Jim’s procedure this week went well! He moves to a room to rest . Next they schedule heart operation in a number of days if things stay on track. Today he’s still recovering but doing good. No phone in this intensive care. He is encouraged it’s getting behind him. He asked no calls till he gets to regular room maybe tomorrow.
Jim said you could share he had an operation on an artery in his neck and recovered well from it. He is now in a regular room and awaiting the schedule for his bigger operation in a number of days. He’s feeling really up and encouraged and you know Jim he’s resilient and focused on getting better! Thank everyone for continued thoughts and prayers!
Prior to his medical emergency, Jim provided us with this weeks column – and we are posting it according to his wishes.
Jim does not use social media – but he will see this post, so if you’d like to send a message please place it in the comments below.
Get well, Jim. – Jerry Beck
Suspended Animation #410
When animation fans think about the animation of Dr.Seuss, most probably immediately think of the two Chuck Jones animation television specials How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) and Horton Hears a Who (1970) or perhaps the Bob Clampett animated Warner Brothers short Horton Hatches an Egg (1942).
The “lost” original title card for this classic cartoon – The film element is long gone. The original artwork was saved by Bob Clampett – and the art is part of Clampett estate.
George Pal for his Puppetoons series produced stop-motion adaptations of The 500 Hats Of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) and And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (1944) that were both narrated by actor Victor Jory. Both were nominated for Academy Awards.
Seuss was involved with the creation of the character, the writing and the supervision of the Private Snafu cartoons during World War II and later his children’s record about Gerald McBoing-Boing became a UPA short in 1950.
Preproduction began on The Cat in the Hat (1971) television special at Chuck Jones’ MGM Animation/Visual Arts studio in the late 1960s along with Horton Hears a Who! among other Dr. Seuss projects.
After MGM stopped animation production and closed down its animation department for good in December 1970, production was moved to De Patie-Freleng Enterprises operated by David PePatie and Friz Freleng making it officially the company’s first Dr. Seuss television special.
Author Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and David DePatie were both represented by International Creative Management (ICM) and DePatie’s agent asked DePatie if he was interested in taking over the work on the special. Friz Freleng had previously worked with Geisel on the Private Snafu wartime shorts.
Publicly, Geisel grumbled about doing animation but realizing it was a good source for income and publicity that increased the sales of his books, he agreed. Chuck Jones (who is credited as producer on the special) and his staff were retained by DePatie–Freleng in the production of the special although Jones was mostly uninvolved at that point going on to other projects.
Hawley Pratt is credited as director of the special and supposedly got rid of the storyboard that Jones had done and started over from scratch. Much of the design work seems clearly the work of DePatie-Freleng rather than Jones.
Songwriter Allan Sherman who voiced the role of the Cat loved working with Geisel. “Dr. Seuss and I are both crazy about words,” said Sherman in the Philadelphia Daily News March 2, 1971. “There we were in the studio….two grown men debating whether one of the (Cat’s) words should be poo-poodler or poobledly-poobler.”
When asked how involved Geisel was with the television specials done by DePatie-Freleng using his characters, David DePatie told Charles Brubaker in 2010, “He was a very hands-on guy. He lived down in La Jolla and he would fly over here. During the course of the production it wasn’t unusual to see him once a week.
“He was very instrumental in the creation of the series. Friz (Freleng) and I had a very good rapport with him. We enjoyed working with him and he enjoyed the studio and it was a far-cry from the bad experience he had with Chuck Jones on the earlier Christmas special. It was a very good relationship and everybody was pleased.”
Among other things, Geisel wasn’t happy with Chuck Jones’ design of the character of the Grinch in How The Grinch Stole Christmas who Geisel felt was too “cute” and seemed to resemble Jones himself more than Geisel’s illustrated version. However, Geisel did enjoy working on the lyrics to the songs on the two Jones specials which he continued to do on all the DePatie-Freleng specials.
