For whatever reason, this, The Zax, Green Eggs and Ham, and Grinch Night are all under the Green Eggs and Ham menu, but Green Eggs and Ham is not at the top. Also, you can elect to play the first three back-to-back, but the fourth is separate.
This time, I select The Sneetches.
The Cat in the Hat is floating unconcernedly in an umbrella. He washes up on shore. He sings about finding beaches on the edge of each ocean. And when he meanders on them, he thinks of Sneetches.
Hopefully, the CitH's involvement in this story remains mercifully short. I think they could've skipped that sequence and gone straight to the story.
So, the Sneetches. They seem to be pale yellow birdlike creatures. They come in two varieties: Star-Bellied, and Plain-Bellied. The difference is fairly obvious: each Star-Bellied Sneetch has a single green star on his belly. The stars aren't particularly large, though I wouldn't go quite so far as to say they're "quite small", as the narrator does. You might be tempted to think they wouldn't matter, but the Star-Bellied variety took them to mean that they're the best kind, and disdained the Plain-Bellied variety. A Star-Bellied parent is teaching her son Ronald that attitude, including keeping his snoot in the air and remembering to snort. So obviously, when Star-Bellied children play ball, Plain-Bellied children can't get in on it, and they get taunted for their efforts.
A song is sung outlining the perceptions about having, and not having, a star. The Star-Bellied, of course, extol having one and eschew not having one; the Plain-Bellied displays signs of sour grapes.
As another example, when Star-Bellied Sneetches have get-togethers involving food roasting, the Plain-Bellies are not invited.
More singing.
But then, one day, a stranger in a strange car drove up. It looks like a boot with some spikes in the toe, and is driven by treads to make the thing go. Behind is a thing that looks like a box on runners. It's mostly red with white bits and gray treads. The driver says he's noticed the treatment to which they've been subjected, and introduces himself as Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the Fix-It-Up Chappie. He twiddles a lever, which raises him up farther than should be possible.
Something else extends, and when fully extended, it can be seen that it's the Star-On Machine. He'll perform the service he offers cheaply and quickly, and is 100% guaranteed. He describes the process nonsciensically, but says that the result will be a star like the Star-Bellied Sneetch. The fee for doing so is $3.00. Also, the first to go through pays half-price. The Sneetches go through, and when they come out, their bellies have stars like the others who tout. They seem pleased at this. The ones who got theirs naturally do not.
They hold a meeting to determine how to best preserve their Snobby McSnobberpantsness, and who should step up to the plate but Mr. McBean. He offers to remove their stars for $10 each, explaining that they're no longer in style. He shows them his Star-Off Machine, which, well, if you know what a Star-On Machine does, I don't have to explain it, do I? We get a better look at the inner workings of ''this'' machine. We see Sneetches on belts and Sneetches on pistons, Sneetches being zapped, and water washing over them. (So the Sneetches are getting soaked in more ways than one...) And then we see a Sneetch that is being spun. And when they come out, no stars on their bellies, making the ones who put them on jellies, er, jealous.
So, of course, that means a trip to the Star-Off Machine, to strip the tummies of those who lacked stars first clean. So the ones who before had just touted a lack, used the machine to put the stars back. For the rest of the day, the Sneetches would pay to have stars put on or taken away.
Oh, those silly Sneetches! The silly reasons they have for excluding a group of people, and the lengths some of them will go to to maintain that exclusion! Also, the lengths the rest of them will go to just to be accepted!
Good thing we humans are nothing like them, huh?
And at the end of the day, they had no idea which was which. With the Sneetches flat broke, McBean moves on. He thinks they won't learn, but what can they do? They got so mixed up, they can't tell who was which. Heh, somehow, one of the Sneetches got two stars... on his rear. So the local population of Sneetches forgot all about being exclusivist.
They sing a song to this effect, and it seems that there a quite a few with more than one, and not always on their bellies.
Next Time: The Zax!
