About 15 years ago or so, I wrote a scathing review for the stage musical “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” after I saw it on Broadway. I hated it then — and I hated NBC’s adaptation of the stage musical.
This is all you need to see to get an idea of this monstrosity.
Adapted from the UK Tour from last year, with some tweaks, and starring Matthew Morrison (in a completely thankless role any good actor could have played, but NBC might not have bankrolled) the show is a flop from top to bottom. Narrated by a grown up dog, who occasionally interacts with his younger self, the live show is 80 minutes of ennui and unnecessary musical numbers, some of which don’t even make sense. Stretched out to two hours with commercials its enough to send you plunging a dagger into your television.
Look, I’m not going to tear this all down again which I hated doing the first time around. I’ll just say that any attempt to do a stage show in 2020 is better than none. Except maybe in this instance. I might understand if they had done a tv version of the (very very good) Elf, the musical — but then, that’s a show that is still raking in big bucks on its yearly tours and in its many regional, community, and youth theater productions. But taking the piece of shit “Grinch” and making it into a “television spectacular” makes you appreciate the brilliant work that Ahrens and Flaherty did with their 1-minute tribute in Seussical, the musical.
I am so glad I DVR’d the show last night so I could watch it today (and fast forward through all commercials and parts of the show – hey, don’t blame me, some of the songs are indistinguishable from the commercials themselves). For what it’s worth – the cute set pieces are virtually intact from the stage production (well, they are the tour sets so they should be) with a few nice touches added for the television production. The lights and colors and costuming are fine. The “additional songs” are horrible. The Grinch theme always works, even in this rotten adaptation.
After watching this morning, this sent me directly to the fridge to make Stouffers mac and cheese and eat a couple entemann’s donuts to get the taste of this Grinch out of my mouth. I think I actually yelled at the tv at one point: “what a stupid directing decision!”
I’d give it zero stars if I could. Instead, I’ll give it one for the cute christmas tree with the paper star on top.
Mostly Musical Theatre 
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