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Horton Hears a Who! · This Film is Lit

• 0:04
  Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian, and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
• 0:15
  Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers. Because this film is lit, we've got to make noises in greater amounts. So open your mouth, lad. For every voice counts. It's Horton Hears a who and this film is. Is Lit. Hello, and welcome back to this Film Is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books we have. I don't think every. No, we don't. Obviously we don't have a.
• 1:11
  Speaker B: We don't have a guess who?
• 1:12
  Speaker A: Because with the picture books, yeah, I guess it could hold up pictures for me, but that's.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: That would be so exciting for everyone to listen to.
• 1:20
  Speaker A: Not a particularly exciting. It's also kind of like super obvious, but anyway, so no guess who. But we have every other segment, including our summary. If you have not read or watched Horton Hears a who recently, here is a brief summary and let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This summary is sourced from Wikipedia. In the jungle of Noel Horton the elephant, the jungle's eccentric nature teacher, hears a tiny yelp coming from a floating dust speck and gives chase to it before placing it on top of a flower. Horton finds out the speck harbors the city of Whoville and its inhabitants. The who's, led by Mayor Ned McDodd, whose family includes his wife Sally, 96 daughters whose names all begin with the letter H, and one teenage son named JoJo. Despite being the oldest child and next in line for the mayoral position, Jodo does not want to be the next mayor, and he does not speak due to his fear of disappointing his father. Once Horton begins carrying the Spec with him, the city starts experiencing strange phenomena. Earthquakes and changes in the weather, and the mayor finds his attempts to caution Whoville challenged by the town council, led by the opportunistic yet condescending chairman. After he makes contact with Horton, the mayor finds out from Dr. Mary Lou LaRue that Whoville will be destroyed if Horton does not find a safe location for the speck. To reside with the help of his best friend, Morton the Mouse, Horton decides to place the speck atop Mount Noel, the safest place in the jungle. The head of the jungle, the sour Kangaroo, who despises Horton for his lackadaisical influence on the children and subsequently pouch schooling her son Rudy, demands numerous times that Horton give up the speck for overshadowing her authority, but Horton refuses. Also taking force toward Horton are the Wickersham Brothers, a group of monkeys and lackeys to the Kangaroo who like to cause havoc around the jungle. Eventually, the Kangaroo, refusing to believe that the who's exist, enlists a sinister but idiotic vulture named Vlad Vladikov to get rid of the speck by force. After a few failed attempts, Vlad manages to steal the flower away from Horton and drops it into a massive field of identical pink flowers, causing an apocalyptic tremor in Whoville. After unsuccessfully picking flowers all day, Horton eventually recovers the flower. Exactly the 3 millionth flower, also revealing himself to the or 300,000. No, 3 millionth flower. Also revealing himself to the rest of Whoville, who have largely survived. Largely survived.
• 3:34
  Speaker B: I don't remember.
• 3:35
  Speaker A: We don't see any, like, bodies or anything, so I don't know. I assume they all survived, but the Kangaroo eventually finds out that Horton still has the Spec, fires Vlad and rallies the jungle community into arresting Horton. Preying on their fears of that their own children will become chaotic delinquents under his influence. Upon an angry mob stampeding to Horton and cornering him, the Kangaroo offers Horton a final chance to renounce Whoville's existence. He refuses, and despite the heartfelt speech that he gives, the Kangaroo orders the animals to rope and cage him and to have the speck and Whoville destroyed in a pot of beesel nut oil. The Mayor enlists all of his people to make noise so that all the animals will find out that they're really there. Assisted by JoJo's Symphonophone, an invention which creates a huge musical contribution, reveals that JoJo's true passion is music, but still fails to penetrate the surface of the speck. What an undercooked side plot. Yeah. The Kangaroo snatches the flower from the captured Horton and prepares to drop it into the pot. Meanwhile, JoJo grabs the horn used to protect project Horton's voice runs up to the highest tower and screams, his first word breaking through the sound barrier just seconds before the Spec hits the oil, causing the rest of the animals to hear them. Rudy grabs the flower just in time. Rudy is the son. I assume they set this up at Some point. But Rudy is the son of the sour Kangaroo just in time. And returns the flower to Horton who the other animals release. Horton forgives the ostracized kangaroo, who in turn provides a makeshift umbrella for Whoville while Norton carries it to Mount Gnuhl. The who's and the animals of Nool say farewell to each other by singing. Cat can't fight this feeling. And it is revealed that the jungle of Noel and Earth as a whole is just one speck like Whoville among numerous others floating in space. There is your summary of Horton Hears a who the film. I have some questions. Let's get into them. In. Was that in the book Gaston?
• 5:20
  Speaker B: May I have my book please?
• 5:21
  Speaker A: How can you read this? There's no pictures.
• 5:24
  Speaker B: Well, some people use their imagination.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: So we're introduced to Horton at the beginning of the film and the way we're introduced to him is he's teaching. He has a group of youngsters with him, young jungle animals. And he's teaching a class of some sort about like the indigenous fauna and flora, I guess.
• 5:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: And I wanted to know if Horton is like. So just to set this up for our listeners who haven't checked. I have not read this. I have read this book when I was a child. A child. So. But I have not read it since then and I have not seen the movie until we watched it the other day. So I may. There may be elements of this I have buried deep in my four year old memory or whatever. But. So my first question is, is Horton a teacher like he is in the book? Because my assumption would be that the movie is expanding his like filling out things about his character that are, you know, the book is probably a little more streamlined than that. So is he a teacher?
• 6:20
  Speaker B: No, there aren't any like kids in the book other than the Sour Kangaroos. Joey who the movie named Rudy, apparently. I, I do think that this is a fine change. I'm not sure that it's through line throughout the movie is like super strong.
• 6:37
  Speaker A: They do kind of just.
• 6:38
  Speaker B: But I think it's drop it, you know, a fine addition. Yeah, I did like the movie's kind of little plot foreshadowing at the beginning where it looks like Horton's making up the leaf bugs but then he isn't and they actually are leaf bugs.
• 6:53
  Speaker A: I didn't even think about that. But yeah, because yeah, he's telling them about these leaf bugs and he's like showing them this one that he thinks is a leaf bug, but it's clearly just an actual leaf. But Then seconds later, he is covered in the leaf bugs. So, yeah, that's. I didn't even think that. Makes good call out. So this is not something I remembered. I remembered that he finds that the little speck, the who that he hears is on a little flower. But in the movie, the way that occurs is he sees the little speck floating through the air and he's chasing it for minutes. And we get kind of a. Like a little action y scene of him chasing down the speck, which makes sense, but it. Then the way it ends up on the flower is that in the movie, he like. It's about to land in like a pond or something and he like grabs a flower and dives and catches it on the flower. And so he's the one responsible for the little dust mote ending up on a flower. And I wanted to know if he's responsible for it in the book or if he just finds it on a flower.
