WEBVTT - Dr. Seuss: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.360 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.439 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. And 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.840 this is the Doctor Sois Cast, our final episode of 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:29.000 this year two eighteen. So long in the books Dr 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.200 Sois Dr Sois. That's right, you know, it's funny. Well 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:38.240 we'll get to that. All right, everything that's funny can wait? Yep, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.080 we're gonna talk serious. Dr SEUs was an author of 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.800 children's books. He was so great and also kind of racist. Chuck, 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:48.920 there's a lot of stuff in here. I wish I 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.080 didn't know. I know. I think we're about to ruin 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.200 Dr Seuss at the end of the year, right after 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:02.360 the holidays. Uh yeah, but well let's just talk about 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.200 the man. Okay, so um, we are talking. We keep 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.640 saying Dr Sois. Everybody knows him as Dr Seuss, but 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:14.040 apparently the correct pronunciation is Sois and and the guy 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.120 would know because Sois is actually his middle name. His 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.360 name is Theodore Sois Geisel or Giesel? Is it geisel 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.120 er Giesel? It would be Geisel in German. That you 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:29.360 go with a second vowel, So Theodore sois Geisel. Yeah, 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:31.760 and uh, it's sort of when I saw that, everyone 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.640 basically was like SEUs until he eventually was like fine, 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.959 like I can't fight this fight any longer. Well, they're like, 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.160 we'll spell it differently then. But they reminded me of 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.840 Joe Theisman. Oh yeah, the very famous story of the 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.440 quarterback Joe Theisman who changed his spelling or his pronunciation 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.160 to Theisman to ron with Heisman, right, which I think 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.320 is the story. I think that's true. No, No, I 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.720 think that's true. Real. Yeah, what do you think that 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.680 was just like an old football tale. No, I've never 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:01.760 heard of though, you're just being funny. Oh no, that 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.400 that really happened, and that really came back to bite 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.760 him in the rump when his thigh bone broke opened. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.280 He's like, I guess my knee would have busted if 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.240 he had just kept that these is that not okay? 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:20.200 Too soon? So we're obviously once we get into Joe 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.720 thisman leg breaking talk, we're talking about dr Sis. That's, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:29.640 like I said, Theodore Soyce geisl Um, who is I 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.520 can't really think of a children's book author that is 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:39.160 more widely known maybe Charles Schultz. Maybe I think is 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:45.200 like a comic strip guy. Children's children's book like Judy Bloom. Sure, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.120 but I don't know if I call her children's book 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:52.320 young adult like children's book. I guess the baron stain 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.040 bears not the barren steam bears. Yeah. I would say 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:00.800 that Teddy geisl huh holds that distinct for sure. At 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.840 the very least, his work, his drawing is just immediately 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:08.400 recognizable his style. Yeah, I mean that font we you 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.200 we use that font for our Live Christmas show shirts 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.600 on the obyright. No, it's not his. In fact, I 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.240 looked it up. I was kind of curious. I was like, 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.840 what is that great font that he uses for his 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.960 book titles? And I don't know what he used. He 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.959 probably just handrew it, I imagine. But um, now there 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.880 are fonts called uh so ice doctors s o O 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.720 s font or grenched that you can you know you 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:43.000 can gank that sure did for Christmas shirts. I haven't 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.080 heard that word and forever gan I think I was 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.760 wearing like Huge Jenko's the last time I heard the 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.400 word gang ganked my milk off my tray bringing it 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.600 back time. I use it too, so should we go 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.360 back to the beginning, Yes, back to Springfield, mass Choose 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.400 it's a nineteen o four, that's right, March two. As 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:08.240 a matter of fact, fellow Pisces uh dr Soyce was 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:13.280 born h Teddy Geisel and his grandpaps had come from 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.520 Germany in the mid eighteen hundreds bought a brewery because 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.480 they were good Germans. They knew all about beer and originally, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.440 get this, the name of the brewery was Combak and Geisel, 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.120 and they locally called it come Back and Guzzle. I 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.960 love that, and then awesome in German, less whatever that 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.440 would be. I think it'd be comeback in Geisel. Uh So. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.560 He moved here and it would end up becoming the 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.920 Springfield Breweries Company, which his father then ran um And 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:44.800 this is really like we did. He even did a 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.800 show on prohibition, and it never really hit home to 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.040 me some of the repercussions of that. I was just like, 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:54.160 people can't drink, But I never thought about a family 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.000 business just being shut down. That was a good episode, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.560 it was, But that's what happened that, you know, Prohibition 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.120 came along. They had this successful brewery in their family. 