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Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you

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Speaker 1: for tuning in. I am pumped about today's episode. Are

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Speaker 1: we going to do it in a box? Are we

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Speaker 1: going to do it about a fox? Are we gonna

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Speaker 1: do it while eating some locks? Are we going to

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Speaker 1: do it in a basement beneath Fort Knox? Well that

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Speaker 1: sounds like the plot of National Treasure, right right? Well? Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is uh, this is this show that's giving us

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Speaker 1: an excuse to talk about I don't know about you,

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Speaker 1: my friend, but one of my favorite authors when I

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Speaker 1: was growing up is just a wee Ben Bolan. I

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Speaker 1: loved Shell Silverstein, Dr SEUs and Stephen King. Wow, that's

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Speaker 1: explained so much about you've turned out. Thanks man, Hey,

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Speaker 1: who are you? I'm no, And I'm going to do

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Speaker 1: it in a hole? Uh? Possibly while eating cereal from

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Speaker 1: a bowl. Um. I'm not as good at this as

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Speaker 1: as Theodora Suss Geisel. That's right, that's right, you know.

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Speaker 1: I We have to also ask, uh, super producer Casey Pegram,

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Speaker 1: did you read Dr. Seuss as a child? Casey absolutely

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Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, what what were some of your favorite books?

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Speaker 1: I'm terrible at remembering anything childhood related. It kind of

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Speaker 1: all flew out of my brain at some point. But

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Speaker 1: I know I did. I know I had the books around.

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Speaker 1: I could not tell you titles. I would probably be

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Speaker 1: old to identify them if I went and looked at

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Speaker 1: covers online, but that'd be about it. The covers are

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Speaker 1: a big giveaway that that's what gets burned into my memory.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember that the titles very much either, Casey,

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Speaker 1: but lately I've been kind of exploring them, especially during

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Speaker 1: this research it. And it was a real nostalgia blast

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Speaker 1: from the past. That's redundant. That was good nostalgia blast.

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Speaker 1: Nostalgia blast is already a blast from the past. Well

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Speaker 1: if it was an nostalgia blast that happened in the past.

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Speaker 1: If you're remembering a time nostalgia blast hit you so

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Speaker 1: like even if it was just twenty minutes ago, it's

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Speaker 1: still work. That's a good point, Ben, Thank you for

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Speaker 1: saving me. No, No, I got to ask before we

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Speaker 1: go any further. Did you have one book by SEUs

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Speaker 1: that really like stuck out in your brain? I do.

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Speaker 1: It was One Fish to Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish,

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Speaker 1: because I distinctly remember that being the first thing where

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Speaker 1: I was aware of the fact that I could read. Oh,

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Speaker 1: that's metacognition. It really is, it really is. I mean

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Speaker 1: and and and it might be manufacturing that memory, but

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Speaker 1: it's stuck with me. Um. I remember being very proud

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Speaker 1: of myself that I could read. But I also think

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Speaker 1: it might have been some combination of memorization as well,

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Speaker 1: because it was read to me, and I think I

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Speaker 1: may have been looking at it and reading it from

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Speaker 1: memory and thinking that I was actually reading the words,

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Speaker 1: because that was very very little. This is a very

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Speaker 1: early memory. And you also have a studying innate sense

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Speaker 1: of rhythm and cadence, as does Dr Theodore si Yes

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Speaker 1: Geisel Geisel for the record, my favorite for a long

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Speaker 1: time was The butter Battle Book. I thought that thing

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Speaker 1: was an epic tale of like tragedy and heartbreak and

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Speaker 1: the human condition. Well, that's the thing that's neat about

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Speaker 1: this guy's books is they kind of have these big,

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Speaker 1: lofty themes, like the Lorax, for example, which is sort

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Speaker 1: of environmentalist look on conservation and like saving the forest

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Speaker 1: and how man is like raping and pillaging mother Earth

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Speaker 1: and all that stuff, but not in a particularly heavy

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Speaker 1: handed or pedantic way, and in a way that's pretty

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Speaker 1: approachable to you know, youngsters or whatever, but still has

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Speaker 1: some pretty important messages. Yeah. I think that's a great point.

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Speaker 1: And one thing, one thing that a lot of kids

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Speaker 1: don't know when we're growing up and reading Dr. Seuss

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Speaker 1: books is that Theodore himself was is allegedly not the

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Speaker 1: biggest fan of children, but he was a really interesting guy.