In total, DePatie-Freleng produced seven television specials with Dr. Seuss:
The Cat in the Hat (March 1971)
The Lorax (February 1972)
Dr. Seuss on the Loose (October 1973)
The Hoober-Bloob Highway (February 1975)
Halloween is Grinch Night (October 1977)
Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You? (May 1980)
The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (May 1982)
The second special, The Lorax, received the Critics Award at the International Animated Cartoon Festival and the Geisels and the Friz Frelengs traveled together to Zagreb to accept the award.
“Dr. Seuss on the Loose”
The Hoober-Bloob Highway was not based on a Seuss book but an original teleplay by Geisel about a location high above Earth where yet-to-be-born children were given the opportunity to decide if they wanted to live as humans on Earth. Geisel was especially happy with the songs he composed with Dean Elliott and felt the work was similar to a rock musical like Jesus Christ Superstar.
He told the Los Angeles Times newspaper in August 30, 1971, “I’ve done so much lyric writing in putting the television things together that I’d like to do an opera. Television is the biggest, most exciting medium there is. I just want to live long enough to do something terrific in TV.”
Even though it was an original teleplay, Seuss recycled some gags from his previous books including the battle of Tweedle beetles in a bottle on a poodle eating noodles from Fox in Socks (1965). Mr. Hoober-Bloob was a look-alike of the doorman in I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew (1965). Other gags are reused from Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953), On Beyond Zebra! (1955) and If I Ran The Zoo (1950).
“The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat”
“I knew it wasn’t a good title,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m experimenting to see how The Cat in the Hat will play against the Grinch. I think it will.”
The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (even though in the end the Cat gets the better of the Grinch) won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. Geisel won an additional Emmy for the songs he had written with Joe Raposo who he had also worked with on Pontoffel Pock and Halloween is Grinch Night.
Hans Conried was set to reprise voicing the Grinch but passed away before the recording and was replaced by Bob Holt. Mason Adams took over the role of the Cat originated by Allan Sherman who had passed away.
The special was actually released as a Marvel Productions product as Marvel had absorbed DePatie-Freleng at that point although it was finished by the same DePatie-Freleng staff who had worked on the previous specials.
In 2005, the DePatie-Freleng specials The Grinch Grinches Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and The Lorax were released on one DVD called the Seuss Celebration.
Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
Jim Korkis is an internationally respected animation historian who in recent years has devoted his attention to the many worlds of Disney. He was a columnist for a variety of animation magazines. With his former writing partner, John Cawley, he authored several animation related books including The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, How to Create Animation, Cartoon Confidential and Get Animated’s Animation Art Buyer’s Guide. He taught animation classes at the Disney Institute in Florida as well as instructing classes on acting and animation history for Disney Feature Animation: Florida.
I was not aware that Allan Sherman had voiced the cat in the hat. I like that book years ago when I first started reading as a kid. The thing that also drew me where the character designs! Absolutely hilarious and beautiful at the same time.
So happy to hear that Jim is pulling through. I look forward to his future posts once he is back on track.
I find it interesting Dr. Seuss was unhappy with Jones’ designs, considering the characters in UPA’s Gerald McBoing-Boing don’t look the least bit like anything in the Seuss book.
Was there a Seuss McBoing Boing book? I’m no Seuss expert, but I believe the Boing Boing story was written as an audio play (for Capitol Records), with only the record jacket featuring one lone Seuss drawing.
I also think, without doing a whit of research, that Geisel was open to Bosustow doing his own artistic “thing” with the property – as it was an audio “radio play”. I also speculate McBoing Boing’s success (and Oscar) must have also led to Geisel’s arrangement to create The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T for Columbia Pictures. So I don’t think his artistic ego was hurt by UPA.
Heck, The George Pal Puppetoons (And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins) also shed their Seussian roots in translation to the screen – and we heard no complaints there.
