Dr. Seuss A&E Biography

Dr Seuss the best-selling children's author of all time revolutionized the way kids learn to read with one simple idea he made it fun he was the only guy I know who's ever invented words because he needed a gox have you ever boxed a Cox you know in socks he takes full advantage of the idea that anything goes he can do anything he possibly wants to artists can also be the necessary Anarchist they can shake people out of their complacency and and get people to see things differently and I think that Dr Zeus is one of those artists you know who is this that's my mom awkward I Ted Geisel and perhaps better known to the juvenile reading public as Dr Seuss my current best seller The Cat in the Hat has sold so far almost a quarter of a million copies signed Ted Geisel in our panel we have three gentlemen each one claiming to be Ted Geisel or Dr Seuss while Dr Seuss is the most famous children's author of all time Theodore Geisel remains more of an enigma you know Cat in the Hat and all those books I think those really become like the first books you ever read when you're a child and the Brilliance of those books I think is that geisel's Rhythm that he writes in makes you want to read number three how many pages are there in the Cat in the Hat 22. his most beloved character wreaks Havoc at home a monster where that could have gone better another character is a recluse who steals toys from children [Music] these stockings are the first things to go number one which is your favorite of all the animals he was uncomfortable with cameras and the children who sent him more than 1 000 fan letters a week people think naturally that a writer of children's books must just love children but but Ted was afraid of children I felt because he had had almost no experience with them number two why did you pick that particular name any particularly say complete pony that's my middle name and I put the doctor in front of it oh Seuss is your middle name I see when he created he chain smoked when he relaxed he drank vodka on the Rocks he didn't really enjoy being around a lot of people I think that he lived in a very private kind of world so the real Ted Geisel please stand up [Applause] Theodore soy skisel like to tell people that he observed life from the wrong end of the telescope he had an eye and an ear for seemingly silly details [Music] he was born on March 2nd 1904 in Springfield Massachusetts the town and Ted's idyllic childhood would be the defining influences on the artist the world would know by the name of Dr Seuss [Music] his neighbors had names that would reappear in his books Terwilliger bickelbaum and mcgilligott when he experienced something at any point in his life it stayed with him he remembered names he remembered activities everything went into that memory bank he never lost the ability to see things through the eyes of a child Ted's mother Henrietta was the daughter of a German Baker his father Theodore worked in his German family's Brewery one of the largest in New England he was a quiet perfectionist and he said this to me in my life you will never be sorry for anything you didn't say and I think he lived by that rule and if he were angry at something he simply wouldn't talk to the person anymore like his father Ted would keep his deepest feelings to himself a loner by Nature his closest friend growing up was his sister Marnie they played in nearby Forest Park 500 Acres of Open Fields pools and most importantly for Ted a zoo [Music] Ted's father took him to the zoo every Sunday he also gave his son a set of pencils and encouraged him to draw I was trying to do real animals Ted later said but I'd put too many Knuckles on them Springfield's proud German community Nettie Geisel an imposing presence at six feet and 200 pounds would read to her children in two languages more than anyone else Ted later said my mother was responsible for the rhythms in which I write in one of Ted's early memories was of his mother repeating the sang Tsung version of what kinds of pies were available that day and even in his eighties he would sing apple mints strawberry and go through logical ones and then end up with and squash Nettie made a point of reading to Ted and Marnie every night before bed children's books of the day were how-to manuals of moral rectitude two of the books that he and my mother read as a child and I still have these books are goops and more goops they were imaginative and how like one of the Rhymes well it's when you're eating soup like Little Ships set out to see I push my spoon away from me and this was a way of teaching manners before Ted's 13th birthday world events would turn his happy childhood upside down after the United States entered World War One anti-german sentiment spread throughout the country and included Americans of German descent Ted Geisel also a Brewer's son was an easy target schoolmates often called him that drunken hun he would never forget it I think he was very aware that groups think I.E dating Germans could be very painful and thoughtless he was not a group person he didn't belong to organizations he was an independent thinker and someone as his grades would reflect not suited to the regimented Ivy League World he found at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire Ted Geisel was more drawn to the campus Humor Magazine but of course that is a place where you get to write pretty much anything you want within reason it was a place for him to write nonsense for us and to do ridiculous cartoons which obviously stood him in a good Stead during Ted's senior year an incident involving a bootleg pint of gin cost him his title of editor-in-chief his work continued to appear under pseudonyms like El Pastor or Thomas Mott Osborne the name of the warden at sing-sing prison sometimes Ted would even use part of his own it was his middle name and it was also his mother's maiden name which was pronounced soyce in the German way but when he started to use it everyone just looked at it and said Zeus and that's what lasted a fellow student said everything Ted did seemed to be a surprise especially to him upon his 1925 Dartmouth graduation he found himself on a ship Bound for England his first trip outside the United States he simply never stopped playing hooky from The Real World he loved escaping and it was a protective thing also Ted's destination was Oxford University his idea was to become a professor of English literature but during lectures his mind wandered often sitting behind Ted astonished by his drawings was Helen Marion Palmer a Wellesley graduate five years his senior getting her master's degree in teaching one day after class she told him he was crazy to become a professor the luckiest thing that ever happened to him was that he met Helen because she instantly recognized his talent she heard Ted when nobody else heard him she was the one who discovered him Helen would receive her master's degree and Ted heeding her advice would drop out of Oxford after his first year they spent the summer of 1926 crisscrossing Europe riding gondolas in Venice a motorcycle through Paris and indulging Ted's love of English castles by Year's End he'd asked Helen Palmer to become his wife the child inside Ted Geisel also knew what he wanted to be when he grew up in 1926 Helen Palmer had given Ted Geisel the confidence to drop out of Oxford and pursue a career as a Cartoonist one year later they found themselves married living in Manhattan with Ted earning 75 dollars a week at the leading Humor Magazine of the day [Music] an added doctor to his pseudonym explaining straight face that it was compensation for the doctorate he never received at Oxford when it came to his name the story always