Dr. Seuss Paid For His Darkest Secret

Dr. Zeus's ailing wife took her own life after she found out he'd been having an affair with her friend. As if that's not bad enough, the note she left behind revealed the depth of his depravities. It turns out, the identity of Zeus's mistress was the biggest bombshell of all. We wouldn't have the Dr. Zeus that we know and love if his first wife Helen hadn't seen talent in him and pushed him to become an author. He owed his career to her, and that makes what he did to her so much more cruel. Theodore Seuss Geisel was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. The family owned a brewery, so Teddy got to enjoy a nice, stable upbringing. Until Prohibition put an end to their business. Luckily, Theodore Sr. had friends in high places, so he landed on his feet. But while the family had some friends, they definitely had enemies as well. At the outbreak of World War I, the Geisel kids faced severe anti-German prejudice from the other children at school. Ted persevered through the torment, eventually graduating from high school. He continued graduating and enrolling at Dartmouth, and that's where he started getting into trouble. Ted fit right in at Dartmouth. He quickly started writing for the school's humour magazine, the Dartmouth Jack-o'-lantern. He rose through the ranks, and pretty soon he became the editor-in-chief. His career was on the fast track, and then a single mistake almost derailed everything. Between his fraternity and the magazine, it's clear that Ted was very social in college. And being social in college invariably means alcohol. But Ted went to school during Prohibition. One night at Dartmouth, school authorities busted into his room. They found the dorm crowded, with Ted and nine of his friends sitting around drinking gin. The dean wanted to expel Ted, but he offered the young writer a life raft. He could stay at the school, but he had to resign from all extracurricular activities. All that time rising to editor-in-chief of the magazine, and just like that, he was being forced to quit. But Ted Geisel wasn't going to go quietly. He was going to keep writing for the magazine, and he knew just how he was going to do it. Ted's name was no longer appearing anywhere in the Dartmouth jack-o'-lantern, but devoted readers probably would have noticed that some of the writing had his familiar flair. But instead of his name at the bottom, they'd find just a single enigmatic word: "Seuss". After Dartmouth, Ted enrolled at Oxford, hoping to get a PhD in English. It must have been overwhelming moving across the Atlantic, so meeting a pretty girl from New York must have been just what the doctor ordered. Her name was Helen Palmer, and she immediately saw something in Theodore Geisel. Before meeting Helen, Ted was planning on becoming an English teacher. He wanted to make a difference in young people's lives. But when Helen took one look at his notebooks, she knew he was destined for something more. In the early days of their romance, Helen had a secret motive: she was going to make sure that the world saw his drawings. In 1927, with Helen's convincing, Ted dropped out of Oxford, moved back to the States, and started trying to make it as an author. The moment he got back to the US, he started sending his writings and drawings to magazines, publishers and advertisers. By July of that year, he already had a nationally-published cartoon under his belt. The Saturday Evening Post paid him $25 for his work, and that alone was enough to convince him to move to New York City and do this thing for real. Ted went from strength to strength. By October, he had landed a job as a writer and illustrator for the humour magazine Judge. He wasn't rich and famous yet, but he had steady paychecks coming in. With a little bit of stability, he popped the question, and he and Helen tied the knot in 1927. With a steady job and his new wife on his arm, it seemed like Ted Geisel had it all figured out. There was just one thing missing. He still signed his work with the mononym "Zeus". And it just had something missing. So, because his dad had always wanted him to go into medicine, Ted decided to start calling himself "Dr. Zeus" in the pages of Judge. Judge was a steady paycheck, but it wasn't what got Dr. Zeus noticed. That, weirdly enough, was bug spray. One of Zeus' early Judge cartoons mentioned the popular bug spray brand, Flit. Why? Why? Well, one woman who enjoyed the cartoon also happened to be married to the executive in charge of advertising for Flit. That was very good news for one Dr. Zeus. His first Flit advert appeared in early 1928, and that gravy train continued until 1941. People loved the ads, and the catchphrase "Quick Henry, the Flit" quickly became the "I'm lovin' it" of its time. So, in