• 7:56
  Speaker B: In the book, he is responsible for it ending up on the flower. It's not like the movie makes it into kind of like a chase scene. Yeah, in the book he just like gently plucks it out of the air and sets it down on the flower.
• 8:09
  Speaker A: Okay, there we go. Fair enough. So then we are introduced to Sour Kangaroo, who he's. I think he mentions that he found this. This little dust spec. She's coming there to pick up the kids or something like that, or her kid. And he mentions that he found this dust speck on this flower, but she doesn't believe him. And she keeps insisting that he couldn't have heard anything on the speck and that he should drop it because tiny people don't exist and that this community has standards. And she clearly doesn't like that he's.
• 8:40
  Speaker B: Breaking from the norm.
• 8:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, breaking from the norms. And I wanted to know if there was a mean, skeptical conservative. And I'm going to talk about this dichotomy at length because it was something I found fascinating. Fascinating. In the movie, if there's this mean, skeptical, slash conservative kangaroo that is like the antagonist of the book because I don't remember if they're the imagery of the kangaroo rung a bell, but like the design a little bit. But I couldn't remember if that was like a character from the book or not.
• 9:08
  Speaker B: So the Sour Kangaroo is from the book. I would say that the movie greatly expands her character. Yeah, I guess you could call her the primary antagonist of the book, but it's so short. I don't know that I would call it Any of them the pr. I don't know. So she's at the very beginning of the book and kind and kind of kicks off the idea that Horton is stupid for believing that there are people living on this speck of dust.
• 9:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker B: And then she shows up again at the end as the mastermind behind the plan to tie up Horton and boil the speck. But she's pretty absent from the middle of the book.
• 9:43
  Speaker A: Okay. But clearly, like the same role, essentially. I don't even say kind of like the exact same role. Right. Like, she is the one who's like, this is nonsense. And then is the one who at the end is like, we're gonna boil this speck and blah, blah, blah.
• 9:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I also want to note that some of her kind of expanded characterization might be gleaned from the 1970 animated special. Because I did, while I was working on our notes, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I kind of clicked through it and it felt very familiar to what the 2008 movie was doing.
• 10:18
  Speaker A: Okay. That can make sense.
• 10:19
  Speaker B: In general, I do like what the movie does with her character. I think that she is unfortunately extremely recognizable.
• 10:26
  Speaker A: I would agree with that. I have a note about that later that I want to discuss in Lost. An adaptation. Yeah.
• 10:31
  Speaker B: However, like you, I do think there are, like, maybe some mixed messages.
• 10:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:36
  Speaker B: With her kind of clearly being a stand in for a conservative type, like.
• 10:41
  Speaker A: Like a religious conservative who's like, these are the way we do things.
• 10:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. This is our way we do things. And we have a very strict box that we live in. And if deviate outside of that, you're obviously trying to cause havoc. Yeah.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: Because she clearly already hates Horton before the speck incident because she already does not like him. He's just like, kind of a goofy, like, freewheeling. Well, the summary summed it up as, like, lackadaisical. And like, he's not. He doesn't fit into the very specific box that she thinks their society should all fit into.
• 11:15
  Speaker B: But then at the same time, she espouses these ideas that kind of feel more like skepticism.
• 11:23
  Speaker A: And that was the thing that I found really frustrating or weird is that. And it wouldn't even be that much of an issue if the exact version of skepticism she espoused in the movie wasn't so clearly a kind of form of, like, scientific skepticism. So I'm. That's probably the. The thing I identify with most is, is I'm a. I'm a very scientifically skeptically minded person. Like, I. Everything I believe in Is because I think there is. My worldview is based around a lot about like what we can prove and deduce is true from through the processes of science and reasoning and all that sort of stuff. And kind of the thing, the thing that she espouses at the beginning is something like she has the exact line of like, if we can't see it or hear it or touch it or what I feel it, it's not real. Which is a very like simplified and dumbed down kind of idea of that. But it is a skeptical mindset, like a rational, like scientific realism kind of mindset. Again boiled down immensely and simplified immensely. But at the same time she's also seems to clearly be like a. A social. And there's no religion in the movie. But she has all the hallmarks of a modern right wing Christian conservative. Except for.
• 12:45
  Speaker B: Except for that one being like, yes.
• 12:48
  Speaker A: We only believe in things we can see and touch. And it's a very interesting. And we'll get into it more about it later with kind of like my overall issue with the story and like its theme and like message, which I don't think is bad. I want to stress that I think it's a fine message and I think it's. It mostly does a good job communicating it. I just think there's some issues and we'll get into that a little bit later. But I really had an issue with this and it mostly drops. It was mostly just this first scene where she's like, we only believe in things we can see and blah, blah, blah. Because then after that she pretty much just completely veers into like a typical portrayal of like a conservative who is, you know, we don't like new things, we don't like these new ideas and new blah, blah, blah.
• 13:34
  Speaker B: I kind of felt like the writers didn't quite know how to take her from point A to point B. I agree.
• 13:40
  Speaker A: And the issue with that is. And it's a thing I see in media a lot that's tough is that skeptics are also often portrayed in the. In the. It's just something you have to get used to being a skeptic is that we're often portrayed as like the wrong idiots in media across the board. Because in media most of the time the story is like. Or not most of the time. Many times the story is at least thought to be more interesting if there is magic. If there is, you know, we're usually telling. The skeptics always show up in stories where magic actually does exist and does, you know, is like Demonstrable in the world very clearly. And in those universes, it is ridiculous to be like, this is nonsense. And in a universe where. Oh, and now I say where animals are talking. I guess they don't know a different universe where animals don't talk. But like, you know, all of these and like very outlandish creatures and stuff that we see in the world of Dr. Seuss. For her to be like, no, it's impossible for there to be. It's just. I don't know, it's interesting. And so, yeah, I found her character at the beginning kind of a weird. Like, yeah, they didn't really know. We need her to deny the existence of this spec thing. Like the. The who's on the. On the. On the spec. And the easiest way to do that is her have her be like, we only believe in things we can like see and touch and feel or whatever and hear. But then also the rest of the messaging around her character is going to be we only believe in the things we've always believed in. I don't know, it's just to me, those are kind of at odds with each other, that characterization. But again, after this first scene with her, she pretty much just veers completely into the conservative archetype, which I think works. But. So my next question was, is there a Whovian main character? Like, so I knew obviously Horton Hears a who. I know it's the who, but is there a Whovian main character that we interact. That Horton interacts with and is he the mayor of Whoville and does he have 96 daughters and a son who, blah, blah, blah. Or to me that all felt like maybe movie expansions.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: So the main who that Horton talks to does introduce himself as the mayor of Whoville, however, so it is confirmed.