changed he took his mother's name Seuss because he was saving Geisel for the day when he wrote The Great American novel or history or whatever he was brilliant the course of Ted's one-year-old career would change with a single cartoon [Music] a knight confronts his Nemesis with the line darn it all another dragon and just after I sprayed the whole castle with Flint Ted was promptly hired by the bug sprays advertising agency flit sails soared as his catchphrase quick Henry the flit became part of the American vernacular the bug spray's parent company Standard Oil turn Ted's imagination loose on other products I think it's very hard for people today to understand who Ted was in his own time he was a hugely popular figure in in the media before he really became popular as a children's book writer Ted capitalized on his Fame with a modestly successful mail order business fans receive mounted creatures made with shells and horns his father had sent him from the Springfield zoo which he now ran after prohibition had closed the Geisel Brewery isn't an unusual occupation but collecting bills beaks and horns most certainly is and with them to create birds and beasts never to be seen outside of a padded cell or the dreams of a Whimsical genius well that's still more unusual and Theodore Seuss guys love New York is the Whimsical genius in question his most celebrated creation is the blue-green abelard which comes to life but only when nobody is looking the twin screw amp tour the kangaroo bird so-called because it carries its young in a pouch before eating them on buttered toast and if it wants an egg it just lays it and the Mulberry Street unicorn Ted's creatures would keep him company hanging on his Studio walls for the rest of his career at the height of the depression Ted's success permitted an annual Excursion with Helen that could last for months thank you in less than a decade they would visit over 30 countries returning home from each with at least one fantastic story you know Ted would tell you these outrageous Tales of you know shootouts in a Dusty Mexican Street and falling into the water trough as the bullet whizzed over his head you know kind of thing and I think was this a movie or is he making you know in 1936 the course of Ted's life would change again aboard a Homeward Bound cruise ship Ted could not sleep during a storm vodka in hand he began writing a story that harked back to his happy childhood in Springfield About a Boy embellishing the story of his walk home from school that can't be my story that's only a start I'll say that a zebra was pulling that cart and that is a story that no one can beat when I say that I saw it on Mulberry Street if you're trying to teach your child good manners in the old kind of Victorian sense of that word you might not think that Mulberry Street is such a good example because it's wild and it talks about fabricating stories with a roar of its motor an airplane appears and dumps out confetti while everyone cheers and that makes a story that's really not bad but it still could be better suppose that I add a Chinese man who eats with sticks a big magician doing tricks a 10-foot beard that needs a comb no time for more I'm almost home for I had a story that no one could beat and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street 27 Publishers turned the book down most saying it lacked a moral when Vanguard press finally published Mulberry Street sales were modest but Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter praised it for what she called the truthful Simplicity of the untruthfulness [Music] Ted Geisel the book's success was bittersweet the person who had instilled in him a love of rhyme never got to share in it on March 8 1931 Henrietta soy skisel died of brain cancer she was 52 years old it had been very close to his mother growing up and she'd been very instrumental in I think encouraging him and what he did was good and and he should do that and it was very hard shortly after their mother's death Ted's beloved sister Marnie newly divorced moved back to Springfield with her daughter Peggy to care for their father feeling her own life had ground to a halt Marnie spiraled into alcoholism and rarely left the house her father disapproved in customary fashion he stopped speaking to her she believed her brother's absence meant that he felt the same way in 1945 at the age of 43 Marnie Geisel died of a heart attack at her childhood home guilt-ridden Ted was unable to talk about it for the rest of his life and I think there also was this thread of could I have made a difference if I'd been around and he wasn't because he was moving on and in another part of America but part of his protection I think was was not to allow himself to spend his his life in grief and perhaps that's why he found such joy in doing the outrageous books he did Ted dedicated his follow-up to Mulberry Street to an imaginary child he named chrysanthemum Pearl due to an illness early in their marriage Helen was unable to have children nice Peggy became a surrogate daughter years later Ted and Helen hosted her wedding in their home she didn't replace my mother she didn't become my mother but she gave me so much guidance without it being obvious it was an example she set you just wanted to be like someone who was very aware of other people's feelings her husband an introvert by nature would always depend on people who weren't Bennett surf famous wit and legendary publisher at random house understood before anyone else how modern media could turn authors into celebrities that's my dad I think really brought something to Ted that Ted was good at but had never figured out how to do Ted knew how to sell flit and he knew how to sell other things brilliantly but he hadn't really sold himself the way my dad realized that he could sell Ted Bennett told Ted that he would publish anything he did Geisel tested him with his first Dr Seuss book for an adult Market one featuring The exploits of a band of nude women the seven lady godivas was an instant failure Ted henceforth reserved his body humor for his friends if you look at the end paper there's a little bucket hanging from a branch and there's a little cut in the branch and out of the cut comes a drop of sap and the sap is labeled Bennett's Surf and this was Ted's comment on Bennett for publishing the books he obviously knew that it was a chancy undertaking but of course Bennett wanted to do it because that was the way he got Ted to Random House what a prize that was [Music] in 1940 Theodore geisel's new publisher Random House hit paydirt with the first Dr Seuss book to contain an outright moral but unlike traditional children's stories Ted made it fun I've heard again and again from people oh you can't preach oh you can't moralize oh children don't like that and my response is no children don't like phony preaching they don't like phony moralizing they don't like bad writing but in the hands of a gifted preacher there is nothing more powerful than a great lesson Horton Hatches the Egg is the story of an elephant who is persuaded to mind a nest egg the mother has abandoned for 51 long weeks rain snow taunting animals and Hunters cannot tear Horton away from his post shoot if you must but I won't run away I meant what I said and I said what I meant an elephant's faithful 100 percent the negligent mother finally returns after all the hard work is done and tries to reclaim the egg poor Horton backed down with a sad heavy heart but at that very instant the egg burst apart and out of the pieces of red and white shell from the egg that he'd sat on so long and so well Horton the Elephant saw something whiz it had ears and a tail and a trunk just like his my goodness