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.680 They're like, sorry, you're no longer in business, Go find 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:12.720 another job. These guys, Yeah, who were secretly drinking right, Yeah, 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.479 so um had the job, that is, his father did 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.479 get was eventually became the supervisor of the town's parks. Yeah, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.120 kind of cool. And um there's a myth, an incorrect myth. 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.520 From what I understand, one of the parks had a 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.840 zoo in it, and so a lot of people say 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.240 that drawings of the animals were some of the first 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.880 at the zoo were some of the first drawings that 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:40.440 little Ted came up with. No, his father became superintendent 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.159 of the parks when he was already a grown man. 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.039 But well not a grown man. He was definitely not 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:46.960 a little kid at the zoo. Did he go to 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.480 the zoo and draw animals? Or is that all false? 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.719 I think it may be all false, but I'm making 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.200 that part up. I just from what I read, he 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.680 was grown enough that he wasn't a little boy drawing 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.479 pictures of animals at the zoo like people think. Interesting. Uh, 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.880 I thought it was as well. I love busting myths. Barra, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.920 you should do a show. Uh. So World War one 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.320 comes along, which I've been I've been doing a lot 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.200 of World War one reading lately with the really anniversary 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:19.159 of the Armistist Armisists. Yeah, uh, really interesting. I didn't 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.360 know much about it. It's a pretty serious war man brutal. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:27.359 Everything I know about is from the Wonder Woman movie. Yeah, 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.400 I kid. Uh. So they were German, uh that the 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.440 Geisls were, like we said, and so in the United 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.080 States during World War One there was a lot of 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.600 anti In fact, for a long time, actually there was 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.440 a lot of anti German sentiment in the US right there, 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.400 like we're not German, we just like beer. Yeah, and 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.760 her name is Geisl. Uh. So everyone it was clear 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.960 that they were German, and so, uh, you know, there 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.279 was there was I get the feeling that he, you know, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.680 felt like he was like picked on and laughed at 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.800 peas because he was German. Right, So if you can't 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.000 beat him, join them. Turn that same kind of bigotry 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.280 onto others will find. Right. So he starts at a 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.760 very early age in high school um drawing cartoons, writing essays, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.240 funny essays, satirical essays. And he started using a pen 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.880 name very early on, maybe because he was German, and 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.320 he just reversed his last name and he became THEO. 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:30.000 La Sigue. Yeah. Actually, one of my favorite books, um, 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.960 Hooper Humperdink Not Him, is written by Theo Lasigue. Yeah. 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:37.520 I always was like, I always thought this was a 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.720 doctor's shus book, and then I saw this and I'm like, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.480 it was a doctor's sus book. Do you ever read 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.760 that one? I don't think so. What's it called? Hooper 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.880 Humperdink Not Him. It's about this kid who's throwing a 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.520 birthday party, and everybody's invited to the greatest birthday party 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.880 you've ever seen in your life, except for poor Hooper Humperdink, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.240 and I think he gets invited finally at the end 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.880 where your parents like we should probably get Josh this 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.560 go ahead and get them ready, right, pretty much, there 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.120 actually was a birthday party I wasn't invited to. It 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.400 really was like, I'm Hooper Harperdink. Oh well, you know. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.360 My deal was I wasn't allowed to go to boy 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.480 girl parties for a while, so but you were still invited, right, Yeah. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:17.440 But that was even worse because I was invited and 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.080 I was like I had to say, no, I can't 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.960 go because there's girls there, right, I got you. I mean, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.360 how humiliating is that? Especially in college. Yeah, and they 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.600 were like, uh, what's wrong with girls? I'm like, I 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.480 don't know. As my parents, he seemed great to me. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.880 The smell nice. Um alright, So he reversed his name 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.400 became La Siege. I went to Dartmouth College, and, like 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:44.719 many many famous um humorist I guess you could call him, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.640 he wrote for the His college humor magazine was called 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.880 The jack O Lantern, and it was just like, really 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.240 solidifies that college humor magazines really have produced some of 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.920 the brightest comedic minds that in this country over the years. 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:04.080 You know, um, yeah Letterman. I think he worked at 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:09.760 National Lampoon's, didn't he Jan certainly did the Harvard Lampoon. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.480 I'm pretty sure um Letterman did as well, at the 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.480 very least a lot of his writers did. Okay, fine, okay, 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.319 well we'll settle on that that version of the truth. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.960 But he got kicked off of the magazine staff when 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.120 he was caught drinking on campus during prohibition, which is 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.120 kind of awesome. Yeah, I bet it wasn't for him. 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.040 What do you mean? Oh, but he was like, well, 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.960 I want to be on the magazine staff. This is terrible. 