MovieChat Forums > How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) Discussion > Recolored?

Recolored?

posted 16 years ago by aerie01-1
3 replies | jump to latest

The Grinch has always been my favorite Christmas special, although I think I must've missed it last year. Just to make up for it, this year, I watched both the version on the Cartoon Network and that shown on ABC. Since I hadn't seen it in a couple of years, I thought I'd ask you Grinchiphiles if the prints had been recolored. I've been watching it since 1966, when it first aired, and I don't ever recall seeing such vivid pinks and purples in it. Plus, the version on TOON seemed even brighter than the one on ABC. Grinch himself seemed way too lime green too. Any ideas?

[–] Squonkamatic 16 years ago

It's been remastered from the original negatives, the same with the Deluxe Edition DVD. Since the remastering is done by computer assigning color values by algorithms applied to the scanned negatives rather than a photochemical reaction in the coloring process of film itself, you are essentially correct in detecting a difference in the color. If you even compare the VHS release from 1997 to the DVD you'll notice that the colors have different saturation & hue levels.

Whether or not it is representative of what Chuck Jones filmed in 1966 is debatable. Good eye!

[–] aerie01-1 16 years ago

Thanks so much for your reply -- I know I didn't remember it looking like that. It would be very interesting to view the different versions side by side. My guess is that in staying competitive with other TV programs and movies, even the Grinch has had to become modernized. Too bad!

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays!

[–] HarlowMGM 13 years ago

I watched GRINCH for the first time last night in many, many years and I immediately noticed the Grinch was a lighter shade of green and that the background seems drastically different from what I remembered. Pretty sure all that purple and pink was not in the original print. It was very pretty to look at I admit but it seems totally out of place for the story, which is (for a while anyway) one of the darker Christmas cartoons, and certainly this new color scheme is totally out of place in a Dr. Seuss story, as the Seuss books famously keep their colors quite simple and seldom go beyond blue, green, red, black, and white with occasional yellow and orange. I would hope the "original" color schemes for this program are preserved and kept at least for purists somewhere.