• 15:55
  Speaker A: To be who villain. That was one of my later questions. Okay. Because I wasn't sure if maybe like it was like the vill from the Grinch or.
• 16:02
  Speaker B: I mean, unless there could be multiple Whoville's, I suppose.
• 16:05
  Speaker A: Fair enough.
• 16:06
  Speaker B: But it is confirmed in text to be Whoville.
• 16:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:10
  Speaker B: However, there are. There's no mention of the mayor having any children.
• 16:14
  Speaker A: One of the recurring animation like jokes gags within the movie that I thought was a pretty fun little running gag is that Horton throughout the movie will use his ears to form around his head and create little hats for himself. That I thought was a really fun little visual gag. And I wanted to know if that element came from the book at all, because I didn't seem like it.
• 16:36
  Speaker B: But yeah, no, that's not something that's depicted in the book. I also thought it was fun, though.
• 16:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it makes sense in works and it. It looked. Yeah. I liked when he made this little. His little like newsboy cap or whatever. I can't remember how. Or if the who Vians. Who. The who Vian. I guess that's the singular. The Whovian that he's talking to the Mayor. We'll just call him Ned because that's his name in the movie. I couldn't remember if he's able to communicate back. Well, obviously is because he hears a who. But does is he able to communicate with Horton by constructing some sort of strange device? Or can Horton just hear him?
• 17:15
  Speaker B: So Horton can just hear him in the book. And kind of the idea that's referenced is that because Horton's ears are so much bigger than everyone else's. Yes. As an elephant. That he's able to hear the who's without any kind of assistance, whereas the others cannot.
• 17:34
  Speaker A: That's not something the movie touches on, I don't think. Or at least I don't recall any reference.
• 17:38
  Speaker B: It might have been, like referenced once, maybe. But yeah, definitely the movie utilizes this idea of like a device that they use to communicate.
• 17:50
  Speaker A: But it is interesting because there were many times. There were at least a couple times in the movie where I was like, why can no one else hear him? But I. And I feel like the movie never. Maybe they did. And I just missed it in like one line or something. But I really didn't remember the movie ever kind of being like, oh, Horton can hear because he has giant elephant ears. But that. And that's why nobody else can. Maybe they did and I just missed it.
• 18:15
  Speaker B: I will say that the mayor of Whoville is depicted holding a megaphone at the end of the book. So perhaps that's where the movie got.
• 18:23
  Speaker A: The idea that makes sense because he basically constructs a large megaphone, non electronic megaphone. Basically. He connects a gramophone thing, speaker thing to some pipes on his house that I guess, whatever. Yeah. Doesn't really matter. But one of the things that happens in the movie that I thought was really fun. It's also very inconsistent. But that's totally fine because it's, you know, it is what it is. But it's a. It's a fun little gag is that occasionally, whenever the movie wants it to, the things that Horton does with the flower and the speck affects the world of Whoville. Like if he's like shaking it around it, like causes earthquakes in Whoville. If he covers it with like, at one point, he covers it with his ears and, like, it blocks all the light. And so the sun, like, turns on and off, like, instantly, basically. And then later in a scene, he wakes up early in the morning and it's sitting on the ground and, like, the morning frost has accumulated on it. And that has made, like, a blizzard, like, a. The entire entirety of Whoville, like, covered in snow. And then he's able to, like, blow on it and melt all the snow. And I wanted to know if that element of the outside world affecting their, like, weather and stuff instantaneously came from the book.
• 19:42
  Speaker B: The only thing like that that's mentioned in the book is the destruction after being dropped in the flower field.
• 19:48
  Speaker A: Okay, so it can happen.
• 19:49
  Speaker B: So it can happen. But I did also really enjoy the movie's additions. I particularly liked the snow bit.
• 19:55
  Speaker A: The snow bit was very funny in particular at the. Or after he melts it all. Yeah, he blows. He blows on it, like, with his hot breath to melt all the snow and it melts it all. But there everybody was, like, playing in the snow. And so it cuts back after he does that. And the kids are all just, like, wallowing in mud puddles and, like, their snowman melted and blah, blah, blah. And they're all. And, like, people were, like, sledding or, like, like, face planting and stuff like that. And. And so, like. And it cuts to Ned, and Horton, like, says down to him, is that better? Like, because he's like, oh, I melted the snow for you guys. And, like, all the kids are, like, sobbing because they're snowman melted and stuff. And Ned just, like, looks around and just, like, shrugs awkwardly, which was very funny. I really liked. It was a very Steve Carell reaction.
• 20:43
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:43
  Speaker A: And I thought it was very funny. I enjoyed that a lot. I couldn't remember what the central plot of the book was. I know he hears a who and has to convince everybody else that they're real, but beyond that, I couldn't really remember. And I was. And remind me, we gotta ask. Talk about Party Edition. Because people asked about it.
• 20:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:59
  Speaker A: Okay. Is the central plot of the book that Horton. Because the central plot of the movie is he finds them, he's not only gonna try to convince everybody, but more than that, he wants to take them somewhere safe where he can put them, somewhere where they'll be protected and not get eaten. Because at the beginning he's thinking about just setting them somewhere and then sees all the animals eating all the plants and stuff. And so he thinks, like, oh, I'll go Put it in this cave. There's this little hole in a mountain that'll be safe up there. Is that the central plot of the book?
• 21:30
  Speaker B: No, I would say the movie, like you said, gives Horton a specific place that he's journeying to to deposit the spec so that they'll be safe. But in the book, he's just, like, more generally trying to protect the who's.
• 21:46
  Speaker A: Where does they. Do they end up anywhere specific at the end? Or is it just. Or is it just like, oh, they didn't destroy it. Hooray. And he, like, they'll, you know.
• 21:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's more like they didn't destroy it. Hooray. And then all of the other jungle animals are like, oh, we're also going to help protect the who's.
• 22:05
  Speaker A: Oh, look at that. She does have the umbrella.
• 22:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:06
  Speaker A: That's a book nailed or movie. Nailed it.
• 22:08
  Speaker B: I do have that.
• 22:09
  Speaker A: Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to spoil your spoilers. Sorry.
• 22:11
  Speaker B: I'm sorry.
