The Theme

 

Battle of the Halloween associated monster-men (you did see Halloween is Grinch Night as a kid, didn’t you?) who nearly ruined Christmas, one intentionally and the other unintentionally, but thanks to the power of the Christmas spirit, they fail in their holiday takeovers and become better people because of it.

 

One loved Christmas so much that he kidnapped Santa, took his place, and tried to MAKING CHRISTMAS MAKING CHRISTMAS in his own special way with less than optimal results. The other hated Christmas so much that he dressed up as Santa, took his place, and tried to eradicate Christmas by committing present genocide.

 

This is one of those fights where it’s very, very easy to write the opening–Jack puts a present under the tree, and the Grinch takes it away. FIGHT!

 

But Wait A Second Otto, Doesn’t Horton Hears A Who Mean That…

 

Okay look, you think Osmosis Jones would make a better match for the Grinch, go read ahead, run Osmosis Jones vs the Grinch. For this fight, we’re going to assume Grinch and Jack are roughly the same size.

 

And how do you know that Jack’s entire world isn’t also on a speck on a flower? How do you know our own world isn’t? Don’t be so brazen in your cosmological certainty. Maybe the Hindus were right about Ganesh being the great sustainer of life, they just got the name wrong and meant Horton.

 

Hey Otto Weren’t You Going To Do DC Santa vs Marvel Santa This Year?

 

I was.

 

I’m sorry, this is just going to have to be the year without a Santa Claus.

 

…You got that joke, right?

 

Tell me you got that joke…

 

The Grinch

 

 

“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

 

You really are a heel.

 

You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mr, Grinch.

 

You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel.”

 

Come on now, you know the Grinch. Everyone knows the Grinch. He’s a cultural institution like Rudolph and Frosty. You’ve seen the ‘66 cartoon. Everyone has. Dont’ lie and say you haven’t. Liars don’t get presents from Santa.

 

Everyone knows the grim lord of Mt. Crumpet, the Stink, Stank, Stunk, the nasty wasty skunk, the King of sinful sots, the Grinch. Like Scrooge, his name has become a byword for holiday killjoys.

 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a simple story, which probably accounts for its longevity. The Grinch is a bitter, lonely creature overlooking the joyous Christmas celebrations of Whoville. Like all bitter, lonely creatures, he can’t stand seeing people find joy and meaning in life. His rage is similar to that of the Frankenstein monster upon realizing that his bride rejects him–so it’s very appropriate that Boris Karloff voiced the Grinch as well as the narrator.

 

The Grinch believes joy is something hollow, meaningless, and contingent upon ephemeral material. He believes that if he can take away the ephemeral, the presents and decorations, that joy will be revealed for the hollow emotion that it is and his inner emptiness justified as a rational response to the world instead of a personal defect. The Grinch believes it even as his loyal dog Max endures his abuses and returns only unconditional love, showing that it is not the lack of love that makes the Grinch what he is, but his blindness to it.

 

What I’m saying is that the Grinch is basically one of those effete bores you meet in college who won’t shut up about how deep nihilism and Thomas Ligotti are, as if hydrocodone addicts that need lamictal to function have any business commenting on the human condition.

 

And they’re always socialists. Every last one of them. Nothing matters in life and I believe in nothing except the expansion of government power.

Through the Grinch, viewers vicariously live out the desire to hurt those who have a joy we believe is beyond our capacity to have, but also the desire for redemption–that when it matters most, our hearts will grow three sizes larger and we will be forgiven and accepted by others.

 

So let’s have him fight a talking skeleton because I think that’s fun.

What Can The Grinch Do?

 

 

–Grinch physiology is interesting, to say the least. His head can turn all the way around, he can slither across the ground like a snake, and his heart is three sizes too small for his body. Despite suffering from a severe case of coronary microvascular disease, the Grinch is superhumanly athletic and able to steal an entire village’s worth of food, presents, and decorations in a single night.

 

–Speaking of stealing all that stuff in a single night, he only gets caught once by Little Cindy Lou Who. Compare that to the track record of so-called stealth master Solid Snake who gets spotted for every boss fight. Am I saying the Grinch is better at stealth than Solid Snake? Oh yes. He’s also better at being an actual snake than Solid Snake.

 

–At the climax of the story, he takes his sleigh of poached Christmas and climbs 10,000 feet up Mt. Crumpet (which means Mt. Crumpet is about as tall as Mt. Merritt in Montana)–which is one really nice feat for Max the dog as he’s the one pulling that sleigh up, likely with the power of pure unconditional love for his unworthy master. But when the Grinch prepares to dump the hoard, he hears the Whos singing and celebrating Christmas without any presents or material goods and has a change of heart–literally and metaphorically as his heart grows three sizes. As the sleigh is about to topple off the mountain, he grabs it, and with the strength of ten Grinches plus two, he hoists it over his head.

