History Creator / DrSeuss

* CosmicHorrorStory: ''Bartholomew and the Oobleck'', if you think about it. A greedy person bored with ordinary life orders his magicians to [[DugTooDeep summon new weather]], which results in the arrival of an ambiguous, borderline-unstoppable phenomenon of potentially apocalyptic proportions. The only thing holding it back is the presence of AnAesop about saying sorry, and even then the closing lines about the current weather being the only things that ever should be is subtly sinister.

* ''[[Literature/TheKingsStilts The King's Stilts]]'' (1939)
* ''[[SelfCensoredRelease The Seven Lady Godivas]]'' (1939)

* ''[[Literature/McElligotsPool [=McElligot=]'s Pool]]'' (1947)*

* ''[[Literature/TheButterBattleBook The Butter Battle Book]]'' (1984)

* ''[[Literature/TheBippoloSeedAndOtherLostTales The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories]]'' (2011)

Seuss was the son of a family of brewers, which made the Prohibition era a tough period to deal with. He went to Dartmouth College where he became the editor of the campus humor magazine, ''Jacko'' until he was caught in a drunken incident that made the Dean expel him from the editorship. An indifferent student, Seuss still went to Oxford when he made a pretence of getting a scholarship there, which forced his father to send him there on his own money to save face. There, Seuss struggled with his studies until he met his future wife, Helen, who noticed his idle fanciful drawing in his notes looked good enough to be professional.

Although breaking into children's lit was a struggle at first, Dr. Seuss' infectious charm and imagination would have him hailed as the great 20th Century master of the form. The fact that he intentionally discredited the insipid ''Literature/DickAndJane'' primer series along the way while his energetically imaginative work set the standard for modern kids' book that kids wanted to read is a testament of that talent. In fact, that success, beginning with his signature character, ''Literature/TheCatInTheHat'', would lead to Seuss having a secondary career as co-founder and editor of Random House's Beginner Books imprint which published the work of numerous talents such as Stan and Jan Berenstain of ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' series. However, that proved a bother to him, considering that the books Seuss personally wrote under that imprint were burdened with limits he hated like strict vocabulary lists of typically less than 300 words, even though he rose to the challenge and created his most bestselling book, ''Literature/GreenEggsAndHam'', which had a vocabulary list of only 50. Eventually, he took full control of the company and broke free to create books with all the words he wanted like ''Literature/TheresAWocketInMyPocket''.

Much of his work has been [[TheFilmOfTheBook movie-fied]], whether by animation or live-action. The only movie he himself made was ''Film/The5000FingersOfDrT'', a bizarre film that proved a flop. He did collaborate with various directors (most famously his close friend Creator/ChuckJones) in adapting his stories for television, but again, those were TV specials, and not feature-length. When he passed away on September 24, 1991 due to oral cancer, the rights to all his stories and characters went to his widow, Audrey, and no adaptations could be made without her permission. After the dismal 2003 adaptation of ''Film/TheCatInTheHat'' soured her for the casting of Creator/MikeMyers (whom she was strongly against) and the adult jokes that clashed with the family friendly nature of the books, she vowed never to produce any future live-action adaptations of her husband's works for the rest of her life. Audrey herself died on December 19, 2018, at the age of 97, shortly after Creator/WarnerBros. obtained exclusive adaptation rights to all of Dr. Seuss's work.

!!Dr. Seuss and his books provide examples of:

* AnAesop: Most books that aren't simple rhyming books contain one (notably ''The Lorax'', ''The Butter Battle Book'', ''Literature/GreenEggsAndHam'', ''Oh, The Places You'll Go!'', and ''Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?'')

* ControlFreak: Was extremely particular about every detail of his books, from the font size to the spacing of the text from the illustrations to, above all, the colors. He was known to pitch a fit if the Random House printers weren't able to exactly duplicate even ''one'' of the colors he put in his drawings.
* CoolOldGuy: The fellow who the {{narrator}} of ''Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?'' meets in the Desert of Drize, who, well, tells him how lucky he is.

* IGaveMyWord: See HonorableElephant above.

* OldShame:
** As mentioned previously, he felt pretty bad about his political cartoons demonizing the Japanese in the years after the fact. This regret likely extended to several of his other cartoons and ads mocking Jews and people of color years before he drew World War II propaganda. With the advent of World War II, many of the cartoons that he produced around that time decrying antisemitism, racism against African Americans, and bigotry in general -- anti-Japanese sentiments aside -- and he likely recognized that his old work perpetuated the problems that he would later take a stance against. Analysts would later credit this as a factor behind his estate's decision to pull six of his books from circulation for containing racist imagery.
** He also had nothing good to say about how ''Film/The5000FingersOfDrT'' turned out.