my gracious they shouted my word it's something brand new it's an elephant bird 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 100 percent Horton Hatches the Egg quickly sold more copies than any Dr Seuss book before it and remains one of his most beloved stories it would also be the last book Theodore Geisel would write for seven years [Music] [Applause] as he was working on Horton Ted continually found himself sketching murderous cartoons of Hitler and Mussolini instead of elephants and birds in late 1940 he showed one of them to an old friend who quickly got him a job at the liberal newspaper pm [Music] at a time when most Americans prefer to stay out of the so-called European War Ted's cartoons drove home the horrors of fascism and Folly of American isolationism I think a great cartoonist makes a great statement most of his were wonderful encouraging statements but he was a simple-minded cartoonist but by definition cartoonists are simple-minded it's hard to get across subtle complex Shades of Gray in a cartoon he was a propagandist his cartoons were pro-america anti-axis and they were fine cartoons I think the fact is family was from Germany made the war situation painful and and probably made him more determined to to rise above and and prove how he felt about America how his parents and his grandparents had in fact felt foreign would not serve his country in Europe but from Hollywood too old to fight 38 year old Geisel accompanied by his wife Helen moved to Los Angeles where the Army had Enlisted the film industry to do what it did best Hollywood director Frank Capra challenged Ted to create a series of cartoons that would reach young GIS who were not responding to Conventional training films Ted collaborated with animator Chuck Jones creator of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck with Rhymes by soos they produced a series about a soldier who does nothing right [Music] [Applause] [Music] just takes care he's sailing on a cruise ship now we got to find out now I'm astounding silent Soldier just as steady as a rock Here's To My Little Secret these are these very simple little films that were done to teach these Farm boys these kids these probably most of them are illiterate they've you know been drafted into the army they're going overseas they don't know anything about anything and they're getting these lessons and you know change your socks or your feet will rot or uh or don't talk to that babe in the bar because she's got a tape recorder hidden in her brassiere Ted and Chuck used adult humor to capture soldiers attention humor that would never have made it past sensors if produced for the General Public [Music] for Ted's most important assignment Frank Capra would permit no cartoons and no humor he wanted him to write and produce an orientation film to be shown after the war to occupation forces the words written by the grandson of German immigrants pulled no punches someday the German people might be cured of their disease the super race disease the world Conquest disease but they must prove that they have been cured beyond the shadow of a doubt before they ever again are allowed to take their place among respectable Nations until that day We Stand God after the war Hollywood producers repackaged Ted's documentaries and took home Academy Awards for his efforts but the geisels had fallen in love with California and Ted would try his hand at screenwriting when producers mutilated his scripts he gave up collaboration Hollywood style after a seven-year Hiatus Dr Seuss would re-emerge to conquer the world of children's literature [Music] once the war was over almost everyone seemed to have the same dream a Vine covered Cottage some kids and a dog as Theodore geisel's potential readership expanded at a record Pace Dr Seuss ended his seven-year absence from children's literature with Michaela gets pool hmm answered Marco it may be your right I've been here three hours without one single bite there might be no fish but again well there might because you never can tell what goes on down below this pool might be bigger than you or I know because I was a little kid mcgilligan's pose probably the number one bestseller in history in my mind because it was my favorite book but in fact it was it sold rather modestly at that time but Ted's only book using watercolors would become a treasured collector's item among illustrators [Music] oh the sea is so full of a number of fish if a fellow is patient he might get his wish and that's why I think that I'm not such a fool when I sit here and fish in mcalligud's pool 1947 the geisels bought an observation tower atop Mount Soledad overlooking the Sleepy Beach town of La Jolla Helen and Ted two East Coast natives set about building their California Dream Home [Music] it became a Whimsical retreat with a landscape that appeared to have sprung from the imagination of Dr Seuss a place where Ted Geisel would do his finest work he put in long hours seven days a week often retiring Just Before Dawn he was a fantasist you know he'd make his drink light his cigarette go in his study at midnight and start thinking crazy you know oh [Music] Helen cleared the way for her husband to create by managing the household doing many tasks herself I really really enjoyed Helen geiseld who was a very skillful editor a very loyal devoted wife but unfortunately she had an ulcer so she drank milk while we drank martinis she was of incredible studying influence and could figure out maybe where Ted was going to be when he calmed down that that when he got overly excited about something she might see that he might not like it so much the next day and if he was totally fed up with something she could see that it was really pretty good and that it might be important for Ted not to throw it out just yet over the next decade Ted released one Dr Seuss book a year with modest but progressively higher sales I think there was some opposition because the books didn't fit into a certain kind of traditional idea of what kids books should be particularly primers you know there was a very primatitude toward the primer the juvenile bestseller lists were dominated by books that were cute sentimental and safe [Music] Ted wasn't interested in expanding the envelope he he didn't acknowledge that there was an envelope one Beyond zebra is the wildest book I've ever seen because it's about the alphabet after Z and he made up funny crazy letters that you know that make a kind of Susie incense I think that in the end the thing that I always think of when I think of I think of kids stars of casus material the focus of his material are children who go through something they go in one end of something and come out the other end of this psychedelic world you wonder what this guy was on when he was writing these things maybe there was among that kids book establishment a kind of a residual sense that Dr Seuss was the quick Henry the flip guy they really couldn't quite understand how that translated into this world of children and I think he had to wait for them all to die die Ted's childhood remained a limitless source of inspiration whenever he returned to Springfield he would visit the zoo still run by his father [Music] pretty good zoo said young Gerald McGrew and the fella who runs it seems proud of it too but if I ran the zoo said young Gerald McGrew I'd make a few changes that's just what I'd do I'd open each cage I'd unlock every pen let the animals go and start over again and somehow or other I think I could find some beasts of a much more unusual kind well I think he allowed a child's imagination to to guide his where he was going to take his stories I'll bring back a gusset a gherkin a gasket and also a