''The Butter Battle Book'' is a rhyming story written by

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel (;"Seuss"
'' Random House on January 12, 1984. It is an anti-war story; specifically, a parable about arms races in general,

mutually assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...

and nuclear weapons in particular. ''The Butter Battle Book'' was a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' Notable Book of the Year. This book was written during the Cold War era and reflects the concerns of the time, as well as his own, regarding the perceived possibility that humanity could be destroyed in a nuclear war. It can also be seen as a satirical work, with its depiction of a deadly war based on a senseless conflict over something as trivial as a breakfast food. Plot elements of the book were adapted for

Warner Bros. Animation Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Studios division of Warner Bros., a flagship of Warner Bros. Discovery. As the successor to Warner Bros. Cartoons, which was active from 19 ...

's '' Green Eggs and Ham: The Second Serving''.

Plot

The Yooks and the Zooks live on opposite sides of a long curving wall. The Yooks wear blue clothes; the Zooks wear orange. The primary dispute between the two cultures is that the Yooks eat their bread with the butter-side up, while the Zooks eat their bread with the butter-side down. The conflict between the two sides leads to an escalating arms race, which results in the threat of mutual assured destruction. The race begins when a Zook patrolman named Van Itch slingshots the Yook patrolman's "Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch" (a many-pronged whip). The Yooks then develop a machine with three slingshots interlinked, called a "Triple-Sling Jigger". This works once; but the Zooks counterattack with their own creation: The "Jigger-Rock Snatchem", a machine with three nets to fling the rocks fired by the Triple-Sling Jigger back to the Yooks' side. The Yooks then create a gun called the "Kick-A-Poo Kid", loaded with "powerful Poo-A-Doo powder and ants' eggs and bees' legs and dried-fried clam chowder", and carried by a dog named Daniel. The Zooks counterattack with an "Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz", a machine that shoots "high-explosive sour cherry stone pits". The Yooks then devise the "Utterly Sputter": a large blue vehicle intended "to sprinkle blue goo all over the Zooks". The Zooks counterattack with a Sputter identical to the Yooks'. Eventually, each side possesses a small but extremely destructive red bomb called the "Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo", and neither has any defense against it. No resolution is reached by the book's end, with the generals of both sides on the wall poised to drop their bombs and waiting for the other to strike. The Yook patrolman's grandson (who had followed his grandfather to the wall) asks, "Who's gonna drop it? Will you or will he?" To which he replies, "Be patient. We'll see. We will see."

Television media

Television special

There was an

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

TV special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...

by animator and filmmaker

Ralph Bakshi Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938) is an American animator and filmmaker. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatric ...

, narrated by

Charles Durning Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...

and produced by and aired on

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

on November 13, 1989. The special followed the book quite closely, notably in its preservation of its original cliffhanger ending, with the addition of a title card "To Be Continued..." at the conclusion of the story. Seuss himself called the short the most faithful adaptation of his work.

Cast

as Grandpa * Christopher Collins as Chief Yookeroo and Various Yooks *

Miriam Flynn Miriam Flynn (born June 18, 1952) is an American voice and character actress. She is best known as Cousin Catherine in the ''National Lampoon's Vacation'' and Grandma Longneck in ''The Land Before Time'' franchises. She has acted in other films ...

as Yookie-Ann Sue, Teacher, and Various Yooks * Clive Revill as Van Itch * Joseph Cousins as Grandson

''Green Eggs and Ham''

The book serves as the basis for the second season of ''

Green Eggs and Ham ''Green Eggs and Ham'' is a children's book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2019, the book has sold 8 million copies worldwide. The story has appeared in several adaptations, starting with 1973's '' Dr. Seuss on the Loos ...

'', subtitled ''The Second Serving''. Here, it is established that Yookia and Zookia are ruled by a "Dooka" and "Dookess", respectively; residents of both nations are relatively harmless, yet are convinced that the other is evil. Sam-I-Am and Guy-Am-I end up on opposite sides of the conflict. The Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo is omitted in favor of a conflict over "Moo-Lacka-Moo", the substance said to serve as the Boomeroo's core in the book, which is acquired by the Yooks while the Zooks hire Guy to build a machine due to his habit of creating inventions that explode. Unlike the book, the conflict is resolved when the respective weapons destroy the wall, due in part to Sam-I-Am and his mother Pam's meddling, and Guy's step-daughter E.B. and the Dooka's son Looka share a butter sandwich with everyone watching.

Analysis

''The Butter Battle Book'' was removed from the shelves of some Canadian public libraries during the Cold War because of the book's controversial position regarding the arms race. The book was initially criticized over its dark moral nature being too much for the eyes and minds of children. Dr. Seuss himself was unsure if ''The Butter Battle Book'' was for adults or children when he approached Random House to have it published. An article in the July 27, 1984, issue of the conservative magazine ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...

'' found it plausible that the book was not more popular because of Seuss' promotion of a theme of " moral equivalence", where the difference between the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

was equivalent to a disagreement over the proper side on which to butter bread. On the other hand, Roger S. Clark, a professor at Rutgers University School of Law, argued in an article in the '' New York Law School Law Review'' that ''The Butter Battle Book'' stood out to him when it first came out because of its timing and context. Further, he noted the fact that Dr. Seuss portrayed an arms race during the time period in which the book was published made Seuss's intentions clear.

Inspiration

Dr. Seuss wrote ''The Butter Battle Book'' while Ronald Reagan was in office, visioning the potential of nuclear war with Russia. Reflecting back on his time in Europe in 1926; he remembered the Ghibellines and Guelphs from northern Italy that fought over their differing opinions on the Pope. Dr. Seuss distinctly recalled one group cutting their apples horizontally while the other cut them vertically. This concept of a war based on toast is similar to the war between

Lilliput and Blefuscu Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbours in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel wide. Both a ...

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...

's 1726 satire '' Gulliver's Travels'', which was nominally based on an argument over the correct end to crack an egg once soft-boiled.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butter Battle Book 1984 children's books Random House books Animated films based on children's books Anti-war books Books by Dr. Seuss Butter Cold War fiction 1989 films Obscenity controversies in literature Censored books 1989 animated films Works by Ralph Bakshi American picture books