Horton Hears a Who!


 * For the 2008 film, see Horton Hears a Who! (film).
 * "Whoville" redirects here. The name "Whoville" is occasionally used to mean the Dr. Who fan community.

Horton Hears a Who! is a 1954 book by Theodor Seuss Geisel, under the name Dr. Seuss. It is the second Seuss book to feature Horton the Elephant, the first being Horton Hatches the Egg. The Whos would later make a reappearance in How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

After World War II, Geisel was able to move beyond his feelings of animosity towards Japan, using this book as an allegory for the American post-war occupation of the country, as well as dedicating the book to a Japanese friend.

Plot
The book tells the story of Horton the Elephant who, in the afternoon of May 15 while splashing in a pool located in the Jungle of Nool, hears a small speck of dust talking to him. It turns out the speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called Who-ville, inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos and led by a character known as the mayor. Horton's motto is "a person's a person, no matter how small."

The Whos ask Horton (who, though he cannot see them, is able to hear them quite well, due to his large ears) to protect them from harm, which Horton happily agrees to do, proclaiming throughout the book that "even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small". In doing so he is ridiculed and forced into a cage by the other animals in the jungle for believing in something that they are unable to see or hear. His chief tormentors are Vlad Vladikoff, the Wickersham Brothers and the Sour Kangaroo. Horton tells the Whos that, lest they end up being boiled in "Beezelnut Oil", they need to make themselves heard to the other animals. The Whos finally accomplish this by ensuring that all members of their society play their part. In the end it is a "very small shirker named JoJo" whose final addition to the volume creates enough lift for the jungle to hear the sound, thus reinforcing the moral of the story: "a person’s a person, no matter how small".

Now convinced of the Whos’ existence, Horton’s neighbors vow to help him protect the tiny community.

Adaptations in other media
Horton Hears a Who! was adapted into a half-hour animated TV special by MGM Animation/Visual Arts in 1970, directed by Chuck Jones (who also directed the television version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas), produced by Theodor Geisel, and with narration by Hans Conried, who also voiced Horton. In this direction, the Sour Kangaroo's name is Jane, while her son is named Junior. Jane was voiced by June Foray In Russia, Alexei Karayev directed I Can Hear You in 1992, a 19-minute paint-on-glass-animated film which is based on the Russian translation of Seuss's poetry but features a very different visual style. The story, along with Horton Hatches the Egg, also provides the basic plot for the 2000 Broadway musical Seussical.

Horton Hears a Who! was made into a feature-length film in 2008, using computer animation from Blue Sky Studios, the animation arm of 20th Century Fox. It was released on March 14, 2008. Jim Carrey voices Horton, Carol Burnett voices Jane Kangaroo, and Steve Carell voices the Mayor of Who-ville.

Horton Hears a Who! also includes Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose as part of the Dr. Seuss Video Classics series.

Story’s characters in other media
A reference to the character is also made by Beat poet Tim Minchin in his poem Storm.

The Sour Kangaroo, her child, and the Wickersham Brothers also appear in The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, as well as Horton himself and his son Morton the Elephant-Bird from Horton Hatches the Egg.

Horton is one of the main characters in the Broadway play Seussical. The Sour Kangaroo and the Wickersham Brothers are part of an "evil gang". This leads into Vlad Vladikoff getting the clover and dropping it in a clover patch.

The Whos also appear in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Halloween is Grinch Night. The live-action The Grinch movie reinforces the idea that the Whos are microscopic by showing that the events in How The Grinch Stole Christmas! actually took place within a snowflake, but the 1966 animated TV special, like the original book, never mentions their size.

Cultural references
A reference to the novel is also made in a seventh-season episode ("Love Blactually") of the TV series Family Guy, when Stewie Griffin finds a book at the library titled Horton Hears Domestic Violence In The Next Apartment And Doesn't Call 911, which involves a man beating his wife while Horton overhears the whole thing, saying, "I'm sure there's two sides to this".

Horton can be seen on top of the Caroseussel in the Seuss Landing island at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.

Use in the United States abortion debate
The book (most notably Horton the Elephant's recurring phrase "a person's a person, no matter how small") has found its way to the center of the recurring debate, in the United States, over abortion. Several pro-life groups have adopted the phrase in support of their views. Geisel himself did not approve of these groups co-opting the phrase, nor does his widow, Audrey Geisel, who "doesn't like people to hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view." According to Geisel biographer Philip Nel, Geisel threatened to sue a pro-life group for using his words on their stationery.