gooch from the Wilds of Nantasket and eight Persian princes will carry the basket but what their names are I don't know so don't ask it then the whole town will gasp why this boy never sleeps no keeper before ever kept what he keeps there's no telling what that young fellow will do and then just to show them I'll sail to catrue and bring back an it catch a prep and a Prue a nurkal a nerd and a seersucker too wow they'll all cheer what this Zoo must be worth it's the golf darndest zoo on the face of the Earth my dad used to say and it's important to remember that he published Eugene O'Neill and and William Faulkner and John O'Hara and all kinds of other people but he always used to say that Ted was the true genius of all those people and he would say that in public sometimes annoying some of those other authors foreign [Music] despite his bad experiences in Hollywood Ted held out hope that he would one day make a feature film he got the chance with his story called the five thousand fingers of Dr T it happens in an amazing castle with a tickle him to death torture chamber and a 500 player piano with 480 000 keys when he got a producer and was to make this wonderfully delicious film of a little boy running over a giant piano piece Hollywood said you have to have love interest and Ted was screaming I don't want love interest I want that little boy running over the piano and he wanted to make Pure Fantasy Dr T is sweet on Mrs C so is Mr Z the plumber who fixes sinks he says you know I did a movie Once I thought it was going to be great and I'm never going to get over it [Music] Ted called The Flop the biggest failure of his career and vowed never to make another film Hollywood is not suited for me he said and I am not suited for it Ted returned to the tower to work on his books with Helen she was supportive of Ted she understood Ted's talent and he wouldn't have been Dr Seuss without her he trusted her absolutely in May of 1954 Ted would become incapable of working when his wife contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome a rare disease similar to polio a paralysis started in her feet and crept up her body until she was paralyzed to the neck unable to breathe on her own Helen was placed in an iron lung because for a while there was doubt as to whether she would live going through that period where he thought he was losing her was just tremendous he fought he focused in on her and and he was strong for her but it was a dreadful period Helen's paralysis eventually receded with treatment after months of Rehabilitation she learned to talk and walk again although she never completely recovered I'm sure she knew he was already tremendously burdened and that in worrying about her and that it would affect his time to work and she wanted him to feel free to work but she told me once I always feel as if my shoes are two sizes too small I think she lived with discomfort from then on but boy they worked through that together [Music] Elementary School room USA It's a Wonderful part of the American scene When the Children of the post-war Baby Boom were reaching school age it was a time of unprecedented Prosperity many parents could look forward to providing their kids with a college education if only they could read illiteracy rates soared as television became a distraction and the old-time readers seem more boring and irrelevant than ever [Music] the dick and chain books were so white bread you know middle class very the children were so clean so obedient and so nice and not at all like real children those cherubic blonde Aryan children really were I think the precursor to my whole lack of self-esteem because I think it kind of set the bar for this Perfection that I never had for a second in my life with the why Johnny can't read controversy in the National Spotlight 51 year old Ted Geisel accepted a challenge to write and illustrate a reader using a list of only 225 words I read the list 40 times Ted said and got more and more discouraged it was trying to make a strudel without any Strudels desperate he decided to write a story around the first two words that rhymed cat and hat over the period of one year the book slowly came together the most important thing about me Ted once said is that I work like hell write rewrite reject re-reject and polish incessantly [Music] to write a 60-page book I write more than a thousand Pages before I'm satisfied [Music] the sun did not shine it was too wet to play so we sat in the house all that cold cold wet day all we could do was to sit sit sit sit and we did not like it not one little bit of course Ted introduced chaos and you know the way kids really behave and and and the things that they're sort of scared about and fascinated about as well we looked then we saw him step in on the mat we looked and we saw him the Cat in the Hat and he said to us why do you sit there like that I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny but we can have lots of good fun that is funny but the way Ted used these words over and over again was fun and exciting because it was all involved with action and something happening all the time look at me look at me look at me now it is fun to have fun but you have to know how I can hold up the cup and the milk and the cake I can hold up these books and the fish on the rake you know I remember the cat in that came into these kids lives and and took them on this Odyssey I mean I guess I thought of him as somewhat of an anarchist you know of course I didn't know the word he was fun I mean the lessons he taught you were not the same way anybody else taught you I mean you'd have somebody come in and destroy that cat destroyed the whole house you remember that that's what children do and they get caught that somebody comes in and catches them he he had that vision that is good said the fish he has gone away yes but your mother will come she will find this big mess and this mess is so big and so deep and so tall we cannot pick it up there's no way at all and then who was back in the house why the cat have no fear of this mess said the Cat in the Hat I always pick up all my play things and so I will show you another good trick that I know and he put them away then he said that is that and then he was gone with a tip of his hat then our mother came in and she said to us too did you have any fun tell me what did you do should we tell her about it now what should we do well what would you do if your mother asked you the possibility of somebody finding out that would have been way too powerful for me I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night I would have been one of those kids who woke up in the middle mommy I gotta tell you something a cat came he ruled the house and they cleaned it up I'm so sorry you know I just couldn't have held at him released in the spring of 1957 The Cat in the Hat quickly became a national phenomenon Newsweek declared Ted The Muppets Milton within three years it sold nearly 1 million copies at a dollar ninety five each the message of the cat and the world's acceptance love embracing of the cat were so powerful that the old ideas about Ted being an old-fashioned cartoonist who had no place in kids books I think dissolved very quickly in front of that Onslaught the book is currently available in 26 languages and in 2003 became a big budget feature film and what he's teaching is balance you know of teaching little kids that don't know how to have fun to have fun and little kids that have too much fun to have fun responsibly oh I think one comrade Sally comrad's the only thing one thing two comments Ellie comments all these things one thing two things one comrade Sally Sally Conrad I am the cat there are differences but