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Speaker 1: And I think you and I probably had a similar

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Speaker 1: moment later in life where we realized that his family

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Speaker 1: originally pronounced the name SEUs as zois like zo I

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Speaker 1: see yikes, which I think is a great word. Zoix

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Speaker 1: is what I would say. Um, he's interesting for a

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Speaker 1: lot of reasons. He got his start working in like

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Speaker 1: advertising as a cartoonist, and there's actually some rarely problematic

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Speaker 1: cartoons you can dig up that he did. For It's

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Speaker 1: like a mosquito spray called like ZiT or something like that,

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Speaker 1: or like bleep, I don't know, but it's it's like

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Speaker 1: all of these kind of like African jungle scenes with

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Speaker 1: his very recognizable elephant. It looks like something out of

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Speaker 1: one of his books, only it's got a lot of

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Speaker 1: like natives depicted in that horrible way that you see

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Speaker 1: in early you know, Disney animations or Warner Brothers cartoons.

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Speaker 1: Uh that are now consider they're completely embarrassing to those

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Speaker 1: companies that are responsible for all this, like Classic Children's Entertainment.

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Speaker 1: The same was true for for for Geistil and he

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Speaker 1: also did some propaganda around, you know, the Japanese with

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Speaker 1: some pretty nasty depictions of those folks during World War

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Speaker 1: during World War two exactly. Yeah, he was nothing if

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Speaker 1: not prolific, But we did feel it would be remiss

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Speaker 1: on our part if we did not include the less

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Speaker 1: than wonderful, whimsical aspects of his life. You know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. He was a great cartoonist and a great writer,

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Speaker 1: but still a person, and you might be surprised to

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Speaker 1: learn the process that he used to write a lot

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Speaker 1: of these books. The guy was so prolific as what

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Speaker 1: over forty children's books, and that's not counting any of

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Speaker 1: his advertisement stuff. That's not counting the short lived comic

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Speaker 1: strip he did before called Heggie, I believe. But the

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Speaker 1: weird thing is, while we all kind of, I think

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Speaker 1: naturally want to have this romanticized idea of a guy

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Speaker 1: who just wakes up in a very bright pastel cartoony

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Speaker 1: house and says what wonderful lessons would I teach children today?

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Speaker 1: That's not the case. In fact, there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of calculation that went into the way he wrote books.

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Speaker 1: His first successful children's book was called Cat in the Hat.

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Speaker 1: And the story about Cat in the Hat is really surprising.

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Speaker 1: It starts with a guy named John Hershey, who was

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Speaker 1: a big time journalist, and in nineteen fifty four, when

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Speaker 1: writing and Life magazine, he put out an article called,

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Speaker 1: why do students bogged down on first? Are? A local

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Speaker 1: committee sheds light on national problem? Colon reading? That was

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Speaker 1: colon the punctuation mark, not reading Colin's And is that

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Speaker 1: the one that was kind of a backlash against the

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Speaker 1: super dull Dick and Jane Primer books just the same,

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Speaker 1: which is like see Dick talk, see Jane walked to

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Speaker 1: there is a dog? It is spot watch spot walk

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Speaker 1: to Jane. Stuff like that, right, yeah, Because they had

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Speaker 1: a more rigid system of introducing vocabulary words to children.

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Speaker 1: And after reading this article, the director of Hoton Mifflin,

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Speaker 1: the publishing company, the director of Hoton Mifflin's educational division,

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Speaker 1: a guy named William Spaulding, got Theodore Geisel in the

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Speaker 1: room and he said, look, I need you to write

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Speaker 1: a story that first graders actually like. The actual quote is,

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Speaker 1: I need you to write a story that first graders

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Speaker 1: can't put down. And then he put on some weird restrictions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this part was really interesting to me too. So there

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Speaker 1: was a list that Spalding had, which I guess came

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Speaker 1: from the Educational Division, of three hundred and forty eight

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Speaker 1: words that were selected from a standard first graders vocabulary list.