Apparently Mike Barrier asked Ted about his thoughts about the McBoing Boing short and if he had any issues with them changing things. Ted’s response was “No I loved it! Glad it was a huge sucess.” So it’s probably safe to assume that Ted was fine with changes if there’s a good artistic reason for it; it was just a matter of relationships and ego clashing. I get the feeling Ted was more artistically offended about people changing his works if it was done for personal reasons or if it altered the text in any way (and thankfully that was never an issue).
Also warm regards to Jim! Glad things are going well.
There is a McBoing Boing book adapted from the cartoon, but the drawings weren’t by Seuss. My kids and I enjoy it just as well, though. It makes me wish they’d do similar adaptations of Hoober Bloob Highway, Pontoffel Pock and 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
Jerry, now that you mention it, I’m obviously thinking of the cover of the record by Hal Peary.
I can see why Seuss didn’t care for Jones’ character designs. The look, the movement, all of that was pure Chuck. Only the dialogue recalls Seuss’s work.
Glad to hear you’re in good spirits, Jim, and I wish you all the best for the road ahead. Thanks also to your brothers for keeping us informed.
The Dr. Seuss specials are some of DePatie-Freleng’s best work. Having grown up with his books, I eagerly anticipated each new special as it came out and was delighted with the fidelity to the spirit of the original stories.
It’s a bit of a stretch to call Allan Sherman a “songwriter”. What he was was a song parodist in the vein of Weird Al Yankovic or MAD magazine’s Frank “Sung to the tune of” Jacobs, writing new humorous lyrics to the melodies of familiar existing songs. He took it up as a hobby after he was fired from his job as a game show producer. His next door neighbour, Harpo Marx, liked what he heard and invited him over to entertain at a party. One of the guests, George Burns, made a phone call to a record company executive, and the rest is history.
By 1971 Sherman’s recording career had tanked, having alienated his audience by mocking the youth culture of the day. Dr. Seuss, with his insightful parables on the folly of commercialism and narrow-mindedness, was much more in keeping with the Zeitgeist. Sherman must have been glad to get the gig.
As tantalising as it is to imagine a Dr. Seuss opera, it wouldn’t really be Dr. Seuss unless he personally designed every aspect of the production as well as writing the libretto. It would have taken up years of his working life, and there’s no guarantee that it would have been a success. I think it’s for the best that he stuck to writing and illustrating children’s books. He was better at that than practically anybody.
Regarding “Hoober Bloob Highway” recycling materials from Seuss’s previous books, when I contacted director Alan Zaslove about the special he told me that Seuss was unprepared with the story when he came to the studio to meet with the staff. In order to salvage it Seuss and Zaslove combed through the books in order to cobble together a special.
Good write-up! Hoping Jim pulls through.
I seemed to recall the special used material from one of Ted’s then most recent books, “Did I Ever Told You How Lucky You Are?” (1973).
Hang tough, Jim!
What’s interesting about the DePatie-Freleng specials is that they stick much closer to the original illustrations, unlike the Chuck Jones specials, where the characters are clearly redesigned to fit Chuck’s own style. Maurice Noble did the art direction for both the Jones and DePatie-Freleng specials, but his style is more discernible on the former, where they resemble his work on the later Looney Tunes and the Jones Tom & Jerrys; on the latter, he’s aping Seuss’ style more closely. I imagine this was because Seuss didn’t like Jones’ redesigns and asked DePatie-Freleng to be more faithful to his illustrations, much like how Walt Kelley disliked Jones’ work on the Pogo special.
Praying for a quick recovery, hang in there Jim! I always enjoy reading your posts on here, and the several books of yours I own. Get well soon!
The DePatie-Freleng Seuss specials hold a special place in my heart. By the late 1980s when I was a kid, they were on VHS and airing on the Disney Channel fairly regularly. I actually thought Dr. Seuss animated them, because they looked so close to his drawings. This caused me to look at the Chuck Jones specials as inauthentic, since they didn’t look like the books.