• 22:12
  Speaker A: So. Yeah, but the last page of it was for. Obviously you couldn't see it. Is. Is him holding the flower and the Kangaroo covering it with the.
• 22:20
  Speaker B: The tiny umbrella.
• 22:21
  Speaker A: But they weren't putting it anywhere, so we don't know if they. Yeah, okay. But I think it makes sense as a movie to give him like a. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:28
  Speaker B: You want like a more concrete.
• 22:30
  Speaker A: Concrete goal for your. Yeah. Main character. Otherwise he's just wandering around with a flower, I guess. Yeah. Does the Kangaroo hire a vulture to destroy the clover? That didn't ring to me as being a thing from the book. That felt like, too involved of a plot element. I don't know.
• 22:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. So Vlad Vladikov the vulture is from the book.
• 22:51
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 22:52
  Speaker B: But it's the Wickersham Brothers, the monkeys who steal the clover and then they hand it off to him.
• 22:59
  Speaker A: Handed off to Vlad Vladikov.
• 23:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, okay. And then he, like, flies away with it.
• 23:03
  Speaker A: But was it somebody. Did the Kangaroo recruit the Wickersham Brothers or. Or did they just like.
• 23:12
  Speaker B: Let me double check that. Through the high jungle treetops, the news quickly spread. He talks to a dust speck. He's out of his head. Just look at him walk with that speck on that flower. And Horton walked, worrying, for almost an hour. And we can see the monkeys in the picture. But just as he spoke to the mayor of the Speck, three big jungle monkeys climbed up Horton's neck. The Wickersham Brothers came, shouting, what rot. This elephant's talking to who's who. Are not. There aren't any who's and they don't have a mayor, and we're going to stop all this nonsense. So there.
• 23:46
  Speaker A: Okay. So it seems like they're just acting on their own behest, basically. Behest is a good word. We should use them more. People should use the word behest more.
• 23:54
  Speaker B: That's your homework for the week, everybody.
• 23:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. So no inclination that the Kangaroo is the one masterminding this plot? More so just that they heard about it. Like, this is nonsense.
• 24:06
  Speaker B: More so that everybody seems to be a jerk in this jungle other than Horton.
• 24:11
  Speaker A: To be fair, the Wickershams also seem like jerks in the movie.
• 24:13
  Speaker B: That is true.
• 24:15
  Speaker A: So the vulture is able to steal the flower and takes it away. And Horton is chasing after the vulture, but at the last second, they get to the edge of a cliff and the vulture drops the flower off and it falls hundreds of feet down into a gigantic field of millions of identical. Of these. Like, they call. I think they call it a clover in the movie. It looks more like a.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: It looks like a tiny Truffula tree from.
• 24:43
  Speaker A: Sure, I was going for a real life example, but yeah, yeah, yeah, it looks like a thistle.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: It does, yeah.
• 24:50
  Speaker A: More than a clover.
• 24:51
  Speaker B: But I think it's supposed to look like the little white flowers that grow in clover. If you like, let clover grow. Clover gets a little white.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: I would like to see those. I don't know what those look like. Yeah, okay. Yeah. But yeah, to me it looks like a thistle because it's like that round, kind of pink, spiky looking ball. But anyways, does it get dropped into a field of millions of clovers? And is there like a catastrophic disaster in Whoville when that happens?
• 25:19
  Speaker B: I had mentioned this already, kind of. But yes and yes to both of those questions.
• 25:26
  Speaker A: That's interesting because I kind of thought that the giant field of flowers felt like a movie thing to me. Like, that was interesting. And does Horton. Yeah, there you go. And does Horton just go through them all one by one? Yeah, you did make a good point in the movie that he's picking all of these.
• 25:43
  Speaker B: But we know it's a loose flower.
• 25:44
  Speaker A: We know it's a loose flower. So if he needs to pick it, it's not that flower.
• 25:49
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 25:50
  Speaker A: Although I guess you could argue that maybe he's worried that the. The speck fell off the. Yeah, the flower and could have ended up on any of them. So he's checking in the mall. But it ends up being on the same flower, I think. Or at least it's on a loose one. Seems like it's floating through the air. So, yeah. Okay. So then we get to the end. He gets the flower back, but then he gets captured again by the kangaroo or whatever, and he gets taken to his kangaroo court, the tribunal, where they're gonna destroy the speck in the oil. And each, I think, he mentions or something. I don't know. Somehow the who's know they need to make their self. They make themselves known. So they all start, like, playing music and making as much noise as possible to try to get noticed. And does that happen in the book?
• 26:40
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 26:41
  Speaker A: Okay. And then my last question is, does it end similarly, which is in the movie? The. The kangaroo goes to drop it in the oil, but at the last second, I believe. Well, I'm not. I believe JoJo does, as I said in the summary, like, says something and that's loud enough to burst through the clouds. And the sound travels out and the other animals are able to hear it, but specifically Joey or whatever.
• 27:10
  Speaker B: Rudy.
• 27:11
  Speaker A: Rudy, who is a.
• 27:12
  Speaker B: Is a Joey.
• 27:13
  Speaker A: Joey, yeah. The son of Sour Kangaroo who's in her pouch at the time, hears it and realizes that the who's are real. And at the last second reaches out and catches it. And then basically, happy ending. Everybody goes, oh, okay. They agree. They realize he was right, and that's pretty much the end. Is that how the book ends?
• 27:32
  Speaker B: Pretty much less dramatically, I think so. The Wickershams and the Sour Kangaroo have Horton tied up and they are trying to boil the speck. And meanwhile, the who's are making as much noise as possible.
• 27:46
  Speaker A: So spot on so far.
• 27:47
  Speaker B: And then the Mayor finds one little, little boy who isn't making any noise. Who's JoJo in the movie, but in the book, he's just an unnamed kid.
• 27:55
  Speaker A: Just a kid.
• 27:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then. Then that kid yells, yap.
• 27:59
  Speaker A: I was wondering what he yelled in the movie, because I think that is what he yells.
• 28:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, the classic. I thought he yelled nonsense word.
• 28:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. I thought he went, yep. And I was like, what?
• 28:09
  Speaker B: And that is the sound that ultimately breaks through and the Sour Kangaroo and the Wickershams finally hear them. There's not like a dramatic moment where, like, slow mo fall. Slow mo fall.
• 28:20
  Speaker A: Caught at the last second.
• 28:21
  Speaker B: Yes. Snatched out of the air at the last second. That was a movie additional.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: They just hear it and then go, oh, never mind, we're not gonna do this. Okay.
• 28:27
  Speaker B: But otherwise, pretty similar to what happens in the movie.
