What Is The Grinch Exactly? (Is He A Who?)

Although The Grinch has been seen onscreen numerous times and in various guises, the Dr. Seuss character’s origins and species remain unclear. Alternatively, the Whos from Whoville are pretty easy to identify. In their live-action and cartoon incarnations alike, they have pointed noses and distinctive oversized feet. They look more like kangaroos in Chuck Jones’s iconic 1966 TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, though more closely resemble regular humans with differently proportioned faces in 2000’s live-action movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas. In 2018’s animated The Grinch, they look even more like typical people and are missing the distinctive face shape seen in earlier adaptations of Dr. Seuss’s classic.