 

–The prequel Halloween is Grinch Night shows that the Grinch has a couple of powers that you might not think he has just going off How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Grinch can send his eyebrows out to fly around and bother people and that might not seem like an impressive power but admit it, if you saw someone’s eyebrows detach and start flying around like a bat you’d freak to. The Grinch also has the paraphernalia wagon, which sounds really nasty for a Dr. Seuss thing. The paraphernalia wagon…is not easy to describe. It did this. It did all of this.

 

Jack Skellington

 

 

“What’s this?

 

What’s this?

 

There’s color everywhere!

What’s this?

 

There’s white things in the air!

 

What’s this?

 

I can’t believe my eyes I must be dreaming wake up Jack this isn’t’ fair!

 

What’s this?”

 

Hail to the Pumpkin King!

 

Hail to the Hot Topic King!

 

When Jack Skellington, the famed Pumpkin King of Halloween Town (no, not this Halloween Town, that Halloween Town) grows tired of being the alpha-monster of a town full of monsters, he seeks something new and finds it in the world of Christmas Town. He grows obsessed with the concept of Christmas and decides to “help” Santa Claus by relieving him of his Christmas duties for the year. 

 

I’ve always had a soft spot for The Nightmare Before Christmas ever since I was a little Otto. During a family vacation to Disney World, I twisted my ankle coming off the bus and my mom had to carry me through some sort of exhibit showing the film’s stop-motion models. That memory’s stuck in my head, probably because of the combination of pain and seeing something really cool.

 

What I’m saying is, if you experience something cool you want to remember forever, have someone beat you up. That advice is my Christmas gift to you!

 

I think my appreciation for The Nightmare Before Christmas has only grown as I’ve gotten older. I don’t think kids really get it. It’s a story about age, really. It’s about the ennui of getting set in your ways and wanting to reinvent yourself. It’s a story about a guy having a midlife crisis and cleverly uses Halloween, a holiday associated with the dead, decay, and revulsion, to represent a tired life and Christmas, a holiday associated with life and color and birth, to represent an idealized transformation.

 

Jack’s got a lot of edge to him for a Disney character. He was Stitch years before Lilo and Stitch. He sends mercenary trick-or-treaters to kidnap Santa Claus, ignores his girlfriend Sally’s warnings that his actions will lead to nothing but misery for everyone involved (they do), and traumatizes scores of Children by giving them a Christmas where Santa Claus is a skeleton that gets blown out of the sky by the military.

 

It’s interesting when you think about it. The Grinch set out to destroy Christmas and totally failed. He ends up joining the Whos in their celebrations and carving the roast beast as the prodigal son guest of honor. Jack set out to put on a Christmas to the best of his ability and failed so hard the military blew him out of the sky with AA guns.

 

And if we take the eulogy the mayor of Halloween town (Jack is the boss of Halloween town but the two-faced mayor character is the paper pusher that gets things done. The mayor is the Callie Briggs to Jack’s mayor Manx) gives when everyone thinks Jack’s dead at (two) face value, Jack actually has a body count–and not a small one. The mayor says that Jack has scared millions of people to death. But we probably shouldn’t take this too seriously. After all, it’s like the song says,

“Tender lumplings everywhere

 

Life’s no fun without a good scare

 

That’s our job but we’re not mean

 

In our town of Halloween.”

Jack’s character flaws help him stand out as a pre-Marvel/Star Wars Disney character–and also being a tall skeleton man and not a princess.

 

His level was also the best level in Kingdom Hearts. Not even a contest. And it would have been the best level of Kingdom Hearts 2 if they didn’t have a Tron level.

 

What Can Jack Do?

 

 

–He’s pretty spry for a bone guy. The agility he shows during his fight with Oogie Boogie puts the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts to shame.

 

–Is deceptively strong and can squeeze a Christmas ornament into powder with his bare (and also skinless) hands.

 

–Can detach his bones, even take off his head to play Hamlet and Horatio at the same time.

 

–Got blown out of the sky by AA guns. He landed in a cemetery and while emotionally damaged from finding out he really does suck as Christmas, he was unharmed physically and even went on to rescue Santa Claus from Oogie Boogie.

 

–Is an expert in the art of scaring people.

 

So Who Wins?

 

Got to give it to the Pumpkin King.

 

The biggest advantage Jack has comes from his speed and durability. Just check out how fast he’s moving in his climactic battle with Oogie Boogie. He’s dancing his way through Oogie’s Arcade-meets-Scaramanga roulette wheel death trap like it’s no big deal. He’s dodging spinning blades and buzzsaws and doing James Cagney on top robot gunmen. Grinch has nothing like that. And his durability is even better than his agility. Jack gets his sleigh (and dreams) shot down by the US military and lands in a cemetery completely unharmed. He doesn’t even break a bone. He was way more emotionally hurt than physically hurt. And speaking of bones, he’s made of them. He pulls out a rib to pay fetch with his pet ghost dog Zero. He can take off his head to recite Shakespearean quotations.