• 28:30
  Speaker A: Fair enough. Those are all my questions for. Was that in the book? But I did have one thing I wanted to talk about in Lost in Adaptation.
• 28:37
  Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way.
• 28:41
  Speaker A: Was it Lost? Yes. Yes.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: And I want to get unlost as soon as possible.
• 28:46
  Speaker A: So I kind of alluded to this earlier. And. And we do this sometimes with Lost Adaptation. There was nothing in. Normally the segment is if I'm like, confused about something and want more background from the book, that isn't really a Was that in the book. But other times we just make it, like, where we discuss thematic stuff because it. I think it works. And one of the things I want to discuss is that. And I kind of alluded to it when we were discussing the Sour Kangaroo earlier, but that I think my biggest critique of this story, the movie, and I assume by extension the book, but definitely this movie, from having watched it, is that the movie's moral is nebulous enough that I can totally see why people of vastly different political persuasions could watch it and think that the movie agrees with them.
• 29:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I think that's true for the book as well.
• 29:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. It just. I can totally understand why a pro life movement would latch onto it, but I can also understand why an LGBTQ community would latch onto it and be like this. You know, like, it's a. Nebulous enough and the villains aren't well defined enough. And like, to me, they are like, especially towards the end. To me it's. And we'll get into that. But I have a note about it somewhere and better in the movie. We'll get into that. We'll discuss your. Your note there. But I think the movie, to me, like, it's very obvious what I think the movie is making the Sour Kangaroo representative of. But it's not so on the nose that I. I'm not.
• 30:13
  Speaker B: There are times kind of mixed characterization doesn't help that.
• 30:16
  Speaker A: Mixed characterization doesn't help, especially at the beginning. But even. Even at the end, it's. It's not on the. It's not like, clear enough. Like, again, I interpret it as like a. Basically a social conservative, like, and like a conservative, like, Christianity conservative religious movement. And we'll get into why in just a second in your next segment. But I can totally see why. So comparing it to some other things where I'm like, there's movies that I watch. Severance is a good example TV show. We're rewatching Severance right now. Joe Rogan the other day was like, severance is the greatest show ever. And people are like, what is wrong? Everything. Every week you have a billionaire on your show and you, like, glaze him about how amazing his. His new slavery technology is. Like, like, what are you talking. You can't. How do you watch Severance and go. This is. I agree with this show. Like, it's like, you have to be so media illiterate to not understand what's going on in Severance, in my opinion. But this movie, I can understand why, again, a pro life movement could watch this movie and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's about us. That's about us. I get that at least. So I think that's my biggest critique is that I don't think the movie goes far enough in establishing what it's saying or in solidifying what it's saying and in its progressive message. Because I think what the movie is saying is everybody is a person that deserves respect and.
• 31:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:39
  Speaker A: And value. And value all life and blah, blah, blah. And so it's about equality, it's about. It's about dei, it's about diversity, it's about equality, it's about occlusion. And so, like, that's clearly what I think the movie is about. I just don't think they quite go hard enough, especially for a kids movie where kids, like.
• 31:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:57
  Speaker A: Need a little bit more, I think, kind of, you know, push to, like, make it very clear what the moral of a story is. Anyways, those are my thoughts. That's my kind of my. My main critique. Because other than that, I think it's a good. Pretty good movie.
• 32:11
  Speaker B: So I want to bounce off of that then to come back to something that we talked about in the prequel episode, which was the historical context of Dr. Seuss writing this book.
• 32:23
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 32:24
  Speaker B: Which is that it's apparently about post World War II occupied Japan and America's treatment of the Japanese people in that time period.
• 32:34
  Speaker A: And that's. Or at least that's definitely what inspired it. And that seemingly was like, kind of the main thing he was commenting on.
• 32:40
  Speaker B: Yes. According to various resources, that is what this book is about. That's our. Our authorial intent. Yeah, I think it's definitely possible to read it through that lens. But I do think that there are a few issues kind of similar to what you had with the movie. One being that, like you said about the movie, the ultimate moral is kind of nebulous and easy to apply to pretty much anything. As we said in the prequel. I'm not sure that I ever would have gotten that specific reading just from the text without knowing the backstory, the historical context, the authorial intent. Yeah.
• 33:27
  Speaker A: Again, it. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
• 33:29
  Speaker B: And then if you compare this to something like the Lorax, where the message is, like, very obvious and clear, it's kind of even weirder how vague this is.
• 33:40
  Speaker A: There's no subtlety in the Lorax. The Lorax, you know, is about environmentalism. And, like, it's. It is very clear what that is about. Yeah.
• 33:49
  Speaker B: And. And maybe I'm just missing something because I'm not currently steeped in that historical context. Maybe there was something, some element that would have made that more clear to people at the time. I really don't know. But to me, I. I just don't think there's any way that I ever would have presumed that. Just from the text.
• 34:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:14
  Speaker B: The other thing that I want to talk about, and I know I'm probably, like, oversimplifying this.
• 34:20
  Speaker A: No, this is the same. This is the reason when you said that in the episode that I went like.
• 34:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker A: And, like, made a weird noise.
• 34:27
  Speaker B: The other thing is that if a person's a person, no matter how small, which is. That's like our rallying cry. Yeah. The thesis of the story, if that is genuinely supposed to be about the Japanese people.
• 34:44
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 34:45
  Speaker B: That's pretty fucking condescending.
• 34:47
  Speaker A: I mean, stereotypically, there is very much stereotypes about short, small, Asian or Japanese people.
• 34:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. And, like, listen, I know it's. It's a metaphor. Nobody needs to, like, come at me and tell me it's a metaphor. I understand.
• 35:02
  Speaker A: Right.
• 35:03
  Speaker B: But I think it's pretty condescending. Like, I'm. I guess I'm glad that Dr. Seuss changed his mind from virulent racism, but how much of an improvement is patronizing racism?
• 35:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:16
  Speaker B: Like, I guess it's less immediately harmful, but that's about it.
• 35:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It's like I said, if that's the framework. Because again, that was the exact reason I was like, wait a second, is that. Yeah, because if that's what it is, the person's a person, no matter how small. It feels like he almost did that as, like, a weird, like, bad joke. Like.
• 35:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, it feels really rude.
• 35:36
  Speaker A: It feels very strange. I. It's just like. Yeah, I thought it was very interesting.
• 35:40
  Speaker B: And then I was like. And, you know, if that's the case, maybe it's good that this is really vague and nebulous and no one would ever guess that that's the context.