Halloween is Grinch Night and Pontoffel Pock are my favorites. I show them every year to my fourth graders (on 16mm of course) because they deserve to be seen.
Thank you for this look back. I still know all of those songs by heart, and they still hold up well today. And I will keep praying for you to heal quickly.
Glad to hear that things are going. As a long time admirer of your research and writing, I’m looking forward to more of it when you’re back in the saddle. All the best for a speedy recovery!
I think the DePatie-Freleng Grinch is cuter than the Chuck Jones version, don’t you?
It’s a shame Geisel was so hopeless about the unfortunate “5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” which clearly would have been much better served by animation. It simply couldn’t come to life as a live action film, especially with so many of the wonderful songs cut. If it had to be performed by humans, there would have been his opera for television. (Attempts were made to adapt “5,000 Fingers” to the musical stage, but they wandered too far from the source.)
I thought the film functioned well in live action but the problem was, the quality dips anytime Hans Conried is off screen. I think had it been closer Seuss’s darker material, it would have been much better but I still get a kick out of the film.
Get better, Jim! I’m glad you’re on the upswing.
As a kid, I loved most of these DePatie-Freleng Seuss specials, most of which were actually shown to my class in school. But I disliked the original Cat adaptation, in which the Cat had transformed from the book’s happy prankster into a sort of depressed character who only passively-aggressively wreaks havoc while purportedly searching the kids’ house for a lost possession. One of the odder creative decisions, even if the cartoon otherwise looked and sounded great.
Honestly, I didn’t like that one as a kid either. I was annoyed by how many things it changed from the book (“When is he going to balance all the stuff on his umbrella?”). That said, it’s at least more faithful than the Mike Myers version.
I enjoyed The Lorax adaptation the most. When I was a kid, I was shocked by how depressing it was.
I would say the Jones’ and Clampett’s films are far more engaging. The DePatie-Freleng works are very talky, the animation was merely adequate, but occasionally peppered with good moments.
Get well, soon, Jim. I look forward to reading your posts. Always informative.
Throwing my hat in the ring with DFE Dr. Seuss: warts and all, I’ve had a lot of respect and admiration for them since I was a kid (by seeing them on VHS over and over again). I feel like those specials are the closest one can get to knowing what a Dr. Seuss animated production probably would be like if he had a chance to animate them himself, more so than what was done before or since (as wonderfully brilliant as a lot of them are. Less said about the movies, the better). I even have fondness for the less regarded specials: the scores have been earworms forever!
Of the specials, the one I want to give a shoutout to the most is THE LORAX. For my money, that has some of the best work that studio ever put out. A special like that could of only worked at that specific time period. Frankly I’m surprised no one talked to Seuss or the animators more often about how faithful they were in transforming what is argueably Seuss’ most somber work into prime time animation
For sure it’s a highlight of decades that really needed them. For that matter, moments of all of them are.
The DePatie-Freleng Seuss VHSes were a big part of my childhood.
He will eat them in a box
And he will eat them with a fox
And he will eat them in a house
And he will eat them with a mouse
And he will eat them here or there
And he will eat them anywhere!
Honorable mention should be made of The Anita Kerr Singers, who played a vital role in the musical numbers for some of those Seuss specials, especially [i]Dr. Seuss On The Loose[/i] and [i]The Lorax[/i]. Kerr passed away in 2021, but her contributions to the Seuss specials and others produced by DFE will be long appreciated for generations to come, regardless of whether or not she and her accompanying singing troupe recieve any recognition for their part in them.
Can anyone confirm that TV’s Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) sang in these specials?
https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lorax_(TV_Special)
I remember that Jones remarked on the TNT Grinch special aired years later that Seuss told Chuck Jones while looking at a drawing of his (Jones’) own Grinch saying “That doesn’t look like the Grinch, that looks like you!” I kind of assumed that comment Seuss supposedly made was meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek