As of Matplotlib 1.3.0, the Mollweide projection no longer show horizontal gridlines.
With this test command:
python -c "from matplotlib import pyplot as plt; plt.subplot(111, projection='mollweide'); plt.grid(); plt.savefig('moll.png')"
with Matplotlib 1.3.0 on MacPorts on Mac OS X Mountain Lion, you get this:

whereas on Matplotlib 1.1.1rc2 on Debian Wheezy, you get:
