Historical Events  Movies
The Grinch

Alternate:
 The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Current:
How the Grinch Stole Christmas

He spoils the children's Christmas

Remember the 2000 movie "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas", with Jim Carrey playing the miserable fun-hating grump who took all the children's Christmas presents the night before Christmas? That's odd, because it wasn't called that, in fact everywhere you look now you find it's called "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".

Those experiencing the Mass Memory Discrepancy Effect (aka Mandela Effect) with this one were probably children when it came out, and so might not have worried too much about it's exact title. Only now, years later, with it somehow misquoted over the years do they look closer and realise the mistake.

Or is there more to this, and the Grinch can mess with more than just the fun children have at Christmas?

Dr Seuss

The 2000 movie was just called The Grinch in the UK, but this Mandela Effect seems to be just as widespread there. The story was written in 1957 and was the first of the Dr Seuss stories to be made into a full movie. Anthony Hopkins narrated it, Ron Howard directed it and Jim Carrey starred in it. Quite a bit of reworking was required to bring the story to the big screen because the original was largely a picture book. In particular, the back story of the Grinch is entirely new for the film. It won an Academy award too - best makeup.

There was a 1966 animated TV special with exactly the same name which was narrated by Boris Karloff and featuring his voice as the Grinch too, but that's not the one people remember nowadays.

The reason for the confusion over the name isn't really clear. Most movie titles or quotes are single word swaps or mishearings. This is unusual in that almost half the title is altered along with it's entire meaning.