a bizarre twist of fate, a bug spray ad turned Dr. Zeus into one of the most sought-after artists in America. Helen clearly had a good eye for talent. Telling Zeus to quit Oxford and bet on himself paid off huge, and the money was now rolling in. The couple moved into a nice new place in New York City, and it was then that they met. Fame and fortune meant that Zeus and his wife got to travel the world. He never kept regular office hours, with his success giving him the freedom to go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Without any children, he and Helen were able to visit 30 countries together by 1936. They seemed like the perfect couple, but it wouldn't last forever. It's not just that their financial troubles were over. Becoming the world-famous Dr. Zeus opened doors that are closed to most people. He and his wife started rubbing shoulders with New York's upper crust, particularly becoming close friends with the incredibly rich and powerful Vanderlip banking family. But while they were doing well, neither of them had any clue what real success was just yet. That was coming. Even today, everyone knows the name Dr. Zeus, and not for bug spray ads. Sooner or later, Dr. Zeus was going to have to start writing books. But there's a good chance you haven't heard of his first book. It's called Boners. Maybe it didn't become an instant classic, but it did become a bestseller. As did the sequel, More Boners. But it was the next book where things finally clicked. Thinking back to what Helen first saw in him to begin with, Zeus came up with an idea for a new book featuring very strange animals. There was just one problem. With the fame and success that preceded him, Zeus couldn't convince anyone to take a chance on his strange animals. Depending on when he told the story, Depending on when he told the story, his third book received anywhere between 20 and 43 rejections from publishers. But he wasn't going to give up. In these cartoons, he denounced the Axis leaders and criticised isolationists like Charles Lindbergh, who opposed the US joining the war. Those cartoons largely hold up today. His cartoons about Japanese Americans? Not so much. Some of Dr. Seuss' cartoons denounced racism, as prejudice against Jewish and black Americans would hurt the war effort. Unfortunately, that tolerance didn't extend to all Americans. One of his cartoons featured caricatured Japanese Americans being handed explosives and told to wait for a signal from home. The message was clear: your Japanese American neighbours can't be trusted. Before the US entered World War II, Dr. Seuss was just a concerned scientist. In 1942, he started supporting the war effort directly. He enlisted, but he wasn't heading to the front lines. Seuss became the commander of the Army's first motion picture unit's animation department. And once again, he set his sights on the Japanese. He eventually earned the Legion of Merit for the films he made during World War II, the most notable was Outer Space. After the war, Seuss went on to direct a documentary called "Our Job in Japan" which, after the war, was expanded into the Oscar-winning documentary "Design for Death". While Dr. Seuss was working directly for the war effort, "Propaganda" was the name of the game. Our Job in Japan was a skewed description of Japanese culture, designed to teach American soldiers that their Japanese enemies were vicious, would never stop, and had to be defeated at all costs. Perhaps World War II made Seuss want a little sunshine in his life, because soon after it ended, he and his wife packed up and moved to California. Maybe Helen thought that this was going to be a fresh new start for them. Sadly, it was the beginning of the end. Seuss made movies during World War II, so now that it was back to civilian life, he tried his hand at making one. However, he wasn't able to make any of the movies he wanted to make. He had to make one for general audiences. The final product was the 5,000 fingers of Dr. T, and it looks exactly how you'd expect a Dr. Seuss movie to look. Unfortunately, America wasn't ready for the surreal imagery of the film, and it was both a critical and financial disaster. It was so bad that Dr. Seuss never made another movie again. But while the movies were good, there was a problem. While the movies didn't really work out, his books were doing better than ever. Dr. Seuss wrote many of his most famous books in the 1950s, including If I Ran the Zoo, Horton Hears a Who, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But there was one book in particular that really sent Dr. Seuss into the stratosphere. It was The Cat in the Hat. The book was a great example of how the world was changing. It was a great example of how the world was changing. Thank you. ご視聴ありがとうございました