Fictional character created by Dr. Seuss
Fictional character
Horton the Elephant is a fictional character from the 1940 book Horton Hatches the Egg[2] and 1954 book Horton Hears a Who!,[3] both by Dr. Seuss. He is also featured in the short story Horton and the Kwuggerbug, first published for Redbook in 1951 and later rediscovered by Charles D. Cohen and published in the 2014 anthology Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories. In all books and other media, Horton is characterized as a kind, sweet-natured, and naïve elephant who manages to overcome hardships.
In 1942, Warner Bros. made the animated short film, Horton Hatches the Egg, in which Horton is voiced by Kent Rogers.
In 1970, MGM Animation/Visual Arts made a 30-minute TV special of Horton Hears a Who!. Horton is voiced by Hans Conried, who also lends his voice as the narrator.
Horton is voiced by Jim Carrey in the 2008 animated film Horton Hears a Who!, where he is shown as being eccentric and imaginative, and somewhat absent-minded. Carrey had previously played and voiced the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, another Seuss adaptation involving the Whos.
Horton is also a character in the