Dr. Seuss Discussion Thread

[minor muppetz]

I search general discussions and didn't see any threads about Dr. Seuss in general (I did see some threads, but they were pretty much tied to specific things about Dr. Seuss). So I chose to start one.

Some of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories include How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Sneetches, The Butter Battle Book, and Hop on Pop. I really like the cover for Oh the Thinks You Can Think, but I don't remember anything about the inside of the book.

One of my favorite underrated Dr. Seuss stories is The King's Stilts. I read that while waiting to get my hair cut one day, and it seemed kind of long, but I liked the black and white drawings in it. I am thinking, this one should have been made into a live-action movie. If I were to make a live-action movie based on it, I'd want it to have a dark look like in thge book, not ultra-colorful like The Cat in the Hat movie.

I checked out many of the "Beginners Book Videos" from the library as a kid, and owned three of them. I never saw the Beginners Book Video featuring The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, because I had recorded the Cat in the Hat special on TV, and assumed it was a video of the two specials. A few months ago I was at a used video store and was surprised to see that at least some of them were released on DVD, grouped the same way (they didn't combine any of the videos into one).

I was really obsessed with Dr. Seuss back in 1994, when TNT showed a few marathons of almost every Dr. Seuss special, and also premiered the made-for-TV movie In Search of Dr. Seuss.

For awhile I assumed that Time Warner owned all of the specials, and thought it was interesting as Universal made all of the recent movies. But then I read that the Depatie-Freleng specials are owned by Universal. Does Universal own the rights to the Dr. Seuss books and characters, or is it all controlled by Seuss' estate?

 

[Yorick]

I appreciate the sentiment of Suess work such as The Butter Battle Book and The Lorax! They are the deepest ones I know of. Along with the Sneeches! The work of Dr Suess is genius. Thanks for your post, I will have to check out The King's Stilts!

 

[minor muppetz]

Back when I was a kid, I thought the dad from the "dad is sad" sequence of Hop on Pop was Pat from the last sequence. And sinc eht elast page showed Pat almost sitting on a cactus, I thought 'Dad' was sad because he sat on the cactus.

 

[Yorick]

That's hilarious minor muppetz! Thanks for sharing!
I remember "goodbye thing, you sing too loud" LOL

 

[minor muppetz]

It's Dr. Seuss's birthday, and there's a few things I have on my mind, or have had on my mind recently.

Anybody think it's odd that Horton Hatches the Egg came before Horton Hears a Who, and yet "Hears a Who" is the one that was adapted into both a television special and a movie, while "Hatches the Egg" was only adapted into an animated short? Makes me wonder if the sequel was more popular, or if the first was a bit too limited to make into even a 30-minute special, let alone a 90-minute movie (but they were able to fill The Cat in the Hat into a feature film), or what.

Does anybody know when Daisy Head Maisy was originally written? I've been trying to find info online and couldn't find anything (and I guess if I couldn't find any online info - not even on its wikipedia page or Dr. Seuss Wiki.... and I'm not sure if I actually saw a Seuss wiki or if I thought I did, then I doubt anyone here would know). I think I saw somewhere that it was sometime in the 1960s but I can't remember.

Recently, I watched the Daisy Head Maisy special for the first time in years, and it's interesting to see that Dr. Seuss was the only credited writer. Surely the book wasn't long enough to fit into a full half-hour. And I did read that Dr. Seuss's original manuscript did not include The Cat in the Hat, so his parts had to have been written by somebody else. And is Daisy Head Maisy the only book Dr. Seuss did not illustrate (not counting the original manuscript) where he was credited by his more-famous pen name as opposed to Theo. LeSeig?

 

[animalrescuer]

I like a lot of Dr. Seuss’ work, especially the animated specials he collaborated on like The Grinch, The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss on the Loose, the Lorax.

I don’t know if anyone here already knows this or not, but Sesame Street composer, Joe Raposo, worked on a couple of these animated specials like The Grinch grinches the Cat in the Hat, Grinch Night and a completely original story, Pontoffel Pock, Where are you?

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Anyone familiar with this?

It’s called In Search Of Dr. Seuss.

 

[animalrescuer]

I am. It was one of my favorite videos as a kid. I still love it. I love Robin Williams narrating The Cat in the Hat, he made it a lot of fun!

Matt Frewer was great as The Cat, a lot of the guest stars were great.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

I remember when I was in school, we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss every March 2.

Forget how it went since it was a long time ago, but it involved teachers reading various books by him. Maybe going around to the different classrooms by grade level, but I’m not sure.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Oh. And I even dressed up as him in 4th grade as well.

Still have the picture of me in costume as him holding my book report along with a little doll.