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- [00:00]
A
Well folks, we have a classic episode for you this week. It's one of our favorite guys commonly called Dr. Seuss and we think you.
- [00:11]
B
Will like it on a log. We think you will like it with a frog. We think you will like it next to a goose. We think you will like it riding on a moose.
- [00:21]
A
We hope that you'd like it. We hope it's your jam. You can eat it gluten free or with ham. This is the the story of Dr. Seuss's most famous book, Green Eggs and Ham. By 2016 it had sold over 8 million copies, but he wrote it on a bet.
- [00:40]
B
Yeah, try it.
- [00:41]
A
You might like it.
- [00:42]
B
Let's jump right in. This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:50]
A
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- [01:06]
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- [01:17]
B
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- [03:40]
A
Ridiculous history is a production of iheartradio foreign welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you for tuning in. I'm. I am pumped about today's episode.
- [04:15]
B
Are we gonna do it in a box?
- [04:18]
A
Are we going to do it about a fox?
- [04:19]
B
Are we gonna do it while eating some lox?
- [04:22]
A
Are we going to do it in a basement beneath Fort Knox?
- [04:25]
B
Oh, that sounds like the plot of National Treasure.
- [04:28]
A
Right? Right. Well, this is a show that's giving us an excuse to talk about. I don't know about you, my friend, but one of my favorite authors when I was growing up is Just a wee Ben Bolan. I loved Shel Silverstein, Don Dr. Seuss and Stephen King.
- [04:45]
B
Wow, that explains so much about how you've turned out.
- [04:50]
A
Thanks, man. Hey, who are you?
- [04:52]
B
I'm Noel.
- [04:53]
A
It's good to see you.
- [04:54]
B
And I'm gonna do it in a hole, possibly while eating cereal from a bowl. I'm not as good at this as Theodor Seuss Geisel.
- [05:04]
A
That's right. That's right. We have to also ask super producer Casey Pegram. Did you read Dr. Seuss as a child? Casey?
- [05:16]
B
Absolutely, I did.
- [05:17]
A
Yeah. What were some of your favorite books? I'm terrible at remembering anything childhood related. It kind of all flew out of my brain at some point, but I know I did. I know I had the books around. I could not tell you titles. I would probably be able to identify them if I went and looked at covers online, but that'd be about it.
- [05:35]
B
The covers are a big giveaway. That's what gets burned into my memory. I don't remember the titles very much either, Casey, but lately I've been kind of exploring them, especially doing this research. And it was a real nostalgia. Nostalgia blast from the past. That's redundant.
- [05:49]
A
That was good.
- [05:51]
B
A nostalgia blast is already a blast from the past.
- [05:53]
A
Well, if it was a nostalgia blast that happened in the past. If you're remembering a time nostalgia Blast hit you. So like, even if it was just 20 minutes ago, it still works That's.
- [06:02]
B
A good point, Ben. Thank you for saving me.
- [06:03]
A
No, no, I gotta ask, before we go any further, did you have one book by Seuss that really, like, stuck out in your brain?
- [06:11]
B
I do. It was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Cause I distinctly remember that being the first thing where I was aw of the fact that I could read.
- [06:19]
A
Oh, that's metacognition right there, my friend.
- [06:21]
B
It really is. It really is. I mean, and I might be manufacturing that memory, but it stuck with me. I remember being very proud of myself that I could read. But I also think it might have been some combination of memorization as well, because it was read to me. And I think I may have been looking at it and reading it from memory and thinking that I was actually reading the words because I was very, very little. This is a very early memory.
- [06:42]
A
And you also have a stunning innate sense of rhythm and cadence, as does Dr. Theodor Seuss.
- [06:49]
B
Geisel.
- [06:49]
A
Yes, Geisel, Geisel. For the record, my favorite for a long time was the Butter Battle book. I thought that thing was an epic tale of like tragedy and heartbreak and the human condition.
- [07:03]
B
Well, that's the thing that's neat about this guy's books is they kind of have these big lofty themes, like the Lorax, for example, which is sort of environmentalist look on conservation and like saving the forest and how man is like raping and pillaging Mother Earth and all that stuff, but not in a particularly heavy handed or pedantic way. And in a way that's pretty approachable to, you know, youngsters or whatever, but still has some pretty important messages.