they're all sort of born they're all born out of the world that was created by Theodore Geisel and the characters that were created by Theodore gazelle and we've made them extreme oh he once said when I'm gone things will be different because the Creator will be gone and there are different ways to look at this that on some level things may be happening now that he kind of sniff his nose at we had read Dr Seuss to the children there was a nice lovely Rhythm about what he wrote but when Random House published The Cat in the Hat I flipped Bennett surf's wife Phyllis joined Ted and Helen Geisel to form a company that would publish books intended for very young children to read by themselves random house would be their distributor basically what my mom and Ted and Helen did when the beginner book started was to take the Dick and Jane formula to take the exact vocabulary those books used in the same way of of introducing a few words at a time and only putting a few words on a page and just say this is going to be crazy instead of it's just going to be look at this and see that but these books sold in a way that nothing Ted had written before so thank you twenty years after his first book for children Theodore Geisel became random House's best-selling author his book royalties were a mere five thousand dollars the year before he took the Cat in the Hat challenge in 1959 they totaled two hundred thousand dollars Dr Seuss was hailed as the savior of children's literacy we Herald Harry Potter is this something that made kids want to read and you know that's why it's so successful this man really invented reading for many kids and that was really the beginning of Dr Seuss's real Fame before that he was the icing on the cake he wasn't the cake you know they had a rhythm they had style they had humor put it was there to dislike about them they were in a sense what the funny papers strived to do and Ted Geisel was the Renoir the funny papers is all I can tell you good The Cat in the Hat phenomenon forced a private man into the public eye Ted Geisel who hated crowds cameras and interviews had one more challenge to face children [Music] had had almost no experience with them so he didn't know how to act around them he was a naturally shy person even around adults but with children that shyness was magnified tremendously [Music] at the beginning it was sometimes quite stiff as he made appearances he got better and better and realized that talking to them as he signed was something they liked and intent was a person who really cared about pleasing other people for a man who linked so beautifully in writing he seemed he said to be genuinely afraid he'd disappoint them it's part of the insecurity thing he thought if they looked up and didn't see a clown or Santa Claus they think he was a phony and that he couldn't bear their famous stories of kids coming up and knocking on his door and asking to see Dr Seuss and him saying I'm Dr Seuss and I'm going no you're not he never made it sound like he was bitterly disappointed that they were disappointed he just thought it was funny geisel's publisher would receive as many as 1 000 letters a week addressed to Dr Seuss ranging from requests for money to birthday greetings [Music] [Music] happy birthday love Sarah Ted called his few weekly responses cat notes and often composed them in Susie and verse some of the boys and girls want to know if you give people injections and do you give them things to make them better does anybody want any special injections no no I don't think we have no injections today at all I don't believe that he held kids to live in some mysterious Place certainly that he couldn't Plum I think he had a wonderful natural affinity for it this tidying up machine how does it work well sometimes it doesn't work at all oh this is a steam contract there's a dip there's a dipulator in here that runs the whole thing which ties onto the cantabulous which is down near the end here in the cantabulous and the tipulator sometimes don't throwing which gets us into a terrible situation and but do they have a froing thing to make it you send it to the defroyers yeah there's too much yes I see he didn't particularly like children I mean he didn't dislike them but he said you know some kids are great and some kids are creeps and you know I like the great ones and I don't like the creeps and that was it but you know he really wasn't immersed in some love of of the children's life and one last question Dr Zeus do you like writing stories for children well I'd rather do that or anything I know well I'll tell you a secret everybody most grown-ups like reading them too I write for myself Ted once said children are just as smart as you are the main difference is they don't know so many words if your story is simple you can tell it just as if you're telling it to adults after his success using a 225 word vocabulary with the Cat in the Hat Bennett surfed bet Ted that he could not write a beginner book using only 50 words challenged once again Ted retreated into a studio and worked for a solid year writing counting words and rewriting over and over again what he produced would become the best-selling Dr Seuss book of all time do you like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam I Am I do not like green eggs and ham would you like them here or there I would not like them here or there I would not like them anywhere he proved something in it that no one else could possibly do that that no matter what strictures you put on you'll still write something absolutely incredible the book itself is incredibly simple but Ted got every possibility out of those few words that you could possibly get plus the book itself is again about something mischievous that kids absolutely love and Ted was a big kid himself would you like them in a house would you like them with a mouse no I do not like green eggs at him I do not like them Sam I Am I mean but would you like them in a box would you eat them with a fox eat them eat them here they are you may like them in a car Ted's rhyme was perfect and it makes it easier for kids to you know sound out words and the rhyme helps and it sort of bounces along gives the whole story a little more action [Music] you do not like them so you say try them try them and you may try them and you may I say it's just so great when they he cuts the page and he tries and everything's really quiet it goes [Music] say I like green eggs and ham I do I like them Sam I am really brilliant about closing your mind off to something and then opening your mind to something that's just just that as a as a life lesson for a child Ted's success continued over the next few years with a string of books that have become Classics of children's literature when you see something which is simply perfect you don't stop and look at look at it and wonder how it got that way I mean that's one of the definitions of perfect [Music] covered the walls of his studio with cork board and laid each book out like the storyboards he had done for the snafu cartoons of World War II everything about those books was designed so that kids could read them as easily as possible the placement of words the vocabulary that was used the pictures carefully illustrating everything that was said so you could figure out what the words meant from the picture [Music] action on a page always went from left to right so that it would train the eye to follow the written text in the same way that the eye was following the illustration and it would encourage you to turn the page to go on to find out what was going to happen next the words just seem fun in your mouth you know hop hop cat hat uh you just you know has a great home version take home