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Speaker 1: And Spalding said, okay, THEO you've how to write this book,

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Speaker 1: but you can only use words from this list, and

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Speaker 1: you can't use them all. You can only use what Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think originally he wanted the story to be

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Speaker 1: about like a queen cat and a king cat, but

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Speaker 1: queen wasn't on the list, so he had to like adjust,

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Speaker 1: and then he realized that hat rhymed with cat and

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Speaker 1: that was a good starting point and the rest is history. Which, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it took of nine months to write this book, primarily,

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Speaker 1: I believe because of that word restriction. And according to

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Speaker 1: the story, he didn't quite hit two. It was still

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Speaker 1: a little bit longer, right, Yeah, I think he you know,

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Speaker 1: if we're going to call that a bat, then he

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Speaker 1: sort of failed the exact parameters that were given to him,

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Speaker 1: but he came damn close. Yeah, two thirty six words,

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Speaker 1: and I get the feeling this was almost more of

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Speaker 1: a mandate from his boss. I love thinking about what

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Speaker 1: the original story with the king cat and the Queen

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Speaker 1: Cat would have been, because now I see this picture

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Speaker 1: of Theodore Geisel like pulling his hair out and gnashing

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Speaker 1: his teeth and trying to figure out how to depict

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Speaker 1: this cat as somehow regal or kingly, and then the

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Speaker 1: best to come up with his Alright, he's got a

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Speaker 1: hat because we can't use crown. Yeah, I feel like

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Speaker 1: that's what happened. That's probably true. That's a good point, um.

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Speaker 1: And of course, you know when I say the rest

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Speaker 1: is history, I mean like literary history. It's it's sold

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Speaker 1: a million copies, like right off the rip, I think

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Speaker 1: in the first couple of years that it was out

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Speaker 1: in print, right, and he was able to quit his

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Speaker 1: day job as an ad guy and admin, you know,

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Speaker 1: and went on to become a whimsical children's book writer

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Speaker 1: full time. Zoe Zoie. That's good man, that's quite good. Also, like,

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Speaker 1: what was the name of that pesticide company was a

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Speaker 1: z or was it something that you know I actually

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Speaker 1: looked at. It's called flit flit. Yeah, like you know bugs,

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Speaker 1: they flipped and this is what you scored at him

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Speaker 1: to make them stop flitting forever, Stop the flit. I

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Speaker 1: don't know why I'm feeling these catchphrases so much, my friend,

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Speaker 1: but we know that a lot of people love the

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Speaker 1: way Zoie wrote. And so you know what, I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna call him Dr Seuss for this show for our

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Speaker 1: purposes here. Yeah, that's fair, Okay, it just feels more comfortable,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We all know who Dr Seuss, right,

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Speaker 1: but this doctor's voice guy, it sounds like some sort

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Speaker 1: of mad scientists. So he does. So this guy's career

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Speaker 1: takes off. He's becomes a prolific author of children's books

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Speaker 1: that are loved around the world, especially the English speaking

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Speaker 1: world obviously. And then in nineteen sixty, just about three

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Speaker 1: years after Cat and the Hats come out, he has

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Speaker 1: a strange conversation with a guy named Bennett Surf, the

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Speaker 1: co founder of Random House. He does it's very similar

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Speaker 1: to the conversation you had with Mr Hershey that kicked

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Speaker 1: off his career, you know, in such a huge way

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Speaker 1: with Cat in the Hat. This guy really ups the

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Speaker 1: annie here in terms of what that first bet, I

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Speaker 1: guess our challenge would have been. And he challenges SEUs

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Speaker 1: to write a children's book that uses fifty unique words

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Speaker 1: or less unique being individual words, which sounds like if you,

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Speaker 1: if you're just thinking about this initially at first, blush,

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Speaker 1: this could sound like, hey, that's enough words for a

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Speaker 1: children's book. It's not, because what they mean by unique

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Speaker 1: words is that, let's see, if you had a word

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Speaker 1: that was and just I'll pick one admiral, right, then

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Speaker 1: you can use that one word as many times as

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Speaker 1: you would like. Right. It's it's like that vocabulary list

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Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, and I think you know it

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Speaker 1: was around two sixty words for Cat in the Hat.

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Speaker 1: So that's and that's a pretty relatively straightforward, sing songy

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Speaker 1: kind of like simple language book. So that this is

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Speaker 1: like really taking it to the next level, because to

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Speaker 1: use fifty words and still have it a tell a

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Speaker 1: story and not just be completely just see Dick run

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Speaker 1: right exactly. So he took this as a challenge and

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Speaker 1: he delivered. I propose that we play a game with

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Speaker 1: the listeners knowll because we have this list we did words. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So let's let's read out some of these words, not

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Speaker 1: not all fifty, and let's like skip the ones that

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Speaker 1: automatically give it away. And let's see if you can

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Speaker 1: guess which book this is. Okay, are you ready? Folks?

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Speaker 1: A am and anywhere? Are b boat? Box car? Could

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Speaker 1: dart do eat here? House? I if in let like,

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Speaker 1: I think it's pretty hard to guess. We didn't have

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Speaker 1: any really juicy in there. You're not going to finish?