- [07:32]
A
Yeah, I think that's a great point. And one thing, one thing that a lot of kids don't know when we're growing up and reading Dr. Seuss books is that Theodore himself was allegedly not the biggest fan of children, but he was a really interesting guy. And I think you and I probably had a similar moment later in life where we realized that his family originally pronounced the name Seuss as Zoice. Like Z, O, I, C, E. Yikes. Which I think is a great word.
- [08:03]
B
Zoicks. Zoice is what I would say. He's interesting for a lot of reasons. He got his start working in advertising as a cartoonist, and there's actually some really problematic cartoons you can dig up that he did for. It's like a mosquito spray called Zeet or something like that, or bleep. I don't know, but it's like all of these kind of African jungle scenes. With his very recognizable elephant. It looks like something out of one of his books, only it's got a lot of natives depicted in that horrible way that you see in early Disney animations or Warner Brothers cartoons that are now considered completely embarrassing to those companies that are responsible for all this classic children's entertainment. The same was true for Geisel. And he also did some propaganda around the Japanese with some pretty nasty depictions of those folks during World War II. During World War II, exactly.
- [09:01]
A
Yeah. He was nothing if not prolific. But we did feel it would be remiss on our part if we did not include the less than wonderful whimsical aspects of his life. You know what I mean? He was a great cartoonist and a great writer, but still a person. And you might be surprised to learn the process that he used to write a lot of these books. The guy was so prolific. He has what, over 40 children's books. And that's not counting any of his advertisement stuff. That's not counting the short lived comic strip he did before called Hedgy, I believe. But the weird thing is, while we all kind of, I think, naturally want to have this romanticized idea of a guy who just wakes up in a very bright, pastel, cartoony house and says, what wonderful lessons will I teach children today? That's not the case. In fact, there was a lot of calculation that went into the way he wrote books. His first successful children's book was called Cat in the Hat. And the story about Cat in the Hat is really surprising. It starts with a guy named John Hershey, who was a big time journalist. And in 1954, when writing in Life magazine, he put out an article called why Do Students Bog down on First R? A local committee sheds light on National Problem Colon reading. That was colon, the punctuation mark, not reading colons.
- [10:36]
B
And is that the one that was kind of a backlash against those super dull Dick and Jane primer books?
- [10:41]
A
Yes, just the same.
- [10:42]
B
Which is like, see Dick walk, see Jane Walk. 2 There is a dog. It is spot, watch, spot walk to Jane, stuff like that, Right?
- [10:53]
A
Yeah. Because they had a more rigid system of introducing vocabulary words to children. And after reading this article, the director of Houghton Mifflin, the publishing company, the director of Houghton Mifflin's educational division, a guy named William Spalding, got Theodore Geisel in the room and he said, look, I need you to write a story that first graders actually like. The actual quote is, I need you to write a story that first graders can't put down. And then he put on some weird restrictions.
- [11:24]
B
I love this.
- [11:25]
A
Yeah, this part was really interesting to me too. So there was a list that Spalding had, which I guess came from the educational division of 348 words that were selected from a standard first graders vocabulary list. And Spalding said, okay, Theo, you've got to write this book. But you can only use words from this list and you can't use them all. You can only use what, 225?
- [11:52]
B
Exactly. Yeah. And I think originally he wanted the story to be about like a queen cat and a king cat, but queen wasn't on the list, so he had to like adjust. And then he realized that hat rhymed with cat and that was a good starting point. And the rest is history, which.
- [12:06]
A
Yeah, it took him nine months to write this book, primarily, I believe, because of that word restriction. And according to the story, he didn't quite hit 225. It was still a little bit longer. Right?
- [12:21]
B
Yeah. I think he, you know, if we're going to call that a bet, then he sort of failed the exact parameters that were given to him. But. But he came Damn close.
- [12:30]
A
Yeah. 236 words. And I get the feeling this was almost more of a mandate from his boss. I love thinking about what the original story with the king cat and the queen cat would have been because now I see this picture of Theodore Geisel, like pulling his hair out and gnashing his teeth and trying to figure out how to depict this cat as somehow regal or kingly. And then the best he could come up with is, all right, he's got a hat because we can't use crown. I feel like that's what happens.