 

Grinch is going to have trouble hitting Jack, trouble hurting Jack, and even if he manages to pull off both, Jack can just pull himself back together. There’s just no real way for Grinch to keep Jack down.

 

Grinch has the strength advantage. Jack’s no wimp, he can crush a Christmas ornament into powder with his hands (you try doing it) and flick a dead bat so hard he turns it into a hat (again, you try doing it), but he’s never done anything like the Grinch lifting his sleigh and loot above his head. Yeah, the Who’s are all tiny elf-like people and their presents tiny to match, but the Grinch looted their entire village. He put everything in his sack–every present, every foodstuff, every decoration, he didn’t even leave a crumb for a mouse. That has to weigh something ridiculous, and the Grinch used the power of Christmas to make his heart grow three sizes larger and obtain the strength of 10 Grinches plus two to overhead press it.

 

Go ahead and take away the Grinch’s holiday powerup, make him 1/12th as strong as he is in that scene. He’s still probably way stronger than Jack. But even so, he can’t really hurt Jack–and what’s more, Jack might be able to take away the Grinch’s 12X “El Grincho Navidad” boost.

 

Look, the Grinch needs goodwill to flood his being to grow his heart, become 12 times a Grinch, and achieve El Grincho Navidad form. But Jack is an expert on scaring people. The guy is the Pumpkin King for a reason. Having to fight another person on Christmas day is already going to sour the Grinch’s mood, but Jack’s going to try and turn the fight into a spook-off. Scaring people is what he does, and while I don’t think he’ll be able to get the Grinch to run away in terror, he should be able to shut down the good vibes and prevent the Grinch from achieving El Grincho Navidad.

 

Who saw the Christmas fight being decided by a spook-off? Will wonders never cease, it’s probably fate getting me back for cheesing the Halloween fight this year.

 

Could the Grinch out-spook Jack with his own Grinch Night tricks? I don’t think so. I think Jack’s way better at both dishing out scares and taking them.

 

In terms of scare-fu offense, Jack’s scared humans. The mayor even says that he’s scared millions of people to death. But the Grinch has only scared Whos, who are known for being good-natured folk. What’s more, while Jack relies on only himself for his scares, the Grinch relies on his paraphernalia wagon for his, and while it’s capable of trapping someone in what can only be described as Dr. Seuss Hell, it’s scares were resisted and overcame by Euchariah Who, your average little Who boy. Jack would no doubt be able to resist the wagon as well..

 

Plus, the Grinch can only haunt beings on Grinch Night. When the sweet and sour wind isn’t blowing, the Grinch can’t haunt, even when he wants to. And this fight isn’t taking place on Grinch Night. It’s taking place on Christmas eve, because of course it is. Picking any other day for this fight would be blasphemous.

 

In terms of scare-fu defense, Jack also wins. He lives in a world full of spooky scary people. He not only finds everyone not scary, he’s bored of them. I’d say give Jack a Green Lantern ring, but they kind of already did that. The Grinch on the other hand is a classic bully. He’s never been around another Grinch that could scare him. He lives on a mountain overlooking little elf-like people. 

 

In short, Jack wins the scare-off to put the Grinch off his game, preventing him from getting his holiday power boost, and then crushes him with superior speed and durability.

 

Then everyone forgives each other for the misunderstanding, because it’s Christmas, and Halloween Town and Whoville have a big Christmas Day feast together. Max and Zero share a bone under the table. End scene, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good nightmare!

 

But What If We Include Feats From Their Video Games?

 

Man, did I just not just end the fight on a cute scene and a Merry Christmas?

 

Got to just drag video game feats into it, don’t we? We could be doing John McClane vs Martin Riggs and someone would go “Oh don’t forget about the Die Hard arcade game! John can absorb rpgs with his body because of the arcade game!”

 

I really don’t want to bring the games into this, because having Jack win because of his magic Kingdom Hearts powers is really cheap and makes the fight far less interesting. He already wins just from the movies. Let’s not drag Kingdom Hearts into this.

 

But let’s say we do bring the video games into this. They both get an arsenal of platforming weapons to shoot at each other, which benefits Jack way more than the Grinch because Jack is way better at dodging projectiles. Jack gets fear and ice magic while the Grinch gets…no magic, unless you count his awful shovelware game glitching up as magic. And Jack gets the Soul Robber, which despite the name, does not actually rob souls. It’s like an ectoplasmic flubber pet that likes to steal things, hence Soul Robber.

 

Come on. Jack is a Disney boy. They aren’t going to let him Shang Tsung people. But while it can’t steal souls, it can turn into weapons and Jack can whip it around like he’s hunting Dracula.

 

Jack gets a God of War mechanic and Grinch gets…nothing. He gets nothing. He gets a rotten egg launcher. He can offend Jack’s nonexistent nose.

Now Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good nightmare!