History Literature / HortonHatchesTheEgg

* {{Determinator}}: Horton, who else? He keeps his promise to protect the egg even in terrible weather, and even when his life is threatened by big-game hunters. (They spare his life, thinking taking him alive would be more profitable, but that only makes his ordeal worse.) As he himself says, "I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephant's loyal, one-hundred percent!"

-> ''I meant what I said, and I said what I meant! An elephant's loyal, one-hundred percent!''
-->-- Horton

%%* TheReliableOne: Horton, as noted in his catch phrase.

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The story was adapted into a ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short in 1942, directed by Creator/BobClampett.

!!This book provides examples of:

* AdaptationalJerkass: Mayzie was already a bitch in the original story, but the ''Looney Tunes'' short deliberately increases her SmugSnake behavior.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: In the cartoon version, Horton is pink.

* BookEnds: The Looney Tunes short begins with Horton merrily strolling through the forrest singing "The Hut Sut Song (Hut Sut Raw)" and ends with him doing the same, this time with his child in tow.
* CatchPhrase: Horton says many times, "I meant what I said/And I said what I meant./An elephant's faithful/One hundred percent." Might overlap with SurvivalMantra.

* GilliganCut: In the cartoon, when the hunters declare they're taking Horton to be a side attraction, he declares they can't make him go, leading to a back in forth between the hunters saying "Oh yes, we can!" and Horton saying "Oh no, you won't!", which ends with:
-->'''Horton:''' Oh, no yo-...Oh, ''yes they '''can'''''. ''[Pan out to reveal the hunters had dug out the tree and were hauling both it and him away]''

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Mayzie. See "LaserGuidedKarma" below. Along with "Yertle The Turtle", this is one of the ''only'' Dr. Seuss stories to have an antagonist get comeuppance (appropriately, Yertle got his the same way) rather than making a HeelFaceTurn.
* HonorableElephant: As much as he wants to leave the nest, Horton refuses to go back on his word and sticks it out until the egg finally hatches. His CatchPhrase is even the quote for the main page.

%%* {{Hypocrite}}: Mayzie. See NeverMyFault below for details.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: A fish caricatured after Creator/PeterLorre appears in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' adaptation.

* SeenItAllSuicide: A fish after seeing Horton sailing away on a ship, still firmly positioned on his tree, takes a pistol to his head in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short.
%%* SimpletonVoice: Horton is given one in the short, despite not being depicted as particularly stupid.
* SmugSnake: Mayzie is implied to be such in the 1942 animated adaptation when she demands her egg back just when it starts to hatch and she [[AsideComment whispers to the audience]] in a malicious tone "The work is all done, now I want it back! Ha ha!"

* MisplacedWildlife: Elephants are supposed to live in tropical climates, however the seasons that pass by are those of temperate climates. Even discounting the weather, Horton's friends include a lion, a giraffe, a hippo... and a deer and a kangaroo.

* EggMacguffin: The main plot is about waiting for an egg to scratch.

* HateSink: Mayzie is a lazy, neglectful bird who doesn't care about hatching her own egg and quickly passes the job on to Horton. She only happens upon Horton again by pure chance, and discovering he's loyally done the job, then lies and claims he stole the egg from her.

* {{Jerkass}}: Mayzie is very obnoxious because she accuses Horton of stealing the egg when she asked him to sit on it.

* {{Bowdlerization}}:
** For the Warner Bros. cartoon version of this short, the scene of the Peter Lorre fish seeing Horton on the boat and asiding to the audience, [[SeenItAllSuicide "Well, now I've seen everything" and shooting himself in the head]] was censored when it aired on TBS, TNT, The WB, and Cartoon Network (barring its appearance on ''The Bob Clampett Show'') and is now airing censored on Boomerang. [=MeTV=], however, aired it uncut.
** The version shown on the TNT special ''In Search of Dr. Seuss'' was [[UpToEleven redubbed, re-edited, and had its opening and end titles cut]].

** For the Warner Bros. cartoon version of this short, the scene of the Peter Lorre fish seeing Horton on the boat and asiding to the audience, [[SeenItAllSuicide "Well, now I've seen everything" and shooting himself in the head]] was censored when it aired on TBS, TNT, The WB, and Cartoon Network (barring its appearance on ''The Bob Clampett Show'') and is now airing censored on Boomerang.

%%* HonorableElephant