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Speaker 1: Oh do you want to do? You want to do

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Speaker 1: the rest of them? Are you skipping the word greens

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Speaker 1: that in there? Casey on the case spoil? I love it.

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Speaker 1: We haven't gotten there yet. But yes, in fact, green,

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Speaker 1: eggs and ham are all in this list. And that's

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Speaker 1: ham like the food, not ham like. Hearts him off right.

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Speaker 1: That was a little bit before uh seuss time, or

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Speaker 1: maybe that was part of his uncollected work. I actually

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Speaker 1: read somewhere that he coined the word crunk, but it

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Speaker 1: didn't mean the same thing as it means in the

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Speaker 1: parlance of today. That it appeared first in print in

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Speaker 1: a doctor so I book, This book that he wrote

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Speaker 1: on a bet is known today as green Eggs in

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Speaker 1: a hand, And I was thinking, there's a there's a

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Speaker 1: neat coincidence here when he has this conversation with Bennett

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Speaker 1: surf Um, when they make that bet for what fifty dollars? Right,

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Speaker 1: it works out to a dollar or a word, which

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Speaker 1: I thought was, I don't know if that's on purpose.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty neat, And I think a fifty dollar bet

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Speaker 1: back then would have been a couple of hundred bucks now, right,

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Speaker 1: maybe yeah, a little close, maybe a little closer to four.

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Speaker 1: But but yeah, so it's it's still a significant amount

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Speaker 1: of money, but to this guy who's a best selling author, now,

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Speaker 1: it's not like a make or break thing as far

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Speaker 1: as his bank accounts. So we know where where this

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Speaker 1: falls in the in the doctor Seus's bibliography, this sort

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Speaker 1: of mid career. This was his nineteen sixty when the

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Speaker 1: bed occurs, so that's right after that's three years after

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Speaker 1: Cat in the Hat is relatively earlier, and so when

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Speaker 1: he writes this book, we can only imagine that it's

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Speaker 1: a little less of a laborious process because he's already

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Speaker 1: been through it before with Cat in the Hat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: except this is like a little bit more challenging. Right,

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Speaker 1: this is really a parent like you know, even limiting

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Speaker 1: his his verbal palette even more. Right. Yeah, so we

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Speaker 1: mentioned that this has a one of the brilliant things

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Speaker 1: about this book is it does actually have a plot

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Speaker 1: that you can follow, you know what I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: some tension in there. What what's the plot? Our protagonist

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Speaker 1: is named Sam. I him, he is Sam Sam, he

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Speaker 1: is well, um yeah, and then there's him, right, and

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Speaker 1: then there's uh, this other character who is who goes

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Speaker 1: nameless and he's sort of a sad sack kind of

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Speaker 1: fellow who Sam keeps trying to force him to eat

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Speaker 1: green eggs and ham. And he proceeds to go through

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Speaker 1: these various scenarios. As our buddy the Quister would say,

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Speaker 1: um and uh, the guy just keeps he's like running

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Speaker 1: away from It's actually kind of a stalker situation because

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Speaker 1: the nameless character is literally trying to escape this Sam

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Speaker 1: I am who keeps popping up with green eggs and ham,

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Speaker 1: you know. And then he's like, you know, what would

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Speaker 1: you do it on a house, a car, a tree,

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Speaker 1: with all these different things with a mouse? Would a

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Speaker 1: mouse change the scene? And exactly exactly, uh, and at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day there there's you know, they're

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Speaker 1: surrounded by the carnage that's been caused by this dude

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Speaker 1: literally trying to run for for his life from the

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Speaker 1: psychotic sam i Am character. I mean, really is if

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Speaker 1: you look back at the book, now Sam i Am

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Speaker 1: is very sinister. He goes hard on, he goes Ham. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he really does. Yeah. And and green eggs uh. And

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Speaker 1: at the end, the moral of the story is the

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Speaker 1: nameless grumpy dude eats the green eggs in Ham and

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Speaker 1: he likes it, right, Sam, if you will let me be,

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Speaker 1: I will try them. You will see. And then he

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Speaker 1: tries them and say, I like green eggs in Ham?

