The anti-holiday sentiment of HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (2000) meets Adam Sandler's distinctive comic style, with a splash of music. The yield: An offbeat, sometimes gross and surprisingly appealing animated film about the true meaning of the holidays. Thirty-three-year-old delinquent Davey Stone (voice of Adam Sandler) lives in smalltown Dukesberry, where people just love celebrating holidays — all the holidays — and his normal ill-will towards men increases during the eight nights of Hanukkah to such a degree that Ebenezer Scrooge looks cheery by comparison. Davey's taste in holiday ditties runs to "I hate folks who think reindeer are cute/To me they're just something to shoot," preferably sung while wreaking havoc on festive seasonal decorations. But Davey gets busted on the first night of Hanukkah, and were it not for diminutive basketball ref Whitey (also Sandler), who has two different-sized feet and a heart of gold, he could be facing a 10-year stretch. Whitey volunteers to take Davey under his wing and Davey reluctantly agrees, but he's continuously rude and plays a series of mean-spirited pranks on the elfin oldster. Whitey's continued generosity includes reintroducing Davey to his high school crush, Jennifer (Jackie Titone), who's recently returned to town with her quiet son, Benjamin (Austin Stout), and offering Davey a place to stay after his trailer burns to the ground. Whitey's paranoid twin, Eleanor (Sandler, yet again), is understandably skeptical about her kind-hearted brother's rowdy stray, and the song-and-dance number in which the siblings lay down the house rules is a laugh-out-loud highlight. But when memories of Hanukkahs past resurface, even Whitey worries that Davey hasn't reformed at all. Sandler hams it up even more than usual as an animated holiday hater, but manages not to bury the movie's uplifting message — that the spirit of the holidays can reform the hardest heart — under his trademark scatological and un-PC gags. Given that this is the first feature-length film dedicated to Hanukkah, it's a little disappointing that history gets the brush off and the Festival of Lights is relegated to serving as a backdrop for the movie's madcap mayhem (like the way the big musical finale takes place on the eighth night). But it's a realistic portrayal of the way Hanukkah is actually celebrated amidst the Christmas mayhem, and certain subtle touches — a single thumbtack that pops eight tires — are funny in-and-of themselves while delivering a little extra giggle to viewers familiar with the meaning of the candle-lighting festivities.