The Timeless Allure of the Grinch

The classic holiday special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" will air at 8:00 p.m. on ABC on Christmas night. The program first aired just over 45 years ago on
Dec. 18, 1966, exactly 34 years before the "Seinfeld" episode "The Strike" which introduced the world to Festivus.

The tv version of the Dr. Seuss children's book of the same name was directed by two legendary "Looney Tunes" directors Chuck Jones and Ben Washam_ who was credited with giving Daffy Duck the catch phrase: "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin."

The cartoon features Boris Karloff, the great horror film actor who would die three years later in 1969 at age 81, as both the narrator and the voice of the Grinch. Thurl Ravenscroft, who would later be known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in cereal commercials, provided the voice for the theme song.

Dr. Seuss actually feared the use of Karloff because he thought the actor who first brought Frankenstein to life on the silver screen might scare away children.

But, the show has endured after all these years, even though it was made into a surprisingly awful feature film version with Jim Carrey in 2000.

SIDEBAR ONE: Anyone interested in helping starving children this Christmas might want to contemplate donating to CARE's Somalia famine relief fund. As of July 20, 2011, two regions of southern Somalia were declared famine zones. CARE estimates that some 3.7 million people are starving and in need of medical assistance in the famine, which has also struck parts of Ethiopia and Kenya. For more information go to www.care.org or google the term 'Somalia famine.'

SIDEBAR TWO: On a lighter note, I was going to make the following joking posting on Facebook, but I thought it could be misunderstood, so I am posting it here on this blog, which we sometimes wonder that no one is reading, except for die-hard followers in El Salvador, of all places:

"Got a Tea Partier a Jesus Christ bobblehead doll and an Occupy Wall Street protester a Che Guevara bobblehead doll for Christmas. I sure hope I don't get the packages mixed up."

As I said earlier, this is a joke, but there are actually bobblehead dolls for both Jesus Christ and Che Guevara!

Congrats to Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics

The University of Alabama won their fifth women's gymnastics championship on Saturday in Cleveland thanks to the efforts of Kayla Hoffman (pictured here on floor) and Geralen Stack-Eaton (pictured here talking to Coach Sarah Patterson).

Kylee Botterman (whew!, we almost typed her name with one e!) of Michigan won all-around with a 39.525 as she edged out Hoffman from Alabama (39.5).

For the Crimson Tide, Stack-Eaton won the individual floor exercise event with a 9.937. Other individual winners included Marissa King of Florida who won vault with a 9.875; Kat Ding of Georgia who scored a 9.875 to win uneven bars and Sam Peszek of UCLA who won the balance beam with a 9.9 score.

Other teams had gymnasts who fared well including the Utes who finished fifth overall, but the team had stand-out performances from veteran gymnasts Gael Mackie and Stephanie McAllister.

SIDEBAR: Today was a good day for Geoffrey Mutai as the Kenyan runner finished the Boston Marathon in record time with a score of 2:03:02. His fellow Kenyan Moses Mosop finished second. And, Ethiopian runner Gebregziabher Gebermariam, who will qualify for our top ten list of impossible names (which we hoping to post one week from today) finished in third. Of course, we fully realized that we probably will have to apologize for not spelling his name right!

Stack-Eaton also won the floor exercise event with a 9.937 score.