CHRISTOPHER: Well, I know you well enough to know that when you say no to coffee, especially in the morning, all is not right in Whoville.
Whoville is the setting for the 2000 Christmas film How the Grinch Stole Christmas, earlier discussed – a charming little place where the denizens all really love Christmas.
It’s interesting that Lorelai referenced it to Rory at the start of Concert Interupptus, and now about a month later, Christopher is referencing it to Lorelai as if it is something they shared together. It suggests the possibility that when Christopher came to Hartford for Christmas in 2000, he and Lorelai took Rory to the movies to see The Grinch. If so, it’s rather touching that they went on a family outing together, and chose a movie to which you’d generally take a younger child than Rory.
(There is a Who-ville in the Dr. Seuss book Horton Hears a Who, but you can see from the books they are two quite different places with different characters, just similar names. The Horton Who-ville exists within a speck of dust on a clover flower, and the Grinch movie pays tribute to that by having their Whoville contained within a single snowflake).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 
The 1966 animated television version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” narrated by Boris Karloff was the better known version of the Grinch. It was telecast annually along with other holiday stalwarts from this era, “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” to name two others – they are all still shown today during the holidays and are available on various platforms. Most likely Lorelai would have watched this at some point in her childhood, and Rory probably would have as well. Nothing wrong with the 2000 movie, but in the early 2000s, the animated Grinch was still the better known version.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060345/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2
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Nonetheless, they never mention the Grinch until after the 2000 film came out. And lots of people saw the Grinch in 2000 – I did, and so did almost everyone I know. There was a ton of publicity for it.
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