. 

In 2017, the Whoville sets were removed from the backlot.

Oh yeah, I do want to point out that, usually a few times per visit during this season, you'll hear the song "Where Are You, Christmas?" If you have never seen the film from 2000, you might not realize that song was actually created for the movie. It was written by composer James Horner and Will Jennings, and in the movie was named "Christmas, Why Can't I Find You?" Apparently, they co-wrote a longer version with Mariah Carey, but they weren't able to release the track because of pending legal case with her ex-husband. So, they brought in country music star Faith Hill to record the song, and that's likely the one you've heard outside of Grinchmas. Within the past decade, it has also been covered by Pentatonix and Jojo Siwa.

And well, that takes us today, where the Grinchmas events are just as popular as ever, and despite a 2018 animated film by Illumination based on the Grinch, the events in the park still revolve around the designs from the 2000 live-action film. Universal Studios Japan did have a Grinchmas style celebration in 2018 for that film, but it looks like that ended up just being a one time thing.

So, there you are, that's the story behind Grinchmas at the parks, if we left anything out, if you have more information about anything we've covered, or photos of Grinchmas over the years, please leave a comment on our YouTube posting of this episode, and/or let us know on our free-to-join Facebook group, Where In The Park Explorers.

And well, this is Amanda signing off from the Where In The Park Podcast, until next time, we'll see you... Somewhere in the park.

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Articles Referenced in this Article: 

• 1st Edition - How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1957) Guild Edition - Stan Zielinski
• AuctionZip - How the Grinch Stole Christmas First Publication 1957 in Redbook Magazine (full magazine)
• Cartoon Brew - 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' is 50 Years Old Today - and It's Still Great - Amid Amidi 
• Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine - Audrey & Theodor Seuss Geisel
• Ebay - How the Grinch Stole Christmas First Publication 1957 in Redbook Magazine (excerpt cover)
• Entertainment Junkie Blog - The History of WB Animation Part 3: Turner Meets Warner - Eli Sanza
• Forbes - Amazon Closes MGM Deal — But Here’s Why You Still Won’t Find ‘Wizard Of Oz’ Or ‘Gone With The Wind’ On There - Alison Durkee
• Fordham International Property, Media, & Entertainment Law Journal - Even If Dr. Seuss Wanted to Stop It, the Intellectual Property Rights Just Wouldn't Allow It - Dana Levin
• Inquisitr - The Grinch Turns 60 - Victoria Miller
• Inside Universal - Whoville Sets from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" Demolished on Universal Backlot - Sydney Newman
• Justia Business Contracts - Second Amendment to Formal Agreement between Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. and USI Asset Transfer LLC
• Little Biblio - The Story Behind Dr. Seuss's Grinch
  
• Los Angeles Times - Newport Beach: Special Kids Get to Cruise Into Holidays - Enrique Lavin
• Los Angeles Times - Seuss Rights Sold for up to $9 Million - Claudia Eller
• Looper - The Untold Truth of The Grinch - Brian Boone
• NY Times - Turner Acquiring MGM Move Empire - Geraldine Fabrikant
• NY Times - Turner to Merge into Time Warner; A $7.5 Billion Deal - Mark Lander
• Orlando Informer - Grinchmas at Universal Orlando: History and Special Needs Information - Debi Dame
• Orlando Park Stop - Universal’s Cartoon World – Before it Was Islands of Adventure - Alicia Stella
• Securities & Exchange Commission - Formal Agreement Between Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. and MCA Inc.
• Seussblog - Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories
• Springfield Museums - Ted Geisel's Cadillac
• The Studio Tour - Grinchmas (Seasonal)
• Theme Park Insider - Universal Studios Hollywood Debuts its 'Grinchmas' Snow Playground - Robert Niles
• Tony Awards - Albert Hague (1959) -
• Variety - U, Imagine Clinch "Grinch" Pic Deal - Michael Fleming
• Wide Open Country - 'Where Are You, Christmas?': The Story Behind Faith Hill's Cinematic Holiday Classic - Bobbie Jean Sawyer