- [13:00]
B
That's probably true. That's a good point. And of course, when I say the rest is history, I mean literary history. It sold a million copies right off the rip. I think in the first couple of years that it was out in print. Right? Yeah. And he was able to quit his day job as an ad guy, an admin, and went on to become a whimsical children's book writer full time.
- [13:24]
A
Zo. That's my new exclamation.
- [13:26]
B
I love it. That's good, Ben. That's quite good.
- [13:28]
A
I also, like, what was the name of that pesticide company? Was it Z? Or was it something.
- [13:34]
B
Oh, you know, I actually looked it up. It's called Flit.
- [13:36]
A
Flit?
- [13:37]
B
Yeah, like, you know, bugs, they flit. And this is what you squirt at them to make them stop flitting forever.
- [13:42]
A
Stop the flit. I don't know why I'm feeling these catchphrases so much, my friend, but we know that a lot of people love the way Zois wrote. And so you know what? I'm just going to call him Dr. Seuss for this show, for our purposes here. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Okay. It just feels more comfortable, you know what I mean?
- [14:03]
B
We all know who Dr. Seuss is, right?
- [14:05]
A
But this Dr. Zois guy, yeah, he.
- [14:08]
B
Sounds like some sort of mad scientist, so he does.
- [14:12]
A
So this guy's career takes off. He becomes a prolific author of children's books that are loved around the world, especially the English speaking world, obviously. And then in 1960, just about three years after Cat in the Hat's come out, he has a strange conversation with a guy named Bennett Cerf, the co founder of Random House.
- [14:38]
B
He does very similar to the conversation he had with Mr. Hershey that kicked off his career in such a huge way with Cat in the Hat. This guy really ups the ante here in terms of what that first bet, I guess, or challenge would have been. And he challenges Seuss to write a children's book that uses 50 unique words, or less unique being individual words.
- [15:03]
A
Which sounds like, if you're just thinking about this initially, at first blush, this could sound like, hey, that's enough words for a children's book. It's not. Because what they mean by unique words is that, let's say if you had a word that was. I'll pick one. Admiral.
- [15:20]
B
Sure.
- [15:21]
A
Right. Then you can use that one word as many times as you would like.
- [15:25]
B
Right. It's like that vocabulary list we talked about earlier. And I think it was around 260 words for cat in the Hat. And that's a pretty relatively straightforward sing songy kind of like simple language book. So this is like really taking it to the next level because to use 50 words and still have it a tell a story and not just be completely.
- [15:48]
A
Just see dick run.
- [15:50]
B
Right, exactly. So he took this as a challenge and he delivered.
- [15:54]
A
I propose that we play a game with the listeners, Noel, because we have this list of the 50 words we do. Okay, so let's, let's read out some of these words. Not, not all 50. And let's like skip the ones that automatically give it away. And let's see if you can guess which book this is. Okay, Are you ready, folks? All right. A, AM and anywhere are B, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, hear, house, I if in let like, I think that's pretty hard to guess. We didn't have any really juicy in.
- [16:29]
B
There you're not going to finish? Is that it?
- [16:31]
A
Oh no. Do you want. Do you want to do the rest of them?
- [16:33]
B
Are you skipping the word green? Is that in there?
- [16:35]
A
Oh yeah. Casey on the case.
- [16:40]
B
Wow. Spoiler alert.
- [16:42]
A
I love it.
- [16:43]
B
No, we hadn't gotten there yet, but yes. In fact, green eggs and ham are all in this list. And that's ham like the food, not ham. Like hard as a moth, right?
- [16:54]
A
That was a little bit before Seuss's time. Or maybe that was part of his uncollected work.
- [17:00]
B
I actually read somewhere that he coined the word crunk.
- [17:02]
A
Did he?
- [17:03]
B
But it didn't mean the same thing as it means in the parlance of today.
- [17:06]
A
Oh, that's so cool.
- [17:06]
B
But it appeared first in print. Dr. Seuss book.
