Horton Hatches the Egg

Horton Hatches the Egg (1942)

Horton the elephant agrees to watch over lazy Maisie bird's egg while she vacations. Much later, after...

Date of release
1942-04-11
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (32)
Runtime
10m
Genres
Animation, Comedy
Director
Robert Clampett

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Horton Hatches the Egg

Horton Hatches the Egg is a 1942 American animated short film by Leon Schlesinger Productions, based on the 1940 book by Dr. Seuss, and released as part of Warner Bros.' Merrie Melodies series. The short was directed by Bob Clampett and was the first film adaptation based on a Seuss book.

Production

In producing the cartoon, Clampett's unit did not use a storyboard, as was the customary practice. Instead, they sketched and wrote additional ideas for the cartoon in Clampett's copy of Seuss' book. Several elements that do not appear in the original book were added to the cartoon include the following:

An introductory paragraph, starting with "Now once in a jungle..." and ending with "...up in her tree".

A scene where Mayzie uses sex appeal, including (unsuccessfully) shifting her physique to make it appear as if she has large breasts, to lure Horton.

Several areas of skipped or re-invented dialogue, such as when Mayzie claims to have bags under her eyes, or when Horton speaks, "Plain as day" to the hunters, except that they only have one gun, which is clearly not aimed at his heart.

A fish caricature of Peter Lorre who, at the sight of Horton on the boat, proclaims "Well, now I've seen everything!" before promptly producing a revolver and shooting himself in the head. This scene has been edited or removed from most television prints of the cartoon since the 1980s, due to being considered too violent and unsuitable for younger viewers with the exception of the home media releases and The Bob Clampett Show.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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