# Walter Matthau CANNOT replace Vincent Price (lame rant)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 17, 2002, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178 "2002-11-17T16:58:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/1 "2002-11-17T16:58:51Z")
Okay, so last night I was in the grocery store, and there’s a display rack of Holiday videos in the front of the store (I hate when grocery stores try so hard to hawk non-grocery products, but that’s another rant). In the rack is a VHS of Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas. . .narrated by Walter Matthau!!! WTBloodyF!! This is so amazingly wrong!! Only Vincent Price can narrate The Grinch.
I have nothing against Walter Matthau, but come on people, you all know this is wrong! It’s like re-making Gone With The Wind and getting Fran Drescher to play Scarlett O’Hara!!
We need to band together now to put an end to this horror and outrage.
Who’s with me??
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### Author:  [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/2 "2002-11-17T17:01:26Z")
I don’t know. They’re pretty interchangeable \*\* now.\*\* 🙂
All aboard! The bus to hell leaves in five minutes.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/3 "2002-11-17T17:11:18Z")
Does anyone else see the irony in complaining that Matthau replaced Vincent Price while ignoring that the original narrator was Boris Karloff?
(FTR: I have heard both the Karloff and Matthau versions and think that Matthau did an excellent job.)
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/4 "2002-11-17T17:13:29Z")
(It should also be noted that Matthau’s version _preceded_ Karloff’s by nine years, so it is hardly a rip off.)
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/5 "2002-11-17T17:14:21Z")
Okay, now I feel incredibly stupid! Of course it was Karloff, but my obvious chagrin is that it was NOT originally Matthau, and the original voice, no matter who the owner, is what is lodged in my mind since earliest childhood, and everything else is just wrong, wrong, wrong.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/6 "2002-11-17T17:17:22Z")
But it _was_ originally Matthau. You’re just too much of a youth to have heard the original, having been raised on TV.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/7 "2002-11-17T17:18:51Z")
If you want to feel even more stupid, it’s not the holiday cartoon special that you’ve probably grown up seeing on TV. It’s the actual pictures from the actual book, being narrated a la “Reading Rainbow” (and that other PBS kids show that does the same thing) style.
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/8 "2002-11-17T17:20:33Z")
Wow! I had no clue (of course there’s some comfort in thinking I’m not old enough to know something). OK. Ummm, is it okay if I’m still outraged?
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### Author:  [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/9 "2002-11-17T18:12:25Z")
Perhpas you could be flabergasted instead.
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/10 "2002-11-17T20:50:51Z")
Yes, flabbergasted might be a better option now that all of the facts are in evidence 🙂
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### Author:  [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/11 "2002-11-17T22:35:33Z")
Vincent Price reading the Grinch would be interesting.
All three of them are dead, anyway, so they can’t really replace one with another.
There are two shows on PBS that feature reading with the original illustrations? I didn’t think so. The only other reading-based PBS show I can think of, _Between the Lions_, uses full animation.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/12 "2002-11-18T17:28:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by mobo85 \*
> \*\*Vincent Price reading the Grinch would be interesting.
>
> All three of them are dead, anyway, so they can’t really replace one with another.
>
> There are two shows on PBS that feature reading with the original illustrations? I didn’t think so. The only other reading-based PBS show I can think of, _Between the Lions_, uses full animation. \*\*
I don’t think it airs much any more, but the show other than Reading Rainbow stopped being produced in the 80’s (I have seen it in the past three or four years though), so it’s well before “Between the lions” was ever thought of; it may have even started before Reading Rainbow. If I ever find out what it’s called, I’ll let you know.
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### Author:  [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/13 "2002-11-18T19:15:43Z")
A wise friend once told me when I remarked about how much I despised remakes of the favorites from my past:
“Just because another version has been made does not mean the original has been destroyed.”
Your simple solution is to go watch the Boris Karloff version and never buy or watch the Walter Matthau version.
Is that difficult for you? 😕
Esprix
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### Author:  [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/14 "2002-11-18T19:34:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Esprix \*
> \*\*
> Your simple solution is to go watch the Boris Karloff version and never buy or watch the Walter Matthau version.
>
> Is that difficult for you? 😕
> \*\*
He was pining for a Vincent Price version; that _would_ be difficult to watch, since it has never existed.😛
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### Author:  [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/15 "2002-11-18T19:40:28Z")
Ah, true enough.
Esprix
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/16 "2002-11-18T19:40:59Z")
Now I am trying to picture Walter Matthau in _Frankenstein_, or _The Mummy_.
[Frankenstein’s monster throws the Bride against the wall] “Now . . . She’s garbage!”
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### Author:  [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/17 "2002-11-18T19:59:35Z")
[Holding note from his creator] “It took me half an hour to realize ‘MF’ meant ‘Monsieur Frankenstein’!”
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/18 "2002-11-18T20:20:58Z")
Esprix, no it’s not difficult to just go watch the Boris Karloff version and never buy the Walter Matthau one. But sometimes, if I don’t rail against the inane, who-gives-a-shit, and what-does-it-really-matter things, the pressure builds and I end up kicking my cat (or at least wanting to). I know about not sweating the small stuff, and further recognize that this is real small stuff. I was just venting.
But now that I know that I was wrong about Vincent Price, and further, that Walter Matthau was the original, I shall slink off to the Humiliation Corner™, and say no more about it 🙂
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### Author:  [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/19 "2002-11-18T20:31:41Z")
Smart lad.
Welcome to the SDMB.
Esprix
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2002, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walter-matthau-cannot-replace-vincent-price-lame-rant/137178/20 "2002-11-18T21:41:24Z")
Esprix, just BTW, I’m a woman.
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