Pop Smart - The good, the bad and the Grinches: Dr. Seuss on the big and small screen

Just like the Cat in the Hat barging in to enliven bored kids on a rainy day, Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Geisel) brought fun and anarchy to the dreary landscape of Dick-and-Jane children’s books in the baby boom era and beyond. Seuss’ picture books, with their plush, friendly characters and impossible architecture (reminiscent of Dalí and Escher, to eggheads) made learning to read fun for kids, while their relieved parents could take pleasure in reciting his rhyming, rolling cadences.

In trying to adapt Seuss’ works, Hollywood has puzzled until its puzzlers were sore, concocting works of genius, pathetic desecrations and mixed successes in between, as shown in this retrospective inspired by the CGI Horton Hears a Who! (reviewed here):’’


“Horton Hatches the Egg” (1942)

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Fourteen years before Horton heard the Whos in print, Seuss introduced the faithful elephant in 1940’s Horton Hatches the Egg, one of his first books. Animator Bob Clampett directed the mildly amusing adaptation for Warner Bros.’ “Merrie Melodies” cartoons. If you’re the kind of person who complains about dark humor and pop references in modern-day animation (like I sometimes do), check out the Katharine Hepburn and Peter Lorre impressions, and even the suicide joke.’’