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.400 This is an unjust Yeah, not awesome for him, right yeah, yeah, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.600 I thought you meant he wasn't doing the drinking or something. Right. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.400 This did nothing to cut his career off though, No, no, no, 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:51.840 he just adopted a new pseudonym. Yeah, sois right s 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.000 e U s s again, but he pronounced it sois. 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.440 But he was the only person who did. Um. So 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.240 he did graduate from Dartmouth in I think, which also 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.760 further goes to show that he was so if he 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:10.600 graduated college in that his father's brewery wouldn't have been 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.600 shut down until I don't remember when prohibition started, but 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.120 he would. He was obviously not a young kid necessarily 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:24.719 dumb animals. Um. But he Uh. He went on to 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.000 Oxford to I guess pursue a higher degree. Um. I 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.160 think he was going to be a teacher, was his 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.240 original intent, and he didn't like Oxford, but Oxford brought 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:40.360 him to his wife, Helen Palmer, his first wife, his 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.160 first wife, and um, they met and she actually had 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.120 a really great influence on him by saying, uh, I 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.760 think you are maybe going to be a better artist 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.319 than a teacher, and kind of pushed him toward that, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.199 and he ended up pursuing a career in art, largely 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.840 because of her influence. Yeah, and he sort of did 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.760 the student thing. He he worked on a novel, and 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.480 he traveled around Europe and was sort of uh doing 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.520 and he was with Helen of course this whole time. 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.000 They eventually get married and then he went to work 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:17.679 for a magazine called Judge drawing once again like political cartoons, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.360 humor cartoons acted. This is where he added the doctor 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.440 to his name as sort of a joke because he, 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.920 I guess did not get that doctorate degree or whatever 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:29.480 he was pursuing. No, he didn't, but later on in life, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.960 Dartmouth did bestow an honorary degree to make him an 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:34.960 official doctor. When are we going to get one of those? 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.640 I've been waiting a long time, chuck. And are they 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.360 as worthless as I think they are? Totally? Yeah, I 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.280 mean sure you'll get like the discounted Wendy's that they offered. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.200 But that's that's really the only perk aside from saying, like, 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.240 I'm a doctor. Can you really call yourself that? Though? Sure? 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:53.920 Like only chumps do that, right, Like you have to 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.320 call me doctor now, dude. You you will see me 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.640 telling people to call me Dr. Clark. I'll just I'll 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.199 be more personal. I'll be Dr Josh like a chiropractor. 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.480 I could see you going off and getting your PhD 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:12.559 one day. Yeah, yeah, I want from Bowling Green State 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:18.880 University and the backdoor version pretty much. Yeahs um alright. 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.520 So he got the doctor on the name became Dr 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:25.520 Syce and from then on he he never wrote under 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.000 his given name again, he was always doctor. Sois from 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.680 that point for it? Do we take a break? You 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.320 can see me getting a PhD? Yeah? This late in 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:39.880 my career. Yeah, this mid in my career. Huh am 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.440 I like Natalie Portman or something? Yes, all right, let's 0:12:43.440 --> 0:13:06.520 take a break. All right, Natalie Nat, I wish right. 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.880 I'll bet Natalie Portman hates being called Nat. Do you 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.640 think she seems like the type of Natalie who would 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.800 hate being called Nat? Let's find out, Dr Portman. Natalie Portman, 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:18.840 will you please get in touch with Listen and let 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.760 us know whether you're cool with being called Nat or not? Well, hey, 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.880 since we're on that big shout out to Mr Mark Ruffalo, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.400 it was basically the male Natalie Portman. Yeah, he tweeted 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.880 out our Navajo Code Talkers episode which means that he's 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.400 aware of this podcast and we're huge fans. So if 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.600 you're listening, man, thanks yeah a lot. Not just aware, 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.040 he liked it, he encouraged people to listen to it. 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.960 He wasn't like, steer clear of this piece of poop. 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.240 This is a good podcast, is what he was saying. Man, 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.440 I remember when I saw You Can count On Me 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.240 for the first time. Oh my god, that movie correct me. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.600 It was such a good movie. Yeah, not just the 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.040 first time, like just every time you watch that movie. 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.840 It's wonderful. It's really great. So I have another show 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.640 called movie Crush. Mr Ruffalo would love to have you on. 