Seussical/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Affably Evil: General Ghenghiz Khan Schmitz (who scares children out of their wits).
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Mayzie: The Alpha Bitch or The Ditz who is more vain than mean?
  • Non Sequitur Scene: "Havin' a Hunch" comes out of NOWHERE, has basically nothing to do with the main story, has some weird dance involving glow-in-the-dark gloves, and is never referred to again. BLAM. The song does reunite Jojo with his parents, but almost no explanation is given as to how it did so.
  • Continuity Porn: Of Dr. Seuss's stories. The plot of the musical tries to mix as many of them into one coherent story, and takes a few liberties in order to do so, and has a somewhat complex structure as a result. However, a lot of them figure in as Shout Outs and are more or less insulated from the main plot, therefore remaining unchanged other than their setting. The Other Wiki has an impressive list of all the stories that cameo in the book.
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Several, surprisingly, the most prominent being "If you get lost, go ahead and follow your hunch, and who knows, it might take you home!" Some others:
    • If you like someone a lot, it's ok to obsessively stalk them, even when it causes yourself bodily harm. If you manage to get them what they want, both of you will definitely end up happy.
    • If you imagine enough to make you space out randomly enough to flood your basement while taking a bath and get your parents worried enough to send you to the military academy, it's ok, you'll end up saving the world!
    • It's okay to give up your egg. Make no effort to change your own frivolous lifestyle for your child and dump it off with some guy who may or may not have agreed to care for it.
    • Yep, people have used this show (and the book it's based on) as an argument against abortion (which Seuss himself supported).
  • Iron Woobie: Horton WILL lay that egg!!
  • Needs More Love: Seriously, the show was a major flop on Broadway, high schools and community theaters who do the show only seem to get the under 12 crowd and the cast members' families to come, people are quick to write it off as a huge disaster of a musical when really it's not that bad. The original cast recording seemed to be a hot seller, that should be a sign this show is far from the complete train wreck people make it out to be.
    • People seem to look at the original production and not realize that the show got a complete face lift before they released the rights. The music is fantastic, and with the right actors, the show can be amazing.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: "A person's a person, no matter how small" is repeated a lot, but it works.
  • Tear Jerker: "Solla Sollew" and "Notice Me, Horton."
  • Unfortunate Implications: The meaner characters get R&B and Latin-inspired music, while the nice characters get vaudeville and folk-pop material. The Sour Kangaroo is based off of Aretha Franklin (R-E-S-P-E-C-K! Woo, please take that speck a-WAY!), and the monkeys... Well...
    • The military camp has lost its context about being about the Cold War, making it sound as though it's dismissing all wars as frivolous. That runs counter to Seuss's own views who, while he criticized the Cold War as "crazy", could be VERY pro-war depending in the circumstance.
  • The Woobie: Jojo.