quality that you just want to speak like a Dr Zeus book all day long [Music] as editor-in-chief of Beginner Books Ted issued a strict set of guidelines for the series authors and illustrators you're working on a project and it was almost there and you sort of relaxed we figure it's almost there and Ted would bring you up short he says no everything stinks until it's finished wisdom from Ted and then it was Helen who smoothed the process smoothed the way between not Measuring Up in Ted's mind and getting a publishable book out of it in the end and she brought let's not get too crazy with the bernstead let's let them do what they do they do best that's right and she was quiet but when she spoke it would listen to Helen he had great respect before her the success of Beginner Books attracted high-profile authors such as Roald Dahl and Truman Capote who attempted to write for the series but could not adhere to its limitations you really do have to tear up 99 of your ideas simply because they don't fit within the vocabulary they don't fit within the format of the book they can't be Illustrated you know all of these things that's why the really great Beginner Books are unique I do so like green eggs and ham thank you thank you Sam I am [Music] foreign Geisel worked alone and also cherished his time alone visitors often had trouble finding their way up the hill to his Tower Hideaway he did not suffer fools gladly but with those he trusted he could quickly drop the mantle of children's author Ted had this kind of naughty side I mean it wasn't dirty it wasn't really body it was just kind of a little bit naughty when he was working on Dr Seuss's ABC a page arrived as if it were a real spread for the book and it says uh big X little x x x x x someday kitties you will learn about sex note if Bob Bernstein sees any sales problems inherent in this concept I won't object to substituting my alternative suggestion signed tsg Helen Geisel once said of her husband's sophomoric sense of humor his mind has never grown up I always described Helen to my friends as the perfect wealthy lady she was very polite but not obviously so she was gracious she was always nicely dressed she was very articulate she swam every day in the afternoon before her swim she would have tea by herself in the living room and she would have yogurt in an egg cup and eggs cups worth of yogurt plus her tea and a biscuit of some time [Music] still attentive to her husband's needs Helen knew Ted preferred smaller Gatherings at home to more formal events in town [Music] s so he had a series of drawings which were never published called the bird ladies of La Jolla and they're very satirical that could be the soul of charm and he was witty and he was very bright conversation ever lagged if you were part of it the problem was becoming part of it never comfortable in a crowd Ted would simply disappear at one dinner party he was discovered in the host's library signing books using the name Robert Lewis Stevenson I always thought of him as the kid that stands the back of the classroom and says the wicked thing or egg someone else into saying it and then steps back and looks totally proper totally mannerly and the other one gets the blame he was always the Rascal in 1966 Ted's old friend and wartime collaborator Chuck Jones approached him to adapt a Dr Seuss book into an animated television special but Ted hadn't forgotten the production by committee disaster of the five thousand fingers of Dr T because he was Anna of Hollywood very much so I told him this was another field this is television and he didn't know much about television either but so I went down there and we talked about it and decided on on How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Grinch hated Christmas the whole Christmas season Tom please don't ask why no one quite knows the reason it could be perhaps city shoes were too tight could be his head wasn't screwed on just front but I think that the most likely reasonable may have been that his heart was two sizes too small originally published in 1957 How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the story of an anti-social creature living atop a mountain peak who will do anything he can to stop the Who's down in Whoville from celebrating Christmas Ted worked closely with Chuck in adapting the story to the screen [Music] they were like good friends they had fun together they laughed I remember how I'm writing to someone right when the project was beginning she said Ted can trust him and we'll have fun with him he had a lot of fun writing the songs for it he loved those enough [Music] [Music] oh your soul is an appalling dump here overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable mangled up entangled up now [Music] Chuck Jones and his team of animators brought the Grinch to life using 10 times the amount of drawings required in a typical cartoon making it one of the era's most expensive half hours of television Chuck's inspired animation and the voice of Boris Karloff as the Grinch helped create a holiday classic generations of children remember the ending when despite the Grinch the Who's down in Whoville celebrate the real Spirit of Christmas came with a pack he puzzled and passed to his puzzle of a saw then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before maybe Christmas he thought doesn't come from a store maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more I think Ted was very pleased with it he was proud of it too Ted never had the same pride in subsequent animated specials that were seldom rerun despite the Grinch's success production budget shrank making the genius of Chuck Jones unaffordable and Ted less engaged the LeapFrogs are Elite but family fun mighty fine and their big one while their leads [Music] oh for Theodore Geisel it always came back to the world in which he had Undisputed control his books and for the past four decades his 69 year old wife Helen had made the world of Dr Seuss possible but their marriage had evolved more into a respectful partnership they maintained separate bedrooms and Helen five years Ted senior was in weakening health she was getting blind but she was always a cheerful right up till the time she began to realize someone was moving into what should I call it from marital territory we were very good friends I was something else again that he hadn't happened to come up against and he fell in love I have to feel the big picture it was meant to happen [Music] Audrey stone diamond and her husband gray had been friends of the geisels for six years on October 23 1967 while Ted lay sleeping in his bedroom the geisel's housekeeper discovered Helen dead in her bedroom from a drug overdose next to her body was a letter dear Ted what has happened to us loud in my ears from every side I hear failure failure failure I love you so much I am too old and enmeshed in everything you do and are that I cannot conceive of life without you my going will leave quite a rumor but you can say I was overworked and overwrought your reputation with your friends and fans will not be harmed sometimes think of the fun we had through all the years Helen I don't think he realized the impact that the change in his life had on her he said to me oh my God what do I do kill myself or burn the house down and I came up and and Ted was walking down the path toward that gate and we embraced he was just kind of numb I I just could look at him and he didn't have to say anything [Music] I sense no Discord between Helen and Ted and neither did family or friends looking back a few people saw her within 24 hours and 48 he said she's very sad [Music] but there was simply no hint no clue it's a terrible shock [Music] [Music] the