Hunches in Bunches Trivia
Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
The Hunches only appear in one Dr. Seuss movie, and they certainly don't come in bunches. There was but one hunch, a Mr. Hunch. In 1994's In Search of Dr. Seuss, Christopher Lloyd played the one and only Mr. Hunch among a cavalcade of movie stars acting as Seuss stars. This makes Mr. Hunch just one of many, many "one and only" roles performed by the stupendous Mr. Lloyd, including such awesomeness as Dr. Emmett Brown, Judge Doom, and Mr. Moohead.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: Dr. Seuss has won his fair share of love in the literary community. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to children's literature, the New York Library Lion, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and several Caldecott awards. Certainly enough accolades for one lifetime, but we're not through yet. Dr. Seuss has also won several awards for his work in film and TV as well. Oh, yeah. He won an Academy Award for "Gerald McBoing-Boing," three Emmys, and three Grammys. Our only question: what brand of awesome sauce did Seuss use, and can we buy it in bulk? (Source 1, Source 2)
The one question every famous writer is asked: where do you get your ideas? Most shrug the question away or lay the blame on a muse or two. But Dr. Seuss had a very specific answer: "Uber Glutch." He's the man himself on the place where zany ideas are born:
I get all my ideas in Switzerland near the Forka Pass. There is a little town called "Gletch" and two thousand feet up above Gletch there is a smaller hamlet called "Uber Gletch". I go there on the fourth of August every summer to get my cuckoo clock repaired. While the cuckoo is in the hospital I wander around and talk to the people in the streets. They are very strange people and I get my ideas from them.
And there you have it. If you are ever in the need of a great idea or a quality cuckoo clock, you know where to go. (Source 1, Source 2)
While at Dartmouth, Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated for the college's humorous magazine Jack-o-Lantern. Since the writing content was unsigned, it's hard to tell what words belong to Seuss and which belong to others. But many of the illustrations were signed by Seuss, so we know which ones are his. We also know what he thought of them since he told us. In his own words:
You have to look at these things in the perspective
of fifty years ago. These things may have been
considered funny then, I hope—but today I sort of
wonder.
The best I can say about the Jacko of this era is that they were doing just as badly on the Harvard Lampoon, the Yale Record, and the Columbia Jester.
Ouch. Then again, maybe that mindset is what pushes an artist to improve and innovate as much as Seuss did in his day. (Source.)