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:10.960 We'll just leave it there, alright. So um, alright, here's 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:16.680 what happens. Teddy Geist starts doing ads yeah, and does 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.040 quite well. Yeah. I mean, if you're an ad illustrator, 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:22.640 you you basically do what you're told the client says, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.440 this is what we want. He was the kind of 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.480 artist who, because of his distinctive style, his style is 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:35.600 what the clients wanted. So as an ad illustrator, he 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.720 became nationally famous. Yeah, which is crazy to think of now, 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.640 it really is. His first big break was for something 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:44.800 called flit It was a bug spray. And if you 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.760 look at the flit ads, they have a picture of 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.560 the flit and it was that old timey Tom and 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.600 Jerry Pump candidates like couldn't be more poisonous? Out like 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.320 a cloud of noxious smoke that formed like a skull 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.880 and crossbones in the air. Basically, right, that's what he 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:02.680 was drawing stuff for. And he came up with a 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.960 catchphrase because he wasn't just illustrating, he was also copyrighting 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.520 in these ads, and he came up with quick Henry 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.160 the flit, and that just became a national catchphrase, like 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.240 where's the beef? Right, like somebody's pestering You're just like 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.920 to somebody else, Quick Henry the flit. That's how I 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.280 probably would have used it. But um, so he became 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.440 known for that, and then a second egg campaign made 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.200 him even bigger. Oh right, so he did flit for 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.440 seventeen years, dude, which is like I thought, yeah, sure, 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:33.960 he did that for a couple of years. I mean 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.520 there's almost two decades of doing those ads, made a 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.720 lot of money, kept him you know, uh nice and 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.200 employed through the through the Great Depression. And then this 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.160 one's even weirder. Uh. He went to work for Standard Oil, 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:51.320 who had s O Oil and s O Gas and 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:57.160 this was s O Marine, which was their boat oil. Yeah. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:03.320 He has this pr idea to create a a fake navy, 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.440 the Sious Navy, the Sious Navy, which is nothing. He 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.440 just made it up out of nowhere to promote the 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.280 s O Marine oil. Yeah, and it worked, yeah, because 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.000 he basically drafted people into his navy. He would draw 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:19.320 like famous figures um like say eleanor Roosevelt or something 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.960 like that, dressed up in the suit the Sious Navy 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.720 uniform or whatever, and it became a thing like people 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:26.440 wanted to be in it, so they would apply to 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.520 be in it. And I guess so would hold the 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.160 party every year and just pull out all the stops 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.920 and there would be this lavish sious Sious Navy party. 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.480 You know, it's called the Sious Navy Luncheon and frolic. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.800 That sounds so like. Uh. They had two thousand admirals 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:48.800 and they included among them, uh, Vincent Astor and Guy Lombardo, 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.560 famous band leader. And as this is a grabstar article. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:54.480 As Ed put it, they were what you would call 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.560 like tastemakers today, like wealthy, influential Americans wanted to be 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.320 in this fake navy, to go to this luncheon and 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.200 frolic And he wrote these little navy story booklets and 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.639 it astonishingly it was a big deal and it actually worked. 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:12.600 And when you look at him there, they look like Dr. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.400 Seuss books. Like, it's not like he changed his style. No, no, 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.639 this is the thing, like he became famous for famous 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.600 and saw it after for his style. Yeah, exactly. And 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.720 weirdly enough, he said that the only reason he went 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.560 into children's books initially was because his standard oil contract 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.120 didn't forbid it. Like that was some of the work 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.399 that he was allowed to do on the side. He 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.000 never he was like, it's not like I had a 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.920 great thing for kids. Well he even said very famously 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.960 multiple times, um, that he didn't write for kids. He 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:47.240 wrote for people. And he also famously said, you have kids, 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.760 I'll entertain them, right. Yeah, he didn't want kids, did 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.240 not want kids, and he never had him, so his 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:57.359 which came true. So um. He he was already pretty 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.880 famous by the time World War two came around, um, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:05.679 and he actually volunteered to become a soldier, but he 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.480 was sent to Hollywood to work at what was called 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.719 Fort Fox. Yeah, this was strange. I mean I had 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:17.879 heard of the Signal Corps. Um, well, the Signal Corps 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:22.360 is everything from code like a code and code breakers 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.440 all the way to psychological operations. Oh, I thought the 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.160 Signal Corps was just like the people that made documentaries 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.720 and stuff. This was a division within the Signal Corps. 