* RhymingWithItself: In ''Dr. Seuss' ABC'':

* ''[[BleachedUnderpants The Seven Lady Godivas]]'' (1939)

* ''Design For Death'' (1947, an expansion of ''Your Job in Japan'')(won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestDocumentaryFeature)

* SillyReasonForWar: ''The Butter Battle Book'', a condemnation of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar and Mutually-Assured Destruction.

* DownerEnding: ''The Lorax'' ends with [[spoiler:the forest gone, the animals gone, and the Lorax gone. Only the Once-ler remains, who regrets his actions. However, there is one ray of hope: UNLESS. If the boy can regrow the forest and protect it, maybe the Lorax will come back]].

* FantasticRacism: ''The Sneetches'' is a thinly disguised allegory on racism (or classism). It describes a conflict between two subgroups of the titular Sneetches, a race of bird-like humanoids. One group has stars on their bellies, and thinks themselves superior because of it, while the other group doesn't. The Aesop comes after a huckster with the unlikely name of "Sylvester [=McMonkey=] [=McBean=]" convinces those without stars to pay him to have stars added to their bodies. Then it's no longer so special, since everyone has stars, but [=McBean=] has a machine to remove them as well, for a modest consideration. The two groups proceed to repeatedly alter who has stars and who doesn't, along with which of the two conditions are more desirable. By the time [=McBean=] packs up his operation and leaves, they don't remember who had stars to begin with and who didn't, and thus abandon their prejudices as worthless.

* KneelPushTrip: In ''One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish'', a pair of fish do this to another fish while all three of them are underwater. The two doing the pushing are described as "very, very bad".

* RainOfSomethingUnusual: In ''Literature/BartholomewAndTheOobleck'', the king tires of only rain, sun, fog, and snow coming from the sky, so he orders his wizards to come up with something new. Unfortunately what they create is basically a rain of glue, which nearly destroys the kingdom. This was inspired by a conversation he overheard during the Battle of the Bulge, with soldiers sick of the constant rain and desperate for any kind of different weather.

* SerendipityWritesThePlot: ''Literature/HortonHatchesTheEgg'' came about when he was doodling out random things on transparent paper, and happened to overlay a drawing of an elephant over a tree so that it looked like the elephant was sitting in the tree, which started him thinking how it might have come about.
* SnakeOilSalesman: Zigzagged with Sylvester [=McMonkey=] [=McBean=] in the Sneeches story. What he sells truly works and does exactly what he claims, but he cleverly uses his Star-On Machine and Star-Off Machine to milk the Sneeches for everything they have got, playing on their attitude towards those dumb stars.

* UnbrokenVigil: ''Horton Hatches the Egg.'' "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent."

* WeirdWeather: ''Bartholomew and the Oobleck'' centres around a king who demands a new kind of weather of a group of wizards loosely attached to his court. [[GoneHorriblyRight He gets a rain of big balls of viscous goop called "oobleck" that rapidly floods the kingdom, trapping citizens and wildlife in its stickiness]], as his long-suffering page boy Bartholomew Cubbins attempts to convince him to admit it was a mistake.

[[caption-width-right:350:Oh, the wonderful things Dr. Seuss can write.[[note]]"Portrait of Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss)" painted by Everett Raymond Kinstler.[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:936:Oh, the wonderful things Dr. Seuss can write.[[note]]"Portrait of Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss)" painted by Everett Raymond Kinstler.[[/note]]

[[caption-width-right:936:Oh, the wonderful things Dr. Seuss can write.]]

* ''Literature/DidIEverTellYouHowLuckyYouAre''? (1973)

* ''You're Only Old Once! : A Book for Obsolete Children'' (1986)

Most of his work liberally uses [[RhymesOnADime rhyming schemes]], [[MagicAIsMagicA illogical logic]], [[{{Bizarrchitecture}} fantastical buildings]], [[PerfectlyCromulentWord nonsensical vocabulary]], and very pretty illustrations. This, at the time, was fairly radical and the epitome of avant-garde, though [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny not by today's standards]]. Seuss was a lifelong inhabitant of Springfield, Massachusetts, and drew inspiration from his surroundings; for instance, his first published children's work, ''Literature/AndToThinkThatISawItOnMulberryStreet'', took place on [[WriteWhatYouKnow a real life street.]] (The book's events occur on the intersection of Mulberry and Bliss Streets, which both exist. However, the real-world versions never cross.).

