Dr. Seuss/Headscratchers

• In How The Grinch Stole Christmas: wouldn't it have been much easier for the Grinch just to walk down into Whoville and say, "Hey, guys, I know you love Christmas and all but you're really loud. Can you keep it down?"
  • For the same reasons a lot of people in Real Life don't bother with tactful diplomacy and just go straight to the temper tantrums/scheming.
  • People don't always listen when you ask them to be quiet. Besides, he's EEEEEEVIL.
  • Plus it wasn't just the noise. The idea of the Whos being merry and enjoying Christmas at all seemed to disgust the Grinch,
  • "Please don't ask why; no one quite knows the reason."
  • Because the Grinch is a dick. Simple as that.
• Also, if all the Whos are such grand and wonderful folk, why didn't they invite the Grinch to Christmas before? Why did it take until he jacked all their stuff for them to extend their welcome?
  • Here's a possibility: They're nice people, but they're clueless, naive, and isolated. They barely even realized that the Grinch was there in the first place. Also, he hates Christmas so much that if they ever did invite him, he would have refused.
  • I don't remember the text ever saying that they never had. We don't have any real back story. Fill in the blanks yourself.
• Where did the Whos get all their stuff in the first place? After all, their gifts seem to be commercial goods and there isn't any apparent infrastructure.
  • Whoville is a residential district. The infrastructure is elsewhere.
  • They get them from Santa Claus, of course. Where do you get your zoozit-and-kazay sets, and your annual re-supply of socks and underwear, and that one citrus fruit at the toe of the stocking? Macy's? I think not.
  • Are you guys telling me that you can make head or tails of the architecture and city planning of a Dr. Seuss city at a glance?! Besides, even if all the buildings were residential, there are all sorts of real world towns where the majority of the shops are on one floor while the shopkeepers live on another.
• In The Lorax, if the Once-ler had the last Truffula seed, why didn't he just plant it himself?
  • Because then we'd see what he looks like.
  • Because he feels he's done enough damage, that he's destroyed so much, he doesn't trust himself to create well; hence his giving it to an innocent youth who has yet to give in to greed or corruption.
  • Perhaps he's too old and crippled- we've never seen him actually walking from place to place other than those wheeled chairs.
  • Or maybe he doesn't trust himself to know where the reborn truffula forest will be planted.
• Oh the Places You'll Go...why do all the illustrations look like an acid trip?
  • ...because it's drawn by Dr. Seuss?
  • Because the story is actually about the protagonist going on acid trips.
• I can understand not using the Dr. Seuss name for things other than children's books. However, a few of his children's books use aliases. According to Wikipedia, "Theo. LeSieg" (his real last name, Geisel, backwards) was used for thirteen books and "Rosetta Stone" was used for one. The same (or very similar) art style, the same publisher, the same target audience...why?
  • Dr. Suess wanted to be like L - he wanted to be the top three illustrators in the world.
  • I believe that he used "Dr. Seuss" exclusively for books that he illustrated himself and "Theo. LeSieg" for books illustrated by others. Don't know about Rosetta Stone though...isn't that a girl's name?
    • No, it's something clever. You fail anthropology forever.
    • I know what the Rosetta Stone is (and personally felt that the reference was glaringly obvious, but it doesn't explain why Geisel would use that name for only one book, and "Rosetta" is a girl's name.
      • Because nobody ever uses a pen name of the opposite gender. Durr hurr hurr hurr.
    • Perhaps I have to spell this out for you...that "girl's name" bit was a joke. The real question is why Geisel would use a different (and punny) pen name for one particular book.
      • Because you know it couldn't possibly be just because he wanted to...
    • It could, but with a pen name like "Rosetta Stone," why on earth would "shits and giggles" be anyone's first guess as to a reason?
    • *ahem* His second wife's maiden name was Stone. Seuss didn't want to put his name on the book "Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo", and his co-author suggested he use his wife's name. Ta-da. (From Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, by Judith and Neil Morgan)
• Why won't Sam I Am leave the poor guy alone? He doesn't want to eat; go away!
  • Vitriolic Best Buds?
  • Rule of Funny.
  • Sam-I-Am's a breakfast pusher. You see at the end that Sam-I'm-Not is totally hooked, he plans to get his mark hooked on the good stuff, then come back with white-and-yellow eggs and bacon, then scrambled eggs and low quality sausage, then finally he'll be selling bowls of cold cereal for more than the green eggs and ham cost. The fox is obviously one of his "example" clients, one he keeps supplied with green eggs and ham in exchange for its endorsement. If it lives in a freaking box to support its breakfast habit, how much do you think Sam-I-Am got from his total client base?
    • Sounds more like Wild Mass Guessing bullshit, but if you're serious, you should know that the real reason Seuss wrote that book was because he wanted to win a bet that he could write a whole book using a vocabulary of no more than fifty different words. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham
      • Watsonian Versus Doylist.
• So, I look at the Sneetches and think... sure, the Aesop is good and valid, but I can't help but think the story just wouldn't go like that. Bear with me here... as the story goes, the Starless Sneetches manage to get their stars on. So, what do the Stared Sneetches do in response? They decide to re-invent the segregation principle so they're again on top. Even after things are all messed up and they have no money left, I imagine they'd just create another law off thin air, such as "the most stars the better". I keep thinking the kind of people they are wouldn't just give up on status easily like that. Also, wouldn't it be simpler (and make more sense) to add another star, instead of taking it off?
  • It's hard to have an "us" and a "them" if you're not sure who's "us" and who's "them." Also, without any money, it'd be difficult to have hot dog roasts at all, so it'd be difficult to exclude anyone.
  • After all the confusion and their money swindled, I suppose they all realized that it was all pointless to begin with. I'm just wondering why they didn't kick Mr. McBean's ass afterwords.
    • I thought that was because he ran like hell after the Sneetches' money ran out.
• What's the name of the main character from Green Eggs and Ham?
  • Sam-I'm-Not.
    • No Name Given, if not The Nameless. Sam-I'm-Not is just the name I use, and maybe a Fan Nickname, it's difficult to see the Pothole above because of the spoilermarking.
• Why didn't the doorman of Solla-Sollew simply re-assign the city keyhole as a urinal until the Slippard moved out? Beats most of the population having to climb out over the wall...
• What would you do if you met a Jibboo?
  • Shit myself, those things are fucking scary.
• Personally, I have always wanted to know: Do How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears A Who feature the same Whoville?
  • I think so. The live-action adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas took place inside a snowflake, so it could be the same speck in there.
• The message of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is "Christmas is about family, not presents". But the Grinch took all of the Who's food as well as their presents! Don't they need food to stay alive?
  • He probably started on basically the holiday foods, like the Roast Beast, and then just got carried away. By that time he didn't care about how the Whos would survive without anything.