• 35:48
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because again, the moral overall is a perfectly good moral. Yeah. Like, if. If you. If you just take it very, very surface level and don't think about it. Too much and just go, yeah. A person's a person, no matter how small. Just means respect everybody equally, regardless of their background, their ethnicity, whatever. Just like, they're a person so that, you know.
• 36:07
  Speaker B: Right. They're a person so they're deserving of respect just on the grounds that they're a person.
• 36:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker B: That's cool. That's a great message.
• 36:14
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: Viewed through the lens of historical context.
• 36:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:21
  Speaker B: Woof.
• 36:22
  Speaker A: It's at least a little weird. It's. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Again, it read the same way to me of being just a little like, all right, I guess. I guess that's what we're doing. All right, all right. That was all we wanted to talk about in Lost. An adaptation. But. But it's time now to see what Katie thought was better in the book. You like to read?
• 36:44
  Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read.
• 36:47
  Speaker A: What do you like to read?
• 36:50
  Speaker B: Everything. So this is kind of a tough section this time because all of the book is technically in the movie. It's just been greatly expanded on. And I. I didn't really have huge issues with anything that the movie did. I just wanted to mention, like, two overall things. First, like, a lot of more modern kids movies. And when I say that, I mean kids movies that came out as I was an adult.
• 37:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 37:21
  Speaker B: I found a lot of the movie and particularly its humor to be pretty overstimulating. And it makes me feel like an old fart to say that. But, like, I just find a lot of modern children's media to be very overstimulating, like, loud and bright and fast moving and, like, 8 million jokes a minute, and we're never, like, having a quiet moment.
• 37:46
  Speaker A: I agree with that. A lot of times I didn't have that experience with this movie. I didn't. But, like, I think I remember saying the same thing about the Lorax. There was one of the ones we've done not that long ago that was, I think, either the Lorax or maybe the Grinch one of them. I remember having that exact thought about it just being like, oh, my. It's just. Yeah, too much. Just chill. I will say this one did not do that to me, but I didn't.
• 38:08
  Speaker B: Find this one as bad as I have found some others. But, like, some of the humor sequences in particular in this one, I was like, please stop.
• 38:18
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 38:21
  Speaker B: And then the other thing that I wanted to mention was that I kind of wanted to die when they started in with the Jukebox musical number at the end.
• 38:29
  Speaker A: I can't fight this feeling. Yeah.
• 38:30
  Speaker B: It made what? It made no sense.
• 38:34
  Speaker A: It's.
• 38:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, it didn't make any sense. And I feel like the movie realized that it was dumb because they almost immediately stop as soon as they start doing it.
• 38:44
  Speaker A: I'm not sure why that was the number that we. Yeah. I don't know.
• 38:47
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 38:48
  Speaker A: I think there was one line specifically in the movie. I'd have to go back and look, but I thought there was one line that, like, corresponded. I was like, that's, like, the only reason anyways. Yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. And we have talked before on this show about my feelings on the trend of ending a kids movie with a big jukebox musical number. Thank you, Shrek.
• 39:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker B: I don't like it. And I feel like it particularly does not work here.
• 39:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. I don't disagree. I was not a particular fan of the ending of the big musical number at the end. It just. It felt unnecessary. I was just glancing through the lyrics of Can't Fight this Feeling Anymore, see if there's anything. And there was nothing that jumped out at me as like, oh, that was the line that I was like. That's why it's in the movie. So I don't know. Maybe.
• 39:37
  Speaker B: I don't know. I feel like that was just, like, the song they got the rights to.
• 39:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, I guess. I don't know. All right, that was it for better in the book. Let's go ahead and see what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.
• 39:57
  Speaker B: I really liked the kind of opening slash credits. I thought that showing how the who's spec ended up flying through the air was interesting.
• 40:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:07
  Speaker B: And I thought it was. It was good fodder, I thought, for, like, an opening sequence. I really liked having Rudy the Kangaroo Joey not being on board with his mom's behavior.
• 40:22
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 40:23
  Speaker B: In the book, he pretty much just parrots whatever his mother says, which I do think works in its own way.
• 40:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. That's saying a different.
• 40:31
  Speaker B: It's saying a different interesting thing. But I like the movie's take, especially with its expanded focus on the, like, oh, won't someone think of the children?
• 40:40
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 40:41
  Speaker B: When it is. Especially when it's painfully clear that the children in question are being just completely ignored by the adults.
• 40:47
  Speaker A: The only person who actually cares about the kids and does anything to help them that we ever see is Horton.
• 40:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 40:52
  Speaker A: Is literally the person that they're. They're now putting on trial for Denigrating. The children or whatever. And I do love that. Like I said, that was the main thing that I thought the movie captured pretty well, which is the very real phenomenon of a conservative whipping a bunch of people into a frenzy over nothing in the pretense of, quote, unquote, saving the children.
• 41:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:12
  Speaker A: Because that is one of the. The most. I don't know if insidious is the right word. Insidious.
• 41:19
  Speaker B: Oh, I would call it insidious things.
• 41:21
  Speaker A: That, that the conservative movement, especially in America, but just broadly does, is champions themselves as the protector of the children, of the children, protector of the innocent, blah, blah, blah. Specifically protector of the children. And, you know, the. The whole thing of. Of drag show story time and like all that kind of stuff and all of the pushback against LGBTQ people of the last couple years has all been deeply steeped in we have to protect the children, blah, blah, blah. And that becomes her entire mantra at the end of the movie. Like, her entire thing is, we, we have to save the children. We have to protect the children from this corrupting influence and blah, blah, blah. And to me, that's when it becomes very clear, okay, we're talking. This is. Yeah, conservatives. We're talking about conservatives here. And again, I thought the movie did actually do a pretty good job of. Of capturing that and depicting that, even if it maybe doesn't still lean in quite hard enough to labeling what it is we're critiquing. At least, again, not enough to where I think everybody watching the movie would know. I think most like, at least a fair. I think if you're a more progressive, liberal person watching this movie, you get what they're doing. But I can. Again, repeating what I said earlier. I just don't know if it's quite clear enough for broader audiences that might not already completely ideologically agree with what the movie's doing.
• 42:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. I also think you're hard pressed to find a conservative who recognizes themselves in media.
• 42:53
  Speaker A: That's as very true. Famously horrible at media literacy, which. Yeah, also famously, why conservatives don't make good art, why everybody in Hollywood and every artistic circle is not conservative, is because conservatives are inherently incurious people who cannot make good art. In my opinion, it's not true across the board. There are some, but it's pretty rare.