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Speaker 1: I do? I like them, Sam i Am. And then

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Speaker 1: it goes on the refrain flips and now he's want

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Speaker 1: to do it in all those places. Bring the mouse, please,

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Speaker 1: a fox, you say, like this green eggs in Ham

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Speaker 1: with anything, But I know you can only be a

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Speaker 1: fox of mouse and use a goat a goat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's weird because if you look at the way. One

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Speaker 1: thing is really impressive about this is if you look

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Speaker 1: at just the lyrics or the poetry itself typed out,

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Speaker 1: it's four pages long, which surprised me because we're pages

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Speaker 1: fifty words. It's all about placement. It's like a comic book.

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Speaker 1: I mean a lot of these things are like graphic novels,

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Speaker 1: and the text is very much incorporated into the design.

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Speaker 1: And you know, let's not forget SEUs wrote this text

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Speaker 1: and he drew all the images, and he's single handedly

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Speaker 1: responsible for creating these worlds which are very uniquely him.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think he's he's a pretty interesting artists,

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Speaker 1: kind of a renaissance man in that way. I also

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Speaker 1: think it's funny that both Ham and Goat both have

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Speaker 1: modern day acronym equivalents. And krunk, you know, I think

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Speaker 1: he was onto something. I think he was too. We

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Speaker 1: should we should do a deep dive read into the

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Speaker 1: works of Dr Seuss. We should also mention, by the

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Speaker 1: way that yes, Dr SEUs did succeed. This wasn't like

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Speaker 1: a cat and a hat thing where he went a

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Speaker 1: little over his word count. He managed to make a

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Speaker 1: coherent story with only fifty words. He turned it around

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Speaker 1: really quickly. It was published on August twelfth, nineteen sixty,

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Speaker 1: and it became his best selling book. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: purposely meant for beginning readers, right, But there is one

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Speaker 1: one twist to the story that I find hilarious just

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Speaker 1: because of its petty nature. There's a couple of good twists. Okay,

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Speaker 1: well here's one, and I think this is the question

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Speaker 1: that's on a lot of our minds right now. What

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Speaker 1: happened to the bet? It turns out Bennetts Seraph didn't

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Speaker 1: pay up at all. What a jerk. And he was

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Speaker 1: a co founder a Random House. It's not like he

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Speaker 1: was hurting for the scratch. Did they publish the book? Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: they did, old Random House and the Living Books Company,

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Speaker 1: So it stands to reason that this dude not only

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Speaker 1: didn't pay up, he benefited from it. So he's the

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Speaker 1: double cheap skate. Yeah, massive benefits. What's one of your twists.

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Speaker 1: There's a couple of other good ones. One of them

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Speaker 1: is that there were some pretty bad reviews for this book,

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Speaker 1: specifically from some children's librarians. Um. The New York Public

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Speaker 1: Library actually had a card catalog of hand typed children's

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Speaker 1: book reviews by their librarian staff. And here is a

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Speaker 1: choice exerpt from one of these reviews is uh, Sam

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Speaker 1: I am won't eat green eggs and ham until after

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Speaker 1: many pages of learning words, he tries them. Book is

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Speaker 1: typical of sus Slate period and his output being as

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Speaker 1: prolific as it is. It's alarming to think of the

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Speaker 1: onslaugh that can ensue if these books are continually out

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Speaker 1: of the collection. This is the best line. There must

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Speaker 1: be better ways of teaching a child to read than

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Speaker 1: this not recommended. I saw that too. It was it

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Speaker 1: was strange because we see this kind of UM harsh

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Speaker 1: reviewing repeated. It's a cyclical thing in children's literature, right,

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Speaker 1: like Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs also got some

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Speaker 1: shade thrown out. I think there was an issue with

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Speaker 1: it being like not vegan friendly. I think it's like

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Speaker 1: more of like our PC police kind of situation that

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Speaker 1: we're living in right now. Uh, there's a good one here,

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Speaker 1: Ben that you told me about, UM where a federal

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Speaker 1: judge actually um referenced this work in in an opinion,

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Speaker 1: an official judicial opinion. Yes it's true. In two thousand

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Speaker 1: and seven U. S. District Court judge named James muir

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Speaker 1: Head received a hard boiled egg in the mail from

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Speaker 1: an inmate, and the inmate was sending this hard boiled

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Speaker 1: egg through the post to protest his diet while he

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Speaker 1: was incarcerating. The judge ordered the egg destroyed with the

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Speaker 1: following UH with the following language in his UH court order,

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Speaker 1: I do not like eggs in the file. I do

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Speaker 1: not like them in any style. I will not take

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Speaker 1: them fried or boiled. I will not take them poached

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Speaker 1: or broiled. I will not take them soft or scrambled.