suicide of Helen Geisel wife of America's most beloved children's author triggered rampant gossip in finger-pointing especially in 63 year old Theodore geisel's hometown of La Jolla and it was a hard winter for him since I remembered as a very dreary and foggy and rainy all the time although I don't suppose it really was it looked terrible he was not happy those days and he needed company at lunch and I provided it before we went to work in August of 1968 Ted married 47 year old Audrey stone diamond she would live with him in the house atop Mount Soledad below them the community remained wary some casting blame on Ted on Audrey or both it's exciting to people we'd be here and everything subsides everything always has always will and of course we were so right Audrey loved a scene she could handle any conversation and still can he would just look at her so proudly it was like taking a you know a dancing doll to a party she'd twirl around she absolutely Charmed people and Ted could Retreat happily to his corner and enjoy all this he never cared what he was wearing before but now he was wearing color coordinated pants with very nice shirts and his hair was more often combed and he looked a lot spiffier after Audrey came on the scene everything changed after their marriage and he was growing older and wanted to do new things Audrey was so energetic that it gave him a big boost with Audrey's encouragement Ted wrote The Lorax a morality Tale on pollution and greed a serious departure from the usual susian antics the mysterious onceler cuts down truffle of trees to make things called sneeds which nobody needs despite the plaintiff calls from a creature called The Lorax to stop the forest is destroyed unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better it's not so catch calls the onceler he lets something fall it's a truffle of seed it's the last one of all plant a new truffler treated with care give it clean water and feed it fresh air grow a forest protected from axes that hack then The Lorax and all of his friends may come back the idea of doing a book for kids with a message that's this dramatic and almost dogmatic propagandistic if you will really kind of um disturb some people sales of The Lorax were sluggish for a Dr Seuss book Ted felt that if you weren't patronizing and you weren't false that you could discuss practically anything with children Ted said adults are just obsolete children into hell with them you want to reach them before they become Obsolete and that's what he was intending to do with that book you know I'm surprised that there's not an environmental group called lorax.com you know who go around trying to you know protect the world big thinker big big thinker over the years Ted refused most offers to merchandise his characters as toys or tools for advertising I mean you know it's kind of stabbed at the heart of an agent whose normal job is to get as much money as possible for his client dead was not indifferent to money he liked making money but it was never the primary objective as the father of contemporary children's literature Geisel was a frequent guest of honor at social events promoting his books and literacy he liked his work getting recognized and being recognized he was very gratified by the influence it held but that was his work and he had a lot of distrust in wariness of any efforts to kind of make him an icon he said I'm not interesting to talk to but they expected I guess that maybe if a man who wrote All these wonderful stories and tales that when he spoke they would be the same way and he was not that way he was after all a grown-up human being and I had somewhere a wonderful photograph of Ted at an autographing event and somebody turned up in a grinch suit which is so monumentally awful that all I can do when I look at the picture is delight and Ted's take to the camera which is this kind of [Laughter] [Music] in 1975 Ted experienced an Affliction that put his livelihood in Jeopardy his eyesight began to fail making work impossible three years of surgeries followed before his vision improved he said look at the color around us look at the brilliance look at this look at that it was quite a trip home a jubilant Ted dedicated his next book to his eye surgeon it's a celebration of reading and seeing young cat if you keep your eyes open enough oh the stuff you will learn the most wonderful stuff the more that you read the more things you will know the more that you learn the more Places You'll Go if you read with your eyes shut you're likely to find that the place where you're going is far far behind so that's why I tell you to keep your eyes wide keep them wide open at least on one side [Music] oh as Theodore Geisel approached his 80s his health continued to decline he had a heart attack and in 1983 underwent treatment for cancer beneath his tongue from Decades of smoking when I knew he was sick you know and I'd call and first thing I'd say is how you feeling he wouldn't even answer that question his skip right on to well what's new in New York or what's going on a random house or something to me it was maintenance no matter what system had a problem we'd get it going again and it would be fine I often said she was like a geisha her job was taking care of Ted Audrey added many many constructive years to Ted's life unquestionably he went out with Audrey a lot and I think that that also helped kind of keep him alive and Lively age and infirmity had no effect on Ted's lifelong juvenile delinquency one hour into a charity ball held at a La Jolla department store he was nowhere to be found [Music] tracking down and the women's shoe department with all those Ferragamo boxes stacked all around him and he had one of his art fiber pens and he was marking down the prices on all of them because he thought they were far too expensive Geisel wrote fewer Beginner Books and devoted more time to stories for older children in 1984 he addressed the arms race between the United States and Soviet Union in the butter battle book and I think it was clearly the statement of an elder Statesman of the publishing world something he wanted to say to everybody and to sort of Ratchet down the hysteria of Confrontation that he felt was going on around the world at the time the yukes and the zukes separated by A Great Wall butter their bread differently distrustful of one another and arms race escalates in Susie and fashion you may fling those hard rocks with your triple sling but I also now have my hand on a trigger then Daniel the Kickapoo Spaniel and I marched back toward the wall with our heads held up high while everyone cheered in their cheers filled the sky fight fight for the butter side up Do or Die eventually each side develops its own egg-shaped bomb capable of annihilating the other for the first time in his career Ted Geisel received hate mail from parents who accused him of scaring their children with the prospect of Armageddon this is brainwashing our children and it wasn't because it didn't even take a stand it was a completely open-ended ending which is the reason I think it really works is a children's book because you really can discuss the whole thing grandpa I shouted be careful oh gee who's going to drop it will you or will he be patient said Grandpa we'll see we will see he was a straightforward leftist I mean there's no issue on which he did not take the straightforward left-wing position but his contribution to the growing up process of tens of millions of American children is magnificent and uh it's a legacy that will go on for a hundred years at the height of the national butter battle debate Theodore Geisel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature acknowledging his