- [17:11]
A
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- [20:55]
A
This book that he wrote on a bet is known today as Green Eggs and Ham. And I was thinking there's a neat coincidence here when he has this conversation with Bennett Cerf. Um, when they make that bet for what, $50, right? It works out to a dollar a word, which I thought was. I don't know if that's on purpose, but it's pretty neat.
- [21:16]
B
And I think a $50 bet back then would have been a couple hundred bucks now, right? 300 bucks maybe.
- [21:23]
A
Yeah, a little close. Maybe a little closer to four.
- [21:25]
B
Oh, okay.
- [21:26]
A
But, but yeah, so it's, it's still a significant amount of money, but to this guy who's a best selling author now, it's not like a make or break thing as far as the bank account's concerned.
- [21:37]
B
Do we know where this falls in the Dr. Seuss bibliography? This is sort of mid career.
- [21:42]
A
This was 1960 when the bet occurs. So that's right after, that's three years after Cat in the Hat.
- [21:49]
B
Oh, okay.
- [21:49]
A
So it's relatively early in his career.
- [21:51]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [21:51]
A
And so when he writes this book, we can only imagine that it's a little less of a laborious process because he's already been through it before with Cat in the Hat.
- [22:01]
B
Yeah. Except this is, like, a little bit more challenging. Right. This is really paired, like, you know, even limiting his. His verbal palette even more.
- [22:08]
A
Right, yeah. So we mentioned that this has a. One of the brilliant things about this book is it does actually have a plot that you can follow. You know what I mean? There's some tension in there. What's the plot, Noel? Our protagonist is named Sam I am.
- [22:24]
B
He is. He is. Well, yeah. And then there's him. Right. And then there's this other charact who goes nameless. And he's sort of the sad sack kind of fellow who Sam keeps trying to force him to eat green eggs and ham. And he proceeds to go through these various scenarios, as our buddy the Quizzter would say.
- [22:47]
A
There we go.
- [22:48]
B
And the guy just keeps. He's, like, running away from him. It's actually kind of a stalker situation. Cause the nameless character is literally trying to escape this Sam I Am who keeps popping up with green eggs and ham, you know, and then he's like, you know, would you do it on a house, a car, a tree with all these different things?
- [23:07]
A
With a mouse? Would a mouse change the scene enough for you?
- [23:10]
B
Exactly. Exactly. And at the end of the day, they're surrounded by the carnage that's been caused by this dude literally trying to run for his life from this psychotic Sam I Am character. I mean, he really is. If you look back at the book now, Sam I Am is very sinister.
- [23:26]
A
He goes hard on.
- [23:27]
B
He goes, ham.
- [23:28]
A
Yeah, he really does.
- [23:29]
B
Yeah. And green eggs. And at the end, the moral of the story is, the nameless, grumpy dude eats the green eggs and ham. And he likes it.
- [23:39]
A
Writes Sam, if you will let me be, I will try them. You will see. And then he tries them and say, I like green eggs and ham. I do. I like them, Sam I am. And then it goes on. The refrain flips.
- [23:53]
B
Yep.
- [23:54]
A
And now he's talking.
- [23:55]
B
I want to do it in all those places.
- [23:56]
A
Bring the mouse, please.
- [23:58]
B
A fox, you say? I'll eat this green eggs and ham with anything. But I know you can only be a fox. A. And what else?
- [24:06]
A
A goat.
- [24:07]
B
A goat.
- [24:07]
A
Yeah. That's weird, because if you look at the way. One thing that's really impressive about this is if you look at just the lyrics or the poetry itself typed out, it's four pages long, which surprised me, because it's four pages, 50 words.
- [24:25]
B
That's right.
- [24:25]
A
It's tough.
- [24:26]
B
It's all about placement. It's like a comic book. I mean a lot of these things are like graphic novels and the way the text is very much incorporated into the design. And let's not forget Seuss wrote this, this text and he drew all the images. And he's single handedly responsible for creating these worlds which are very uniquely him. You know, I think he's, he's a pretty interesting artist, kind of a renaissance man in that way. I also think it's funny that both ham and goat both have modern day acronym equivalents.
- [24:53]
A
And crunk. You know, I think he was onto something.