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Speaker 1: Despite an argument well rambled, no fan, I am of

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Speaker 1: the egg at hand. Destroy that egg today, today, today,

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Speaker 1: I say, without delay, this judge must have had a

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Speaker 1: long week. He's a real character, is well. You know what?

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Speaker 1: We could also do an episode on bizarre judge rulings,

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Speaker 1: because there have been judges who respond with poetry, sometimes

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Speaker 1: in very serious situations. And there have been judges who,

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Speaker 1: because they have complete jurisdiction, have imposed some really weird,

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Speaker 1: unorthodox penalties for a small crimes. Yeah. Remember that Crib

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Speaker 1: Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry has to wear the sandwich

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Speaker 1: board with the like I steal forks from restaurants or whatever,

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Speaker 1: a scarlet letter punishment like all that. That's a thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, this is just one aspect of the tremendous

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Speaker 1: influence that Green Eggs and Ham specifically has had on

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Speaker 1: modern culture. I think now it's in sixty different formats.

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Speaker 1: It's in a multitude of languages, which confuses me because

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Speaker 1: surely there would be some languages where it's more difficult

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Speaker 1: to do that story just because the sentence structure or something, right,

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Speaker 1: it does seem that way. Well, still, they pulled it off.

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Speaker 1: I would I would love to have a copy of Cream,

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Speaker 1: Eggs and Ham in a different language because it would

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Speaker 1: help me learn that language pretty easily, right, or fifty

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Speaker 1: words of it atly, Yeah, you would have the like

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Speaker 1: a like a first grader's grasp, perhaps no, less kindergarten

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe. And if you so desired, you could potentially

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Speaker 1: use the works of Doctor Zeus to learn Latin, even

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Speaker 1: though it's sort of incorrectly said that Latin is a

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Speaker 1: dead language. But you can definitely find different books that

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Speaker 1: are translated into Latin. But here's the thing. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to translate this kind of stylized writing like Dr Seuss

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Speaker 1: into a language like that, isn't that? Yeah, According to

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Speaker 1: Terrence Tunberg, who's been teaching Latin for decades and decades,

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Speaker 1: Green Eggs and Ham was very difficult to translate. He

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Speaker 1: and his spouse Jennifer, had already translated uh several children's

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Speaker 1: books into Latin, and they tackled Green Eggs and ham

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Speaker 1: with the title being can you help me out with

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Speaker 1: the Latin here? And all? Oh boy, uh vern't over

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Speaker 1: vert Parana with lots of exclamation marks, yeah the uh.

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Speaker 1: The tun Bergs have also translated other Dr Seuss books specifically,

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Speaker 1: but they said this wouldn't was one of the toughest

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Speaker 1: because of the simplified language and the short length. But

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Speaker 1: it's worth doing because it gives Latin a more contemporary

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Speaker 1: feel and it feels less like a dead language. And

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00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 1: that is the story of Green Eggs and Hams so far. However,

402
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 1: that is not the end of these Doctors Seuss facts.

403
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: We found several. Some of them are darker, some of

404
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: them are just kind of hilarious, Like did you hear

405
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Speaker 1: about how he's traumatized by Teddy Roosevelt? Yeah? I did.

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Speaker 1: Ben I had to do with uh some money he

407
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: got from his grandfather's in there, right. Yeah. World War

408
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: one was in full swing and Dr Seuss was a

409
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:57,399
Speaker 1: boy scout and he went door to door and eventually,

410
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 1: because his his grandfather one thousand dollars worth war bonds.

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Speaker 1: He became one of the most successful war bonds salesman

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Speaker 1: in his town. And they were brought on stage, him

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Speaker 1: and nine other boy scouts to the municipal auditorium. And

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Speaker 1: who was there to present the award Theodore Roosevelt himself,

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Speaker 1: the President of the United States. Yeah, he was there

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Speaker 1: to officiate this ceremony to you know, pin a metal

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Speaker 1: on these plucky young lads. Uh and and and old

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00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: Teddy Seuss was the last one in line um to

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Speaker 1: receive this major award. And but it turns out that

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00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: they didn't have enough medals, and the Roosevelt gets to

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Speaker 1: him and he doesn't have anything. He just looks over

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Speaker 1: at the people off stage. It's like, who the hell

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Speaker 1: is this kid? Get him out of here, and they

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00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: trundle him off stage and he gets nothing. It's like

425
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: Willie Walker style man. For the rest of his life,

426
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: he had a crippling fear of crowds, and he actually

427
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: skipped a lot of speaking engagements when he was a

428
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: famous author because he was terrified they would be publicly humiliated. Again. Well,

429
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 1: there's also not a lot of interviews with him, like

430
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: video interviews with him that you can even find. Right,

431
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: let's see what else his uh, His first book was

432
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: The Complete and Unabridged pocket Book of Boners. Is it

433
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:24,120
Speaker 1: just like a visual compendium of different boners. It was, Uh,

434
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: this is back when a boner just meant an error

435
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: like that was a real bone. So the book was

436
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 1: it was a compilation, but it was a compilation of

437
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,640
Speaker 1: lists of silly, incorrect answers to questions given by children.