• 43:23
  Speaker B: Another thing that I liked in the movie was this kind of extra layer that was added by the who's not like initially not knowing and then later on kind of refusing to believe that anything bad is happening. Because when we Meet them in the book. They're. They're already aware that they live on a speck of floating dust. I don't know why they would be aware of that necessarily. Yeah, but they are. So the. The idea that they're not aware and then kind of bulldoze right into ignoring it.
• 44:00
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:00
  Speaker B: Feel real relevant right now.
• 44:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:04
  Speaker B: I also thought that it made a lot of sense for the movie to expand the unnamed boy's character into the mayor's son. I thought the. The side plot with him not wanting to be the mayor and also liking music was very under baked.
• 44:20
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, I agree.
• 44:22
  Speaker B: But I also think that the implication that he's an emo who is very funny.
• 44:27
  Speaker A: It is. It absolutely is. Yeah. Like, I think. I think that plot line just needed a little more time. Like it just needed a little more screen time as much as anything.
• 44:37
  Speaker B: Because I understand also why I didn't realize that his true passion was music until I read the Wikipedia summary. I did not get that from the film.
• 44:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right. That was it for what Katie thought was better in the movie. Let's go ahead and find out what the movie nailed.
• 44:56
  Speaker B: As I expected, Practically perfect in every way. The opening narration where they talk about the. The date and the. The location in the Jungle of Noel. That's right from the book. As well as the scenes where Horton imagines a single tiny person on the spec and then a family of tiny people on the spec. Those are both from the book, which.
• 45:18
  Speaker A: I thought that was a lot of fun. I had a note about how the 2D animation style we. At the very beginning, I thought it was going to maybe be a recurring thing and I was kind of disappointed.
• 45:26
  Speaker B: It was. It was not as rec. As it should have been.
• 45:28
  Speaker A: I think I only do it once or. Well, then there's the other, like the anime scene, which is like a different thing, but the. That in that opening scene we have him imagining what's on the spec and his imag. We go like into his head and we see his imagination and it's in the style of a 2D Dr. Seuss.
• 45:46
  Speaker B: Yeah. It looks like the illustration or.
• 45:48
  Speaker A: Or like the animated movies from, you know, back in the day, which I thought was really fun. And I was hoping, like, I liked the idea that these 3D rendered, like Dr. Seuss characters imagine in the 2D. Like, I just thought that was a fun idea and I was kind of hoping they were going to keep coming back to that or at least do it like a few more times. And again, we do get the other Scene where he imagines things in like, the style of an anime, which was fun, but yeah, I was hoping we were to get more of the, like, classic Seuss style illustration stuff in his imagination.
• 46:19
  Speaker B: Some of the narration from the scene where he's searching the flower field is also right from the book. There's probably more direct lines, like, particularly in the voiceover narration that are from the book that I didn't catch. But those two in particular, I definitely.
• 46:34
  Speaker A: I wouldn't even be surprised if almost every line from the book is in the movie at some point.
• 46:39
  Speaker B: It might be with a bunch of.
• 46:41
  Speaker A: Other stuff around it.
• 46:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. Obviously we talked about the line, a person's a person no matter how small. They weren't gonna make a movie without that line.
• 46:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:51
  Speaker B: And then we also mentioned earlier the sour kangaroos, tiny umbrella.
• 46:56
  Speaker A: I'm so sorry. Yeah. All right. That was it for the movie. Nailed it. We got a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict. One thing I noticed, and I could be wrong about this, but I think this movie might have a fairly poorly aged, like, cross dressing joke in it maybe.
• 47:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 47:22
  Speaker A: So at the very beginning, when the mayor is talking to JoJo about, like, the proud history of their family being mayors all the way back or whatever, and he's talking about like, oh, your grandfather. We see the drawing of Dr. Seuss in the style of a whole. And then he goes, and your great, great, grand. And he starts going down the list of great, great, great, great, great. And then at one of the points, he hits one and he goes. And we cut to a picture and he says, not so great, whatever. And the picture that we see appears to be like a guy wearing like a pink tutu or a dress or something, like, dancing. And I was like, is that like a cross dressing or a gay joke? Like to say, not so great maybe. I don't know. That felt a little weird to me. I was like, that was like, the only thing I spotted of, like, interesting. Maybe we wouldn't write that joke that way anymore. But another thing that this legitimately cracked me up is that this movie has like a straight up. Has a ooh, I guess that happened moment. You know, the classic thing that everybody hates now where a character will see something ridiculous happen and, like, turn to the camera and go, that happened. That kind of thing. This movie literally has that at one point the. They're building a condo and then Horton, like, shakes the spec and the condo, like, flies up in the air and then lands completely built. And after that happens, Ned is standing there in front of it, and he, like, turns around and looks at it and goes, okay, that happened. And I was like, wow.
• 48:55
  Speaker B: Very 2008.
• 48:56
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:59
  Speaker B: Seth Rogen plays himself.
• 49:00
  Speaker A: He does as a mouse, as he always does in everything. He just plays Seth Rogen.
• 49:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. I did want to mention that. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. And an elephant's faithful 100% is from Horton Hatches the egg. That's the main refrain thesis from that Horton book.
• 49:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which they also bought the rights to when they were making this so that they could use stuff from both. I mentioned the anime bit earlier. I thought it was a lot of fun. I will say I think it would have aged a little bit better if Jim Carrey wasn't doing a quote unquote anime accent, because he's doing a caricature of a Japanese accent. And it's just. It's a little like, you could do that whole bit without him doing that accent. And I think it would be funny and good.
• 49:44
  Speaker B: Deeply ironic, considering the historical context of the book. Yeah. That was one of the scenes that I found, like, overstimulating.
• 49:53
  Speaker A: It's supposed to be because it's anime. Like, it's supposed to be, like. Like crazy. I thought it was fun. I enjoyed it. But, yeah, I could absolutely hear. I mentioned in the prequel that the supposedly Jamie Lee Curtis was cast as the sour kangaroo and then dropped out over creative differences with the storyboard, whatever that means. But as I was listening to the character played by Carol Burnett in the film, I was like, I could absolutely see this being a Jamie Lee Curtis character. Like, I was imagining her as the tax person in Everything Everywhere all at once. Like, that style character, Carol Burnett even kind of sounds like her. I felt like in this movie, which I thought was funny, but one of the things that comedy beats that I definitely agree with you on that did not work. And to me, felt like a clearly, like a moment that was in the movie so that it could be put in the trailer for the movie.
• 50:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:46
  Speaker A: Is this moment where Horton starts dancing and, like, twerking.
• 50:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:50
  Speaker A: Essentially, like, just out of nowhere, for no real reason.
• 50:54
  Speaker B: Like, just. Can we not?
• 50:56
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker B: Can we not?
