The Christmas That Almost Wasn't But Then Was (also known as: Grinchy Little Character Who Tries to Steal Christmas) is a 1938 low-budget, holiday movie that appears in “Skinner's Sense of Snow”. This holiday movie was chosen by Principal Skinner to show to the school children that came to school that day despite the blizzard.
Summary[]
The movie starts with Santa’s workshop when suddenly the workers get interrupted by Christmas Hobgoblins attacking their workshop. Later on, the film it is seen with one of the Hobgoblins singing together with a shepherdess who would sing along together with him indicating they might have some love interests. Unfortunately, the movie stops there where it gets destroyed.
Reception[]
It is possible that this movie might have been originally panned due to the low-budget appearance, having a story that almost had nothing to do with Christmas despite its title plus you can clearly see some studio-lamps in a wardrobe plus a stage man appearing in the singing part. It might have never got much attention either except for Skinner which is one of his favorite movies. Most of the children of Springfield Elementary got bored from it, especially Nelson, Milhouse and Lisa pointed out the obvious flaws. Plus, just when the children were supposed to go home after finding out they were snowed in and after freaking out the second time Skinner tells them he fixed the movie which leaves them scream so unbelievably loud for worrying the horror of the bad feature.
Trivia[]
- Skinner briefly mentions the word ‘Grinchy’, for the movie which is also a reference to Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, though the supposed antagonists are supposed to be goblins.
- This is one of Skinner’s favorite movies. It’s very likely he’s blinded by excitement for the film which would explain why he fails to see its obvious flaws.
- It’s unknown for how long the feature really is, though Milhouse makes his statement for the singing part: "He’s been singing for 2 hours" which might indicate that the movie is longer than 2 hours although it may have only sounded that long to him because of how awful the singing is.
- Consolidated Pictures is likely based off of Miller-Consolidated Pictures, a film production company that specialized in low-budget films.
- Despite being apparently made in 1938 the stagehand that mistakenly appears in the film looks very modern looking.
- Notably even Martin hates it despite being a teacher’s pet such as having a shared interest in the Springfield Box Factory with Skinner.
Availability[]
While the movie itself is fictionalized, it exists only to the world of the Simpsons. It can be bought on DVD even though it was played on the schools old-fashioned projector.
Video[]