entire Canon of children's books although the face of the real Dr Seuss appeared on front pages across the country many kids continue to imagine the author as the Cat in the Hat or Santa Claus that didn't bother Ted one bit it didn't matter to him to have his name up in lights and he didn't particularly like being recognized in restaurants he really preferred having a private life the physical portion was saying I've done a noble job for you and I'm growing weary not the brain right there he hated going to doctors and I think the doctors sort of hated to see him I don't think he was an easy patient who ease his frustrations Ted began writing a book on the indignities of Aging just why are you here you're not feeling your best you've come in for an eyesight and solvency test your escape plans have melted you haven't a chance for the next thing you know both your socks and your pants and your drawers and your shoes have been lost for the day the oglers have blossomed like roses in May and silently grimly they ogled away released as a book for adults you're only old once topped the New York Times bestseller list within a year over 1 million copies have been sold and you'll know once you are neckties back under your chin and norvel has waved you God speed with his fin you're in pretty good shape for the shape you are in previously when I just heard the books I would be invited every morning to go to have cocoa among the kindergartens that now I get invited to have martinis that old folks homes where would you rather be somewhere in between Theodore Geisel dedicated your only old wants to his fellow senior citizens from dartmouth's graduating class of 1925. [Music] [Music] in 1986 Theodore Geisel looked on as a San Diego museum began the installation of a massive retrospective of his life's work true to form he did not want to talk about it Lorraine you know that Dr Seuss does not like to give interviews you didn't want to say anything about his cat I doubt it while Ted preferred to let his work speak for itself he was more than vocal about protecting his characters and stories from exploitation when an anti-abortion group used this line from Horton Hears a Who as Ted's endorsement of their cause he demanded and received an immediate retraction when a toy company sent him a box of shoddily made characters he threw it in his swimming pool I think he believed so strongly that in order for his characters to have their true Integrity he really had to do them himself Museum curators anxiously walked Geisel through their presentation of his legendary career the exhibition would later go on a successful national tour and critics would praise Dr Seuss's genius as an artist and writer typically Ted Geisel kept his comments to a minimum [Music] yes after the Museum tour Ted's Health worsened to the point where he rarely went out in public returning to the privacy of his Hilltop Studio the idea for a book that would become his Farewell message emerged was much more like kind of a wise grandfather or father sitting down and talking to a younger generation congratulations today is your day you're off to great places you're off and Away you have brains in your head you have feet in your shoes you can steer yourself any direction you choose you're on your own and you know what you know and you are the guy who'll decide where to go you'll be on your way up you'll be seeing great sights you'll join the High Flyers who soar to high heights you won't lag behind because you'll have the speed you'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon Take the Lead wherever you fly you'll be the best of the best wherever you go you will Top all the rest released in early 1990 oh the Places You'll Go shot to the top of the New York Times adult bestseller list Theodore Geisel in weakening Health enjoyed the book's success from his home in La Jolla [Music] I'm sorry to say so but sadly it's true that bang-ups and Hang-Ups can happen to you but on you will go though the weather be foul on you will go though your enemy is proud on you will go though the hack and cracks how onward up many a frightening Creek though your arms may get sore and your sneakers May leak it's a spread in oh the Places You'll Go that just makes you think of the river sticks or going to Hades or something and it just seemed so clear that that you know that he was not knowing where he was going to go pretty soon he talks about the end of life's journey and the journey that we then make beyond that it's a book very much about the passage from this life into the next I mean it really is Ted's valedictory he'd say am I dead now which is humor wishing to remain where he had worked for so many years a bed was placed in his Studio because he really didn't want anybody to see him in the condition that he felt he was in probably about three weeks before he died he said he didn't want to autograph any more books and we didn't send out any more cat notes and I knew then that his life was going to be ending on September 24 1991 Theodore Geisel died in his Studio a few feet from his drawing board and his creatures he was 87 years old [Music] [Music] did I really like your books my favorite is the Cat in the Hat and please send some information yes Julie Dean he was totally self-contained he didn't need you know any anyone to tell him who he was so much about Ted but on the other hand other hand though you can't pin it down really since her husband's death Audrey Geisel has overseen the release of Dr Seuss toys clothing and numerous animated stories foreign there is a Dr Seuss attraction at a theme park in Florida a Broadway musical and feature films based on his characters noting the dearth of merchandising during Ted's lifetime some have called it exploitation and you have to guess at it in a way that we are hoping that if if Theodore gazelle were alive he could answer he would be answering those questions the same way you'd be answering those questions because you don't want to do anything that would sort of buy that would violate his legacy [Music] [Applause] this cat is currently in violation of it 17 of your mother's rules 18. nothing is static there's only two directions it can go onward and upward or it can go downward and Oblivion and if it takes selling cookies or figures or t-shirts or this or that or the other thing so be it happy birthday read with me you guys One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish every year on Theodore geisel's birthday classrooms Across America celebrate Dr Seuss and his books there will be nobody with the influence that this man has had and you know my kids have them and I guarantee you their kids will have them because both Grandma will buy them for them and I'm sure that their mom and dad will remember the books that we read is why kids pick up on the joyful aspect of reading is that they're getting from their parents I want to share this with you because I remember how wonderful it was when I did it myself you know and that's how readers are born oh the Places You'll Go remained Atop The New York Times bestseller list for one year after Ted's death it has become a favorite gift for high school and college graduates and every spring it becomes a best seller all over again and will you succeed yes you will indeed 98 and three-quarter percent guaranteed kid you'll move mountains so be your name bucksbomb or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea you're off to great places today is your day your mountain is waiting so get on your way [Music]

Channel: Peter Jones Productions

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Id: 7qkTLghT1xA

Length: 99min 54sec (5994 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023