• 50:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's like, the most, like, Minions moment possible.
• 51:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:02
  Speaker A: Which makes sense because this was written by. It's so funny that Schmigadoo. Maybe we were gonna rewatch Schmigadoon and be like, it's terrible. But I. Because Schmig, I think, is really good. But the. I'm surprised there isn't a lot of moments in that that made us roll our eyes because these are the people that wrote this, wrote all the despicable Me movies. So, like a lot of those bad minion stuff, which I've actually never seen.
• 51:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't actually. I've heard the first one's good. I have heard the first one is good. I have not heard such things about the other ones. Yeah, but maybe they just are better writers for adults.
• 51:36
  Speaker A: Yes, that's true. Yeah. Sprinky Doom was written for adults and not for children. Maybe they just don't know what is actually funny for. That's unfair because most of the movie, I think, is fairly funny and like, restrained in a way that works. But yeah, one last. The last note I have that I thought was really interesting. And I don't know if this was an intentional reference. I doubt it. But when they. At one point, they were going through Ned's house and he. He goes into his daughter's room and he has 96 daughters, remember?
• 52:03
  Speaker B: And they all share.
• 52:04
  Speaker A: And they all share one room. And he opens the door and the camera pulls back this big wide shot and there's like. Like bunk beds going, like up the wall everywhere. And it looks like the shot from the Matrix when Neo wakes up in the pod and then like after he takes the red pill and then he wakes up in the pod and he. He looks around and it's all the humans in their little energy sucking pods or whatever. It looks exactly like that. Which I thought was very funny, but I. I don't think it was an intentional reference. So another question. So we mentioned it earlier, but what is party so for people? Okay, let me set this up. First, somebody asked when we posted a picture to tease or you know, that we were doing Horton Hears a who. Katie posted a picture of the COVID of the book, and the COVID of the book she has says Horton Hears a who. And then underneath that it says party edition. Yeah, and I believe Kelly Napier. But other people too, I'm sure, were like, what is the party edition? So, Katie, what is the party edition?
• 53:06
  Speaker B: I have no idea. As far as I can tell, this print is the same as every other imprint of this book.
• 53:17
  Speaker A: So I flipped through because I was like, I'm not gonna say I didn't believe you, but I was like, skeptical, shall we say? And so I flipped through every page and I cannot fathom what about it could possibly make it a party edition.
• 53:29
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 53:30
  Speaker A: The text is all looks normal. I was thinking, oh, maybe it's Gonna have like, like text highlighted. A weird way for like people to like take turns reading or you know what I mean? Like for a kids class. Like, oh, some of the words are green, some of them are blue. And like you have different kids say different words. I was trying to, you know, something like that or like, or whatever. And none of that, it's literally just looks like a normal version of the.
• 53:52
  Speaker B: Book I googled in vain.
• 53:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 53:55
  Speaker B: Trying to figure out what this was. And I found a lot of listings for this edition. Nothing explaining what makes it different from any other edition.
• 54:06
  Speaker A: The only other thing I could think would be that maybe there's a. Maybe it was bought by people as part of like it looks like it was sold separately though, because.
• 54:15
  Speaker B: Right, because my thought was like, oh, maybe it came with something.
• 54:19
  Speaker A: That's what I was thinking. Like maybe it came in like a pack with like a stuffed elephant.
• 54:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, whatever.
• 54:23
  Speaker A: It's like, oh, the party edition for.
• 54:25
  Speaker B: Or like maybe a game or something or like a cassette tape that you could read along with. But I didn't find anything indicating that.
• 54:34
  Speaker A: Super fascinating. If anybody knows why this Horton Hears a who book is called the Party Edition and can figure it out, please let us know.
• 54:42
  Speaker B: I don't know. I get all of the books that we use for this show. Most of them I get through a secondhand book website. So it's kind of like Russian roulette, what you're gonna get. And I just genuinely could not tell you.
• 55:02
  Speaker A: Well, there you go. So, yeah, like I said, if, you know, let us know what the party edition of Horton Hears a who is because we couldn't figure it out. So before we wrap up, we wanted to remind you you could do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Goodreads, Blue sky, any of those places interact with us. We'd love to hear what you have to say about Horton Hears a who. We would also love if you gave us a review.
• 55:24
  Speaker B: Very good, Dr. Seuss.
• 55:26
  Speaker A: Waiting for the. Waiting for my praise on that one by heading over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to our show and write us a nice little review, drop us a five star rating. We would really appreciate it. You can also support us by hanging over to patreon.com thisfilmislit Support us there for 2, 5 or 15 bucks a month. Get access to bonus content starting at the $5 level we just put out yesterday, our discussion on the episode or the movie Sugar and Spice. So if you want to hear us talk about the 2001 film Sugar and Spice about a bunch of cheerleaders robbing a bank in a grocery store. We did that. It was a lot of fun. So, yeah, go check out that. That's it, Katie. It's time for the final word.
• 56:13
  Speaker B: Sentence passed by the that's stupid. I'm a little loathe to do it just on principle, but I think I'm going to pick the movie. Everything that's in the book is also in the movie. And even though I wouldn't classify the movie as incredible, I enjoyed its expansions on the Sour Kangaroo, the children of Newell, the mayor and his family, and particularly what was going on in Whoville during the entire adventure. Problems with application and semantics aside, I do think that the intention was probably for Horton's ultimate message to be people should be respected on the grounds that they're people. They shouldn't have to prove that they're worthy of respect, of the right to live their lives, of the right to exist. I'm sorry that that was relevant in 1954. I'm sorry that it was relevant in 2008, and I'm really sorry that it's relevant right now.
• 57:20
  Speaker A: Yep. Katie, what's next?
• 57:25
  Speaker B: Up next, we're gonna talk about Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, which is a book by Diane Sheldon and a 2004 film starring Lindsay Lohan.
• 57:37
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. No. Okay. I have heard of this now. I was like, I don't know if I've heard of this, but that rung a bell when you said Lindsay Lohan.
• 57:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 57:44
  Speaker A: In this.
• 57:45
  Speaker B: I associate it very strongly with Freaky Friday because it came out around the same time.
• 57:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, right around the same time.
• 57:51
  Speaker B: I had no idea that it was based on a book. And we were actually going to cover this later, but then I messed up the schedule and I had to move things around. So we're covering it right now.
• 58:02
  Speaker A: All right, there you go. So, yes, Confessions of a Teenager Drama Queen in two weeks time. But in one week's time, we'll be reacting to what you all had to say about Horton Hears a who and previewing Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals, everybody else, keep reading books, watching.
• 58:19
  Speaker B: Movies, and keep being awesome.