438
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: It did have a bunch of risk ay jokes and illustrations.

439
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:43,399
Speaker 1: He knew the other meaning of boners, and you know

440
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: he did. He was a body boy was he was? Uh?

441
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 1: And I guess you could find a copy of that

442
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: first published nineteen thirty one, and New York Times called

443
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: it hilarious. I love sixcinct New York Times reviews like

444
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: them usually so overly rebose. Have you ever seen Halloween

445
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: is Grinch Night? Ben? Yeah, I love it. It's so trippy,

446
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: it's so cool, it's awesome, and it's very psychedelic and

447
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: uh hetty and strange. So if you haven't seen that one,

448
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: it's a quick one to watch around Halloween time. It's

449
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 1: actually pretty spooky. Was a little kid, And there's all

450
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 1: these creatures and Halloween is grinch Night in the Hackensacks

451
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: or Yowling, and we even talk about that. He invents

452
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: such a great creature names I love. I'm glad you

453
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: mentioned this because I have a little bit of a

454
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,400
Speaker 1: bone to pick with this. I love Halloween is grinch Night. However,

455
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: I think in some recent years Dr. Seuss's good name

456
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: has been besmirched with terrible film adaptations such as The

457
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers. Gross grown, I know,

458
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: and I used to love Mike Myers when I was

459
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: a kid. You probably did too, with Wayne's World Side

460
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: Live all that stuff. Austin Powers. But apparently behind the

461
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: scenes and we haven't I haven't met the guy at least,

462
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: so I can't confirm or deny this. But apparently behind

463
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: the scenes story is he's a real pill to work.

464
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 1: I've heard this. You've heard it very much, especially like

465
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 1: on track or whatever, like yeah, yeah, I've definitely heard that,

466
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: which is a shame. Um. You know what else is

467
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: quite bad? What's up? How the Grinch still Christmas? It

468
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: was like a short little little book and a short

469
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: little cartoon and they try to stretch it into like

470
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: a to our movie. It was a great cartoon all,

471
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's just I wish they

472
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: would stop, are we? Does this mean that we're getting old?

473
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: Isn't there another Grinch reboot coming out there as we're

474
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: recording this? But I think it's animated or it's like

475
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: it's like you know, C G I or whatever. Oh.

476
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: He also invented the word nerd, didn't he did? This

477
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 1: guy is a real word smith. So one last thing

478
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: I would like to contribute. I want to see your

479
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: opinion on this. No, and we want to hear your opinion.

480
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: Ridiculous historians. Apparently Dr Seuss had dabbled in erotica. Excuse me, erotica,

481
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 1: that's what I thought you said. He had contributed art

482
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: to something called The Bedroom Companion that had a comic

483
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: showing Uh. Well, let's just say he contributed to that

484
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,959
Speaker 1: to that book, and as a condition of his contract

485
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: later on in life, he said, Okay, I'll write children's

486
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: books for you only if you let me write an

487
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: adult book first. The Seven Lady Goodivas a story about

488
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: seven naked women. Yeah, and they're writing on one of

489
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: his um you know, like signature, kind of nondescriptive beasts like,

490
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a horse, it's not a hippo.

491
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: I don't know what a dusky. It's it's its own thing.

492
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: It's got traits of all of those. It's probably got

493
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 1: a name like a Barkernof or something exactly. There you go, Ben,

494
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: and it is, you know, a stride. This uh creature

495
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: is uh two three or four, six, seven naked women

496
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: of all shapes and sizes. Yeah, in his defense of

497
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: all stripes and sizes. Here's the thing, why do we

498
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: need to defend them? This is this is delightful. Well,

499
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: the book flopped and he was kind of uh, he

500
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: was kind of pot about it because he had to

501
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: settle for a career as a children's writer. This is

502
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: a quote from Dr SEUs. Okay, that's not us say

503
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: it's a quote from him. He said, I tried to

504
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: draw the sexiest babes I could, but they came out

505
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: looking absurd. Well, what the what do they look like?

