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Dark meat or green? Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Santa cooks the Grinch on a rotisserie at Blade Hannon's house on the corner of Cedar Links Drive and Tahitian Avenue. Grinch-on-a-spit display gets lots of looks, even if a few people would prefer a seasick crocodile By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Blade Hannon has cooked up a unique Christmas light exhibit revolving around the green nemesis of Who-ville, and it's got some local residents wondering if Hannon's the one with garlic in his soul. Hannon has created a lighted Christmas campfire cookout display showing Santa Claus roasting a Grinch doll spinning on a rotisserie. The display, which includes a few reindeer and a happy snowman a safe distance from the fire, sits on the corner of Tahitian Avenue and Cedar Links Drive, a busy north Medford thoroughfare off Springbrook Road. "There have been so many people stopping here that it's blocking traffic," says Hannon, the 52-year-old owner of a garage-door installation company. "Usually, they ask when is the Grinch going to be done, or tell me not to overcook him." Osborne, who lives a few blocks away, says the skewered doll is too R-rated for an outdoor light display that impressionable young kids, like her 9-year-old daughter, can't help but see. "I'm just really glad I don't have to look at it every day," Osborne says. Not everyone agrees. Sheri Lierman of Medford made a special drive over to the Grinch cook-fest just so her 3-year-old son Cameron could see it. "It's definitely unique," Lierman says. "I think it's cute. It's a clever idea." Hannon is a Christmas aficionado who goes for the clever. He's a real electric eclectic who gained Clark W. Griswold status in the mid-1990s for creating a dragster out of Christmas lights atop his old home on Crater Lake Avenue in Medford. He got the idea for the current display last December when Jim Carrey's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" movie was in theaters. "I'm not one to put up the same old snowman and Santa, so I thought, hey, why not put the Grinch on a barbecue spit," Hannon says. "I don't know how it happened. This stuff just comes out of my mind." But he was out of time and could not rustle up the necessary condiments for this off-color barbecue, so the idea went to the back burner until November. Hannon spent $22 for the Grinch doll, $21 for the Santa and $25 for the fire pot. He took the rotisserie off the family grill in the back yard, then bought himself a Grinch ball cap. Some white and blue light strings and several extension cords later, Medford had something to talk about. "I like it," says Tom Pierce, who stopped for closer look recently. "The guy who did it must be a sick puppy." As for those who think his heart may be two sizes too small, Hannon says you're lucky he didn't go with his first light-show choice for this Christmas. Hannon wanted to get an Osama bin Laden doll and place it under a raised-leg reindeer doing you-know-what on the doll, but he couldn't find a bin Laden likeness. "Now that," Hannon says, "would be in bad taste." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.