Horton Hatches the Egg is a book by Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel, first published in 1940. In 1942 Warner Brothers' director Bob Clampett transformed the story into a cartoon. The story and cartoon have been favorites of generations of children.






Cartoon History

Horton Hatches the Egg was adapted by Warner Brothers in 1942, directed by Bob Clampett. In producing the cartoon, the Warner Bros. Animation crew did not use a storyboard, but sketched and wrote additional ideas to the cartoon in Clampett's copy of the book. A couple of interesting gags appeared in the cartoon that were not in the original. A fish caricature of Peter Lorre says, upon seeing Horton pass by in a ship, "Well, Now I've seen everything" and promptly shoots himself in the head (a grisly staple of the "Termite Terrace" gag writers that has been edited out on such channels as Cartoon Network [not counting The Bob Clampett Show], the former WB! channel, TBS, and TNT [it should also be of note that TNT aired a cartoon special called "In Search of Dr. Seuss" that had this cartoon short in it with new dialogged dubbed over the original track]. On a special feature in Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2, there is a clip of the fish saying his last words, then it cuts to a montage featuring various clips of Bob Clampett cartoons.). Mayzie also does a breathy Katharine Hepburn impersonation ("raaaaaaaa-hlly I do") at several points. The cheerful elephant (along with his son, at the end) sing a popular nonsense tune of that era, "The Hut-Sut Song" by Horace Heidt.

From the Wikipedia