How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Continuity mistake: After the Grinch unscrews the light bulb in the town Christmas tree, all the lights in the town go dark and the Grinch starts to take off in his sled-thing. When they show a close up of him, the lights are on. Then a few seconds later, the lights are off again.

Continuity mistake: After the Grinch stole all of the presents, Officer Wholihan gets into his police car and drags the mayor's bed out of his house. When the bed smashes through the window it breaks the top off the middle post of the bed. Then when it comes back to the shot of the bed it's been fixed.

Continuity mistake: When the Grinch is messing up the mail in the back room, he takes out a package and puts it in another one. When he takes his hand out the package falls out and lands next to the pile of presents. The mistake is when the camera goes to another shot, the package is not lying on the ground as it was before.

Continuity mistake: When Miss Martha May is shooting the lights onto her house you see them lit as they are being fed into and coming out of the machine when the camera is pointing on her but when it's a far off shoot only the lights coming out are lit not the ones on the feeding wheel.

Continuity mistake: When the Grinch burns the Christmas tree, in an overhead shot he isn't anywhere in sight, then in the following closeup he's back beside the ashes of the tree.

Hamster

Continuity mistake: When Betty Lou watches Martha May shoot the lights from her machine, she is holding a string of lit Christmas lights. Then in the first shot when she leans over the roof, holding the Christmas lights, the strings of lights is off and are then lit in the following shots.

Hamster

How the Grinch Stole Christmas mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the post office scene, when Cindy is talking to her dad, you can see a post box marked "Grinch" and it has nothing in it. Later we are shown a close-up of the Grinch mailbox and it has spider webs in it.

Continuity mistake: When the two women who adopted the Grinch show him a plate of cookies on a santa plate when he was younger, one cookie with red icing on it falls off the plate. In the next shot it's back on again.

Hamster

Continuity mistake: When Max bites the Grinch in the mail room, and the Grinch starts spinning around, a pile of presents appears under the wall of mail slots between shots.

Hamster

Continuity mistake: When the little girl first sees the Grinch the orange light is spinning around and you can hear a siren. Then when the Grinch speaks it conveniently turns off and back on again when he finishes.

Continuity mistake: In the wide shot of the town square after the mayor says there "is no Grinch problem here!", the yellow car that had a full cab that the red car hit is missing, and the red car's right headlight that was knocked out in the crash with the yellow car is back in place.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Grinch is talking to the town after he flips out during the Whobilation,the mayor in the background switches from facing inward to his assistant to facing outwards.

Continuity mistake: In the wide shot that would be a view from the roof of Betty Lou's house, you can see the spool of lights on Martha May's cannon isn't lit up or moving.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: When Lou enters the classroom, the teacher's yardstick switches position from straight up and down to flat as the shot perspectives change.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: After the Grinch answers the cop's greeting with "Flatfoot!", two Whos carrying packages pass by him, and he watches them pass. As the Grinch approaches two Who children to give them the hacksaw, the same package-laden Whos pass by again.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: The Grinch holds the electric razor in his palm, then grasps it finger by finger. The next instant cut shot of him shows him holding the razor, but his hand is open.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: When he's talking to Cindy Lou in the Post Office, Lou is riding on the movable ladder, When he says "You kids and the Grinch", he's right at the end of the track when the camera cuts to Cindy Lou. When it cuts back, he's just stopping at the end. The sound while the camera is on Cindy Lou suggested that the track was longer than it was.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: When the Grinch goes to wrap Cindy, he grabs the end of the wrap with his right hand and pulls. Suddenly, he has both hands on it, and there was the sound of his left hand grabbing added in.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: After the Grinch stole all of the presents, Officer Wholihan gets into his police car and drags the mayor's bed out of his house. When the bed smashes through the window it breaks the top off the middle post of the bed. Then when it comes back to the shot of the bed it's been fixed.

More mistakes in How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The Grinch: Those Whos are hard to frazzle, Max. But, we did our worst, and that's all that matters.

More quotes from How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Trivia: Director Ron Howard eventually decided that he had to experience what the cast was going through (since they all had to spend so much time in makeup, especially Jim Carrey) so Howard wore the Grinch makeup one day and directed all day long as the Grinch.

More trivia for How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Question: In the beginning, there is a watchman that announces "Another minute closer to Christmas!" as each minute ticks off a countdown clock. Assuming that each panel (days, hours minutes) is on a revolving wheel of some sort, how can the three wheels work correctly in such close proximity to each other? Granted, only the minutes part moves for the sake of the story, but it still begs the question.

Movie Nut

Answer: By machine.

The clock in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is designed for cinematic effect; a real-world counterpart would rely on precise gearing and engineering to allow three separate wheels to operate in close proximity without interfering with each other. The key would be in the gear ratios and the alignment of the gears to ensure smooth operation of each panel.

More questions & answers from How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.