YMMV / Dr. Seuss

• Accidental Aesop: He rarely had an intended moral in mind while writing his books, and was always irritated at people insisting on reading one into them. His argument was that a moral could be read into any story with consistent characterization as naturally some characters are going to be more sympathetic than others, and “What’s wrong with kids just having fun reading without having to learn something?”
• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: Although it is a friendly creature, some people have found the Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz at the end of Dr. Seuss's ABC to be scary.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: In "The Big Brag", did the worm really have superhuman eyesight, or was he just lying to teach the other animals a lesson?
• Americans Hate Tingle: Outside of North America, his books haven't been very successful, even in countries with English as a main language. Part of the reason for non-English speaking countries is that many of his works are told in rhyme, which doesn't exactly translate well. As for the English-speaking countries, the books are often overshadowed by domestically-produced children's literature, especially in the UK.
• Animation Age Ghetto: After the failure of his only venture into adult literature, The Seven Lady Godivas, Seuss became convinced that only children were able to appreciate his whimsical art and writing style, and that adults were simply "obsolete children" not worth his time. Considering he would become one of the most beloved children's authors in American history, this is one of the very rare instances of this trope turning out for the better.
• Anvilicious: Seuss's Aesops are not delivered gently. Interestingly, he usually didn’t write his books with morals in mind. He preferred to let it grow out from the story, saying “A kid can see a moral coming a mile away.”
• Audience-Alienating Premise: At one point, he attempted to put out an adult book, The Seven Lady Godivas. The book was a massive bomb and motivated him to stick with strictly child audiences almost permanently, and it's really not hard to imagine why—the art came out looking like, well, Dr. Seuss drawing naked women. Dr. Seuss's artstyle is many things, but "sexy" is not one of them, and his name had already been established as primarily a children's book author. Not helping the Playing Against Type case was that the book has a structure and feel very much like his more well-known books, with goofy names, slapstick humor, a whimsical plot, and a pretty low wordcount; even the raunchy content (aside from gratuitous Barbie Doll Anatomy nudity) is pretty tame. It did eventually see a reprint, but this was more due to historical curiosity than anything.
• Covered Up: The Red Hot Chili Peppers did an adaptation of "Yertle the Turtle".
• Crazy Is Cool: The circus and zoo featured in If I Ran The Circus and If I Ran The Zoo.
  • Also the thing that was "seen" on Mulberry Street.
• Fetish Retardant: The Seven Lady Godivas was intended to be racy, but, by Seuss's own admission, his art style made the nude characters look silly rather than sexy.
  "I attempted to draw the sexiest babes I could, but they came out looking absurd."
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: This is the core argument many have as to why his books tend not to translate well to feature-length films and why the majority of the film adaptations based on his work more often fail than succeed. Many of his books tend to be incredibly short and simplistic at their core, making Adaptation Expansion necessary in order for them to fit within a typical kids' film structure. However, because of this, the films tend to be incredibly drawn out as a result, with the additions made often detracting from and muddying what were meant to be simple short stories. That said, Seuss' stories have had more luck in television, due to his stories being better suited for television's shorter format.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The Lorax originally had the fish, chased out of their lake by pollution, say that "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie". But "People indeed cared a whole awful lot,/ And worked very hard, and better it got." (to paraphrase the book's ending) - and so Dr. Seuss removed the line.
  • The ending of Horton Hatches the Egg: "'And it should be, it should be, it should be like that / because Horton was faithful. He sat and he sat. / He meant what he said and he said what he meant...' / And they sent him home, happy one hundred percent."
  • The Hoober Bloob Highway is all about an unborn baby trying to decide whether he wants to go to Earth as a human, or even at all. After much deliberation, he decides to do it, and Hoober Bloob shouts down the ramp that "Here comes a good one!"
  God bless you, you're a human. Have an easy, breezy, fascinating time!
• Hilarious in Hindsight
  • In Hop on Pop, there are two dog characters accompanying the lines "Two dogs get wet. They yelp for help." Fifty years later, the phrase "yelp for help" became a staple for a certain other group of dogs. ^note Technically, the catchphrase is that of Ryder, the Token Human.
  • The "bofa on the sofa" from There's a Wocket in My Pocket probably wouldn't appreciate how his name is being used now.
• Misaimed Fandom: Horton Hears a Who has been co-opted as support by many anti-abortion groups, who use the famous line: "A person's a person, no matter how small" as their rallying cry. In truth, the book was intended to be an allegory about the way Occupied Japan was treated. That line in particular was intended to send the message that regardless of the fact that we had just fought a war against them, treating them that way was simply not right, and would probably engender further resentment against the United States. The man himself was pro-choice and sued an anti-abortion organization for using the phrase on their stationary. His estate continues to fight back against the misinterpretation to this day.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The Lorax is a good contender for the saddest Dr. Seuss book of all time.
  • "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" is almost guaranteed to invoke tears, especially for young people just after graduating high school or college.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Seuss' earlier cartoons contain many racist caricatures of black people, and, once the US entered World War II, Japanese people. There is even racist imagery in some of his children's books, to the point that on March 2, 2021, on what would have been his 117th birthday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced that six of his children's books^note And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot's Pool On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat's Quizzer. will no longer be published due to racist imagery found in them.
  • He was a strong supporter of Japanese-American internment during World War II. However, he would deeply regret this post-WWII, especially after befriending some Japanese people himself, to the point that he would write Horton Hears A Who as a form of atonement.
• Values Resonance: His political cartoons mocking the fascist "America First" movement of the 1940s found new popularity after a rise in white nationalism in the 2010s.
• The Woobie:
  • Horton and Thidwick, Oh so very much.
  • The Lorax, poor soul.
  • While the aesop of The Sneetches is supposed to apply to all of them, one can't help but feel sorry for the original plain-bellied Sneetches for how they were discriminated against.
  • Mack the turtle.
  • The Sad Dad from Hop on Pop.
  • The forest creatures from The Lorax.

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