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:36.719 And so he was basically in this this um, this 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:42.040 division with Frank Capra and some other like screenwriters, actors, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.520 like basically anybody who had anything to do with visual 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.280 entertainment was put into this group in Hollywood on the 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.639 Fox lot at what was called Fort Fox, and he 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.200 Um that's where he spent most of the war, although 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.040 there was a fascinating story about a time when he 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.240 went to Europe as he had to go get approvals 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.720 for a documentary he had worked on from all the 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.800 high ranking generals in Europe. So we went from headquarters 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.720 to headquarters throughout Europe. And while he was in Luxembourg 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:14.800 he visited some of his friends and he Um basically 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.000 got the skinny they think on the Ghost Army, you 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.280 know the Ghost Army where they had inflatable tanks and 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.760 like that. It was meant to make America's military look 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.720 way bigger than it was. And these guys were running 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.240 psychological operations. Well Dr SEUs was friends with some of 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.480 the higher ups in the Ghost Army, and they think 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.200 that they showed him on a map like where to 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.399 go to go see some of these Well, in between 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:41.800 the time he left and the time he got there, 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.440 that was suddenly behind enemy lines at the Battle of 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.480 the Bulge literally started around him, around him while he 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.639 was yeah, and he was like I was just driving 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.000 around thinking like it was just hard to find friendly 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.679 troops like as part of combat. But he ended up 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.360 inadvertently spending three days ten miles behind enemy lines during 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.600 the Battle of the Bulge and just barely made it 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.919 out with his life. Yeah, he was rescued by the 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:11.320 Brits um but he would eventually become a lieutenant colonel. Yeah, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.560 in his short stint as a late thirty year old, 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:16.760 he's like think thirty eight when he first went in, 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.719 which really kind of interesting piece of backstory. Well, he 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.200 he was we left out a pretty pretty big part 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.280 of his formative years early on in his career was 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:31.600 he wanted to become he wanted to have a say, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.679 in the direction America took in World War Two, and 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.800 he was very much in favor of going to war 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.520 against the Nazis and Japan and Italy and um. One 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:43.480 of the reasons why he was in favor was because 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:48.560 he was extremely anti fascist. He hated fascism. And he 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.280 got a job at a liberal magazine I think a 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.720 newspaper actually called PM that was founded in New York 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.560 and it was founded with the Eye too to basically 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.840 call p all out who are pushing other people around. 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.720 It's a very liberal, very anti fascist, very pro um 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.560 World War two. They didn't call it that at the time. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.600 And it was very anti isolationists too. And Dr Seuss 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:20.960 was drawing editorial cartoons, very political editorial cartoons, about seven 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.880 days a week for this magazine. UM. And he did 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.760 some really good work in it actually. Well yeah, and 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.800 then in the in the army he actually made films. 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:36.199 He was he was making documentaries right alongside Frank Capra. Uh. 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.639 He had one series of training videos called Private Snaffoo 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.639 that were animated, UM. But they were the work of 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.639 Chuck Jones. Actually, it's just so crazy about all this 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.879 talent that's like in the army producing these things at 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.160 the time, but he he went on to make live 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:54.240 action documentaries UM. One called Your Job in Germany, another 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:58.080 called Our Job in Japan. UM. MacArthur stopped the release 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:02.560 of Our Job in Japan. Uh and apparently UM General 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.520 Patton stormed out of a screening of one of the 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:07.880 other ones. And I couldn't find the word but it said, 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:11.520 he uttered one loud curse word. Oh you couldn't find it? No, 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.680 do you? Did you? It was b s Okay, what 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:16.920 are you trying to think? What it would be? Sure? 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.040 I was like, but one word. So it wasn't the 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.280 F word unless it was just a very just long 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:28.480 drawn out like you know, alright, bs, that makes sense, 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.359 which I don't understand. I don't know what the problem was. 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.800 But they were both the our Job in Japan or 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:42.360 your Job in Germany, Yeah, was about occupation post post occupation, 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.320 UM life in Germany or Japan and what Yeah, you 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.920 can watch Your Job in Germany on YouTube. Yeah, and 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.360 and our Job in Japan too. Yeah. So he he 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.120 recut those basically kind of rewrote and recut those later 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.000 on and retitled them Hitler Lives and Designed for Death. No, 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.280 he didn't. They were recut around him without his say 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:04.320 oh no, no no. He and his wife later got 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:08.119 those films and recut them and won an Academy award. Yeah, 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.760 I had read that a producer went and and did 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:13.840 some recutting against their wishes and made it way worse 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.919 than they originally intended. Oh well, that may have happened, 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:20.240 and then maybe they then later on we recut it, 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.480 got the Oscar for their version. I don't know, but 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:26.879 we left out a lot actually because he Um he 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:29.840 was actually had previous to the army, had already written 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:34.119 children's books. Like he went fully into this because of 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.879 a ship trip that he took. Let's let's walk it 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:42.400 back a little bit. They went on a transatlantic voyage 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:47.480 aboard the MS uh Kung's home and apparently the ship's 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:52.359