- [24:55]
B
I think he was too.
- [24:56]
A
We should, we should do a deep dive read into the works of Dr. Seuss. We should also mention, by the way, that yes, Dr. Seuss did succeed. This wasn't like a cat in the hat thing where he went a little over his word count. He managed to make a coherent story with only 50 words. He turned it around really quickly. It was published on August 12, 1960 and it became his best selling book. You know it's purposely meant for beginning readers, right. But there is one, one twist to the story that I find hilarious just because of its petty nature.
- [25:32]
B
There's a couple of good twists. I want to hear yours.
- [25:34]
A
Okay, well here's one. I think this the question that's on a lot of our minds right now. What happened to the bet? It turns out Bennett Serif didn't pay up at all.
- [25:44]
B
What a jerk.
- [25:45]
A
And he was a co founder of Random House. It's not like he was hurting for the scratch.
- [25:48]
B
Did they publish the book?
- [25:50]
A
Yes, yes they did, Noel. Random House and the Living Books Company.
- [25:54]
B
So it stands to reason that this dude not only didn't pay up, he benefited from it. Double cheapskate.
- [26:00]
A
Yeah, massive benefits. What's one of your twists?
- [26:02]
B
There's a couple of other good ones. One of them is that there were some pretty bad reviews for this book specifically from some children's librarians. The New York Public Library actually had a card catalog of hand typed children's book reviews by their librarian staff. And here is a choice excerpt from one of these reviews. Sam, I am won't eat green eggs and ham until after many pages of learning words he tries them. Book is typical of Seuss late period and his output being as prolific as it is. It's alarming to think of the onslaught that can ensue if these books are continually added to the collection. This is the best line. There must be better ways of teaching a child to read than this. Not recommended.
- [26:45]
A
I saw that one too. It was strange because we see this kind of harsh reviewing repeated. It's a cyclical thing in children's literature. Right. Like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs also got some shade thrown at it.
- [27:00]
B
I think there was an issue with it being, like, not vegan friendly. I think that's like more of like our PC Police kind of situation that we're living in right now. There's a good one here, Ben, that you told me about where a federal judge actually referenced this work in an opinion, an official judicial opinion.
- [27:20]
A
Yes, it's true. In 2007, a U.S. district Court judge named James Muirhead received a hard boiled egg in the mail from an inmate. The inmate was sending this hard boiled egg through the Post to protest his diet while he was incarcerated. The judge ordered the egg destroyed with the following. With the following language in his court order. I do not like eggs in the file. I do not like them in any style. I will not take them fried or boiled. I will not take them poached or broiled. I will not take them soft or scrambled. Despite an argument. Well rambled, no fan. I am of the egg at hand. Destroy that egg today. Today, Today. I say without delay. This judge must have had a long week.
- [28:10]
B
He's a real character.
- [28:13]
A
You know what? We could also do an episode on bizarre judge rulings, because there have been judges who respond with poetry sometimes in very serious situations. And there have been judges who, because they have complete jurisdiction, have imposed some really weird, unorthodox penalties for small crimes.
- [28:34]
B
Yeah, remember that Curb youb Enthusiasm episode where Larry has to wear the sandwich board with the, like, I steal forks from restaurants or whatever. The Scarlet Letter punishment, I believe, is what they call that. That's a thing.
- [28:44]
A
Yeah, yeah. And this is just one aspect of the tremendous influence that Green Eggs and Ham specifically has had on modern culture. I think now it's in 60 different formats. It's in a multitude of languages, which confuses me because surely there would be some languages where it's more difficult to do that story just because of sentence structure or something, right?
- [29:10]
B
Oh, yeah, it does seem that way.
- [29:11]
A
Well, still, they pulled it off. I want to. I would love to have a copy of Green Eggs and Ham in a different language because it would help me learn that language pretty easily, right? Or 50 words of it, at least.
- [29:24]
B
Yeah. Well, you know, you would have the. Like a. Like a first grader's grasp, perhaps. No less. Kindergarten, maybe.
- [29:30]
A
Maybe.
