Thurl Ravenscroft’s ‘You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch‘ was played on last night’s wild episode of the Disney+ series Hawkeye — Hawkeye, Episode 5, “Ronin”.
The track was played over the show’s end credits and, yep, more than 50 years after the Thurl Ravenscroft song was first released, it is still fabulous.
The song was originally written for the 1966 cartoon special Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
The lyrics of ‘You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch‘ were actually written by Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Geisel).
Although Thurl Ravenscroft sang the song, he was not originally credited with it in the cartoon special’s closing credits.
After Dr. Seuss found out Ravenscroft had not been credited with singing the song, he called him and apologized and then started to write letters to national columnists telling them if they mentioned the song they should know Thurl Ravenscroft was its singer.
This also led to Dr. Seuss hiring Ravenscroft for other work in his subsequent TV specials.
Thurl Ravenscroft was also the voice of the iconic Kelloggs’ Frosted Flakes cartoon character Tony the Tiger for more than 50 years.
Ravenscroft’s ‘You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch‘ hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #42Â in early January this year, almost 16 years after the actor/singer’s death at the age of 91.
Listen to Thurl Ravenscroft’s ‘You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch‘ from last night’s Hawkeye on the How The Grinch Stole Christmas album, and in the video below.
You can also give yourself a memory nudge about Ravenscroft’s wonderful Tony the Tiger performances in the Frosted Flakes commercial down there too.