506
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: Dr Seuss characters? What did you think? There's nothing sexy

507
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: about them. They've all got like who hair? Yes, they're

508
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: all Hoovian yeah, big time. Wow, you can't say the

509
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 1: guy wasn't interesting. When did he pass ben. Dr SEUs

510
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: actually lived a very long time. He did not pass

511
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: away until September. He was eight seven years old. I

512
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: remember that. I remember when it happened. I mean I

513
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: was very young, but I definitely distinctly remember the death

514
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: of Dr Seuss. You know who else another personal legend

515
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: of ours who passed away recently, Stanley. You know, it's

516
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: it's strange because I'm sure that he'll still be in

517
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: Cammy for a few more movies because they must have

518
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: filmed a bunch. I guess they would have had to. Yeah,

519
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: it makes sense to do it in a batch. And

520
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: this reminds me in nineties. Yeah, he did look great,

521
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: and he also growing up as a kid who didn't

522
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: have a ton of friends, I think stan Lee taught

523
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: me a ton about reading and really added to my vocabulary.

524
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. He's he's the guy who

525
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: brought back excelsior. Yeah. I keep saying that. I don't

526
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: know what that means. It's like excellent, Oh, okay, got it.

527
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 1: There were a lot of tributes to him when he

528
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: passed away, and everyone was saying excelsior. I thought it

529
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: was some sort of stomach medicine. It's it's used to

530
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: I guess it means that something is of superior quality.

531
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: Got it like a little more flashy way of saying

532
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: grade A number one. But this the reason I'm bringing

533
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: up Stanley here, Noel, is because you and I made

534
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: a mandate and we we got a kind of a

535
00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: bumpy start. Our mandate was to recommend comic book. Remember

536
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: we did do that. We did do we did say that,

537
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: and we kind of you know, this is a perfect

538
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: episode to do that in because I would I would

539
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: argue that SEUs is kind of a graphic novelist in

540
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: some ways. I would agree, I would agree. What do

541
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: you what are you digging these days? These days? I'm

542
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: digging some Okay, I've been really into some horror comics

543
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: because you know, it's always kind of Halloween in my heart.

544
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: And uh, there's a comic called Regression, which is terrifying,

545
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 1: not for children, it's about reincarnation. And then there's another

546
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: comic series that's complete called The Clean Room, which is

547
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: about aliens or maybe something different to say anymore would be,

548
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 1: uh to do a disservice. Have you have have you

549
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: had a chance to check out Nameless? Nameless? Yes? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

550
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: Nameless was the one shot four issues right, yes, by

551
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: Grant Morrison, who I'm always in love with everything he does.

552
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: I'm just really trippy out there, existent chill, dread almost

553
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: he kind of veers into love crafty and territory and

554
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: this one is no exception. This one's about like space

555
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: madness and just like demonic possession and asticism and all

556
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: kinds of crazy stuff doorways to other dimensions. But it's

557
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: a tight little story and the art is insane, insanely

558
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: not for the faint of heart. Yeah, not only is

559
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: not for children, I would say it's not for you

560
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: if you're already feeling a little bit, you know, less

561
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: than good. It's agreed. It's a bit of a bummer.

562
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you read that one, man. I Um,

563
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 1: that's one of those that I keep buying copies of

564
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: and they keep giving them away. Yeah. I have a

565
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: hardcover of it, and it just the art is just

566
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: alone is fantastic. So we have met our mandate. For

567
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: this episode, we talked about a crazy, weird children's book

568
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: Guy recommended some comics, had a good time, learned the

569
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: origins of the word crunk and nerd invented a new

570
00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: uh phrase to yell out an exclamation zoi zoie. It's

571
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: also kind of like noise noise zice noy soyce and

572
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: we hope that you enjoyed this episode even half as

573
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: much as we enjoyed exploring this story with you. That's

574
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: all for today. Stay tuned for our next episode, when

575
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: we examine beer, a lot of beer, a whole lot

576
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: of beer, like a dangerous amount of beer. Yeah. In

577
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: the meantime, thanks of course to our super producer Casey Pegrum,

578
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: Thanks to our research associate Gabe, Thanks to Alex Williams

579
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: our Pal who composed our theme. And thanks to you

580
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: Ben for being a dapper and intelligent co host. As always,

581
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: thanks man, I recently did my laundry. That's probably smell

582
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: fresh and clean, my man. Thank you. You're welcome. Goodbye, everyone,