- [29:31]
B
Yeah. And if you so desired, you could potentially use the works of Dr. Seuss to learn Latin, even though it's sort of incorrectly said that Latin is a dead language, but you can definitely find different books that are translated into Latin. But here's the thing, it's hard to translate this kind of stylized writing like Dr. Seuss into a language like that, isn't it?
- [29:57]
A
Yeah. According to Terence Tunberg, who's been teaching Latin for decades and decades, Green Eggs and Ham was very difficult to translate. He and his spouse Jennifer, had already translated several children's books into Latin, and they tackled Green Eggs and Ham with the title being can you help me out with the Latin here, Noel?
- [30:19]
B
Oh boy. Verent ova verit perna with lots of exclamation marks.
- [30:26]
A
Yeah. The Tunbergs have also translated other Dr. Seuss books specifically, but they said this wouldn't was one of the toughest because of the simplified language and the short length. But it's worth doing because it gives Latin a more contemporary feel and it feels less like a dead language.
- [30:46]
B
Exactly.
- [30:47]
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- [34:28]
A
And that is the story of green eggs and ham. So far, however, that is not the end of these Dr. Seuss facts. We found several. Some of them are darker, some of them are just kind of hilarious. Yeah, like, did you hear about how he's traumatized by Teddy Roosevelt?
- [34:45]
B
Yeah, it did, Ben. It had to do with some money he got from his grandfather. Isn't that right?
- [34:49]
A
Yeah. World War I was in full swing and Dr. Seuss was a Boy Scout and he went door to door. And eventually, because his grandfather bought $1,000 worth of war bonds, he became one of the most successful war bond salesmen in his town. And. And they were brought on stage, him and nine other Boy Scouts to the municipal auditorium. And who was there to present the award? Theodore Roosevelt himself, the President of the United States.
- [35:22]
B
Yeah, he was there to officiate this ceremony to pin a medal on these plucky young lads. And old Teddy Seuss was the last one in line to receive this major award. But it turns out that they didn't have enough med. And Roosevelt gets to him and he doesn't have anything. He just looks over at the people on stage. He's like, who the hell is this kid? Get him out of here. And they. They trundle him off stage. Yeah. And he gets nothing. It's like Willy Wonka style, man.
- [35:54]
A
For the rest of his life, he had a crippling fear of crowds. And he actually skipped a lot of speaking engagements when he was a famous author because he was terrified they would be publicly humiliated again.
- [36:06]
B
Well, there's also not a lot of interviews with him, like video interviews with him that you can even find.
- [36:10]
A
Right. Let's see, what else his first book was. The Complete and Unabridged Pocketbook of Boners.
- [36:18]
B
Wow. Is it just like a visual compendium of different boners?
- [36:25]
A
This is back when a boner just meant an error. Like, that was a real boner.
- [36:29]
B
Oh, okay. Okay, Got it.
- [36:31]
A
So the book was. It was a compilation, but it was a compilation of lists of silly, incorrect answers to questions given by children. It did have a bunch of risque jokes and illustrations. He knew the other meaning of boners, you know.
- [36:45]
B
He did. He was a bawdy boy.
- [36:46]
A
He was. He was. And I guess you could find a copy of that. It first published in 1931, and New York Times called it hilarious.
- [36:57]
B
I love succinct New York Times reviews like that. They're usually so overly verbose. Have you ever seen Halloween is Grinch Night, Ben?
- [37:06]
A
Yeah, I love it.
- [37:06]
B
It's so trippy.
- [37:08]
A
It's so cool.
- [37:09]
B
It's awesome. And it's very psychedelic and heady and strange. So if you haven't seen that one, it's a quick one to watch around Halloween time. It's actually pretty spooky with this little kid and there's all these creatures and Halloween is grinchneight. And the Hackensacks are yowling. We didn't even talk about that. He invents such great creature names.
- [37:26]
A
I love. I'm glad you mentioned this because I have a little bit of a bone to pick with this. I love Halloween is Grinch Knight. However, I think in some recent years, Dr. Seuss's good name has been besmirched with terrible film adaptations such as the Cat in the Hat.
- [37:45]
B
Oh, with Mike Myers.
- [37:47]
A
Yeah.
- [37:47]
B
Gross grown.
