Jim Carrey’s Grinch Movie Features An Incredibly Adult Joke No Kid Would Understand

There is a long history of children’s films containing jokes directed only at their parents, although some of these jokes are significantly more adult-oriented than others. Sometimes, they’re too easy for younger audiences to pick up on, like the “1-800-SPANK-ME” joke in Tim Allen’s “The Santa Clause” that had to be cut down for home video, but one joke in Ron Howard’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is sure to pop into every kid’s mind.

Howard’s live-action version of Dr. Seuss’s classic Christmas tale stars Jim Carrey as the titular Green Man and features some humorous moments reserved for the parents in the audience, but an early joke shows the Whos down in Whoville holding a major party. You know, like at a party where the husbands drop their keys into a fishbowl and then the wives take out a bunch of keys and go home with whoever those keys belong to, ostensibly to tie them up. This kind of swinging behavior is extremely lewd, and it’s weird to see cartoonish-looking people taking part, but maybe that’s what makes it so funny.

Not only do we see the Whos having their exciting holiday party, but there’s also a scene shortly beforehand in which a baby arrives on the doorstep and the husband tells his wife that the baby “just looks like your boss.” Is there a Whoville version of “Jerry Springer” we can get?

In a flashback sequence that shows how the Grinch came into existence, we see a lavish Christmas Eve party for all the adults, namely… definitely Having a major party. It’s kind of a great joke because there’s nothing the kid can imitate or repeat, and there’s absolutely no way to understand the context. It also fits with the whole secret theme of Howard’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” which is that Christine Baranski’s character really wants to smash the Grinch. Seriously, that woman wants to be cool with the Grinch more than he wants to ruin Christmas for everyone, which makes for a magical subplot for adults only. (That and even kids can appreciate an overly amorous character as comic relief—Pepe le Pew, anyone?)

Personally, I wouldn’t shame the Whos for a bit of polygamy. When love is the goal, fish in the bowl… Just don’t get angry, if your spouse’s boss is your child’s father!