* ''Literature/ScrambledEggsSuper!'' (1953)*

* OldShame: As mentioned previously, he felt pretty bad about his political cartoons demonizing the Japanese in the years after the fact. This regret likely extended to several of his other cartoons and ads mocking Jews and people of color years before he drew World War II propaganda. With the advent of World War II, many of the cartoons that he produced around that time decrying antisemitism, racism against African Americans, and bigotry in general -- anti-Japanese sentiments aside -- and he likely recognized that his old work perpetuated the problems that he would later take a stance against. Analysts would later credit this as a factor behind his estate's decision to pull six of his books from circulation for containing racist imagery.

* NonIndicativeName: ''Literature/TheresAWocketInMyPocket'' does not contain any Wockets in the book proper. There is one right on the cover, though.

* DarkIsNotEvil / LightIsNotGood: ''I Can Read With My Eyes Shut'' gives us Jake the Pillow Snake and Foo-Foo the Snoo. One is a '''snake''' and the other is named '''Foo-Foo'''. Guess which one looks friendly and which one looks menacing.

* TheFilmOfTheBook: ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' (three times), ''The Cat In The Hat'', ''Horton Hears A Who!'', ''The Lorax''

* TheFilmOfTheBook: ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' (twice), ''The Cat In The Hat'', ''Horton Hears A Who!'', ''The Lorax''

* GrandFinale: ''Oh, the Place You'll Go!''. When Dr. Seuss submitted the manuscript, everyone involved realized it would be his last book.

Besides his children's work, Seuss was a political cartoonist, most notably for the now-defunct magazine ''PM''. He was a committed New Dealer and supporter of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt, and liberal causes generally. On the less savory side, while he [[http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/childlit/seuss/10922.html opposed]] anti-semitism and segregation, Seuss is also known for being [[WartimeCartoon quite racist towards Japanese]] in his WWII-era political cartoons ([[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/Seuss02.jpg here's]] an example). He later realized such work was inappropriate and [[OldShame felt horrible about it]], even dedicating ''Literature/HortonHearsAWho'' to a Japanese friend--he would probably enjoy that hand-drawn, {{Animesque}} spoof in the 2008 ''Horton'' movie quite a lot! He was against Jim Crow, even basing one book on getting over [[SillyReasonForWar small differences]] Still, some of his children's books (especially the older ones) did nonetheless reflect lingering prejudices in western society at the time, and that combined with the ValuesDissonance of his early cartoons eventually led to his estate pulling six particularly poorly-aged books[[note]]''Literature/AndToThinkThatISawItOnMulberryStreet'', ''Literature/McElligotsPool'', ''Literature/IfIRanTheZoo'', ''Literature/ScrambledEggsSuper!'', ''On Beyond Zebra!'', and ''The Cat's Quizzer''[[/note]] from circulation in 2021.

Besides his children's work, Seuss was a political cartoonist, most notably for the now-defunct magazine ''PM''. He was a committed New Dealer and supporter of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt, and liberal causes generally. On the less savory side, while he [[http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/childlit/seuss/10922.html opposed]] anti-semitism and segregation, Seuss is also known for being [[WartimeCartoon quite racist towards Japanese]] in his WWII-era political cartoons ([[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/Seuss02.jpg here's]] an example). He later realized such work was inappropriate and [[OldShame felt horrible about it]]. He was against Jim Crow, even basing one book on getting over [[SillyReasonForWar small differences]] (also dedicating ''Literature/HortonHearsAWho'' to a Japanese friend). He would probably enjoy that hand-drawn, {{Animesque}} spoof in the 2008 ''Horton'' movie quite a lot! Still, some of his later work did nonetheless reflect lingering prejudices in western society at the time, and that combined with the ValuesDissonance of his early work eventually led to his estate pulling six particularly poorly-aged books[[note]]''Literature/AndToThinkThatISawItOnMulberryStreet'', ''Literature/McElligotsPool'', ''Literature/IfIRanTheZoo'', ''Literature/ScrambledEggsSuper!'', ''On Beyond Zebra!'', and ''The Cat's Quizzer''[[/note]] from circulation in 2021.

* ''Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'' (2000)

An American cartoonist and writer, Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991), more commonly known as Dr. Seuss ([[NoPronunciationGuide pronounced "soyss" like "voice," although he later accepted the far more common "sooss" like "juice"]]), was famous for his 65 children's books.

* NoPronunciationGuide: Averted in a poem one of Seuss's friends wrote about it (This is from ''Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography'')
-->I think that you are a duce\\
And you certainly shouldn't rejoice\\
If you're pronouncing it "soose"\\
The doctor pronounces it "soice".

* SurpriseCreepy: ''Thidwick'' ends in [[spoiler:the unwanted guests being made into taxidermy]].

* ''Horton Hears a Who'' (1970)

* ''WesternAnimation/HortonHearsAWho'' (2008)