- [37:48]
A
I know. And I used to love Mike Myers when I was a kid. You probably did too, with Wayne's World, Saturday Night Live, all that stuff. Austin Powers, but apparently behind the scenes. And I haven't met the Guy at least. So I can't confirm or deny this, but apparently behind the scenes story is he's a real pillow to work with.
- [38:06]
B
I have heard this.
- [38:06]
A
You've heard it too?
- [38:08]
B
Especially like on Shrek or whatever. Yeah, no, I've definitely heard that. Which is a shame. You know what else is quite bad?
- [38:15]
A
What's that?
- [38:15]
B
How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It was like a short little book and a short little cartoon, and they try to stretch it into like a two hour movie.
- [38:23]
A
It was a great cartoon already.
- [38:25]
B
It's wonderful.
- [38:25]
A
You know what I mean?
- [38:26]
B
I don't know. It's just. I wish they would stop.
- [38:28]
A
Are we. Does this mean that we're getting old? Isn't there another Grinch reboot coming out as we're recording this?
- [38:33]
B
But I think it's animated or it's like CGI or whatever.
- [38:36]
A
Oh, he also invented the word nerd, didn't he?
- [38:39]
B
Yep, he did.
- [38:39]
A
This guy is a real wordsmith. So, one last thing I would like to contribute. I want to see your opinion on this, Noel, and we want to hear your opinion. Ridiculous historians. Apparently Dr. Seuss had dabbled in erotica.
- [38:55]
B
Excuse me?
- [38:56]
A
Erotica.
- [38:57]
B
Oh, that's what I thought you said.
- [39:00]
A
He had contributed art to something called the Bedroom Companion that had a comic showing. Well, let's just say he contributed to that book. And as a condition of his contract later on in life, he said, okay, I'll write children's books for you only if you let me write an adult book first. The Seven Lady Godivas. A story about seven naked women.
- [39:31]
B
Yeah, and they're riding on one of his, you know, like signature kind of nondescript beasts. Like, it's not. It's not a horse, it's not a hippo. I don't know what it is.
- [39:40]
A
Not a donkey.
- [39:40]
B
It's his own thing.
- [39:41]
A
It's got traits of all of those. It's probably got a name like a marker Knoff or something.
- [39:46]
B
Exactly. There you go, Ben. And it is, you know, astride this creature is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 naked women of all shapes and sizes.
- [39:56]
A
Yeah. In his defense of all shapes and sizes, here's the thing.
- [39:59]
B
Why do we need to defend him? This is delightful.
- [40:01]
A
Well, the book flopped. And he was kind of PO'd about it because he had to settle for a career as a children's writer. This is a quote from Dr. Seuss. Okay, this is not USA. It's a quote from him. He said, I tried to draw the sexiest babes I could, but they came out looking absurd.
- [40:19]
B
Well, what the. What is it? They look like Dr. Seuss characters.
- [40:23]
A
What did he think of them?
- [40:23]
B
There's nothing sexy about them.
- [40:26]
A
They've all got, like, who?
- [40:27]
B
Hair.
- [40:28]
A
Yes. They're all Whovian.
- [40:29]
B
Yeah, big time. Well, you can't say the guy wasn't interesting. When did he pass?
- [40:34]
A
Ben, Dr. Seuss actually lived a very long time. He did not pass away until September 24, 1991. He was 87 years old.
- [40:43]
B
I remember that. I remember when it happened. I mean, I was very young, but I definitely distinctly remember the death of Dr. Seuss.
- [40:49]
A
You know who else? Another personal legend of ours who passed away recently. Stan Lee.
- [40:55]
B
It's true. RIP Stan.
- [40:57]
A
You know, it's strange because I'm sure that he'll still be in cameos for a few more movies because they must have filmed a bunch.
- [41:05]
B
I guess they would have had to. Yeah, that makes sense. Do it in a batch.
- [41:08]
A
And this reminds me, he was in his 90s, right? Yeah, he did look great. And he also, growing up as a kid who didn't have a ton of friends, I think Stan Lee taught me a ton about reading and really added to my vocabulary. You know what I mean? He's. He's the guy who brought back Excelsior.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah, I keep saying that. I don't know what that means.
- [41:28]
A
It's like, excellent.
- [41:29]
B
Oh, okay. Got it. There were a lot of tributes to him when he passed away, and everyone was saying Excelsior. I thought it was some sort of stomach medicine.
- [41:37]
A
It's. It's used to. I guess it means that something is of superior quality.
- [41:44]
B
Got it.
- [41:44]
A
Like a little more flashy way of saying Grade A number one. But the reason I'm bringing up Stan Lee here, Noel, is because you and I made a mandate and we got a kind of a bumpy start. Our mandate was to recommend comic books. Remember?
- [42:02]
B
We did do that.
- [42:03]
A
We did do that.
- [42:03]
B
We did say that. And we kind of. You know, this is a perfect episode to do that in because I would argue that Seuss is kind of a graphic novelist in some way.
- [42:12]
A
I would agree. I would agree.
- [42:14]
B
What are you digging these days?
- [42:15]
A
These days I'm digging some. Okay. I've been really into some horror comics because, you know, it's always kind of Halloween in my heart. And there's a comic called Regression, which is terrifying. Not for children. It's about reincarnation. And then there's another comic series that's complete called the Clean Room, which is about aliens or maybe something different. To say any more would be to do you a disservice.
- [42:46]
B
Cool. Have you had a chance to check out Nameless?
- [42:50]
A
Nameless, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nameless was the one shot four issues, right?
- [42:54]
B
Yes. By Grant Morrison, who I'm always in love with everything he does. Just really trippy out there. Existential dread almost. He kind of veers into Lovecraftian territory. And this one is no exception. This one's about, like, space madness and just like demonic possession and Gnosticism and all kinds of crazy stuff. Doorways to other dimensions. But it's a tight little story and the art is insane. Insanely not for the faint of heart.
- [43:23]
A
Yeah. Not only is it not for children, I would say it's not for you if you're already feeling a little bit, you know, less than good. Agreed.
- [43:33]
B
It's a bit of a bummer.
- [43:34]
A
I'm so glad you read that one, man. That's one of those that I keep buying copies of and I keep giving them away.
- [43:40]
B
Yeah, I have a hardcover of it. The art is just alone is fantastic. So we have met our mandate for this episode. We talked about a crazy, weird children's book. Guy recommended some comics, had a good time, learned the origins of the word.
- [43:55]
A
Krunk and nerd invented a new phrase to yell out an exclamation. Zoice.
- [44:00]
B
Zoice. It's also kind of like noice.
- [44:03]
A
Noice.
- [44:03]
B
Zoice.
- [44:04]
A
Noice. Zoice. And we hope that you enjoyed this episode even half as much as we enjoyed exploring this story with you. That's all for today. Stay tuned for our next episode when we examine beer. A lot of beer.
- [44:23]
B
A whole lot of beer.
- [44:24]
A
Like a dangerous amount of beer.
- [44:26]
B
Yeah.
- [44:26]
A
In the meantime, thanks, of course, to our super producer, Casey Peckram. Thanks to our research associate, Gabe.
- [44:34]
B
Thanks to Alex Williams, our pal who composed our theme. And thanks to you, Ben, for being a dapper and intelligent co host as always.
- [44:42]
A
Thanks, man. I recently did my laundry. That's probably.
- [44:46]
B
You smell fresh and clean, my man.
- [44:48]
A
Thank you, Noel. You're welcome.
- [44:50]
B
Goodbye, everyone. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, folks.
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A
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That's Apu Apus Edu there's nothing like sinking into luxury.
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@Washablesofas.Com you'll find the Annabe sofa which combines ultimate comfort and design at a affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now@washablesofas.com Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
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Ah, come on.
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Why is this taking so long?
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This thing is ancient.
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LA's most successful attorney, Jack Stewart defends.
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A young actor accused of murder.
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Follow Emma Yatty Coronaldi, Morris Chestnut, Joseph Sikora and guest stars Kash Dahl and Lori Harvey as they face off in the year's most sensational trial. While in the pursuit of justice, every move counts. Reasonable Doubt Season 3 is streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus September 18th. Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers terms apply.
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This is an I heart podcast.