'The Grinch' Is On TV Tonight To Spread The True Meaning Of Christmas

With just over a week to go until the big day, television schedules are rapidly filling up with a heap of Christmas guff.

In an effort to strong-arm the country into getting into the 'festive spirit', every year families are forced to endure the likes of The Holiday, Love Actually, or Four Christmases.

What is supposed to be the 'most wonderful time of the year' quickly descends into the most miserable.

However, one positive to come out of the fact there are so many truly God awful Christmas films about, it that they really make you appreciate the good ones, like It's a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, and of course Arnie's turn as the hero dad on a quest to find the perfect toy for his son, in Jingle All The Way.

And up there with the very best is surely Jim Carey's turn in Dr Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which turned 18-years-old last month and has definitely stood the test of time.

Universal Pictures

And guess what, it's on TV tonight, yes, it really is. Dreams really do come true.

Based on the Dr Seuss classic children's book, it tells the tale of the curmudgeonly Grinch, who, rejected by the people of Whoville as a child, moves away to live by himself on a mountain. That's until the green ogre's cold heart is melted by a little girl called Cindy Lou Who, who convinces the lonely Grinch to return to town.

But when he is humiliated in public the Grinch decides to get revenge and sets about stealing every Christmas present from every home in town, only to be stopped by little Cindy who shows the Grinch the error of his ways and at the end - SPOILER ALERT - he is finally accepted by the people of Whoville.

But despite seeming to be wholesome family movie, the comedian revealed in an interview, it was absolute torture, no, really it was torture.

Carrey had to undergo hours and hours of make-up a day to become the Grinch and says it was one of the hardest parts he had ever had to play.

Speaking to Graham Norton, he said: "The makeup took eight and a half hours. It was like being buried alive each day. On the first day I went back to my trailer, put my leg through the wall and told director Ron Howard I couldn't do the movie.

"So a guy that trained CIA operatives how to endure torture was brought in," he continues. "That's how I got through it."

Dr Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas is on ITV2 today at 6.55pm.

Topics: UK News, TV and Film, UK Entertainment, US Entertainment

Dominic Smithers

Dominic graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History. Like you, Dom has often questioned how much use a second language has been. Well, after stints working at the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express, along with never setting foot in France, he realised the answer is surprisingly little. But I guess, c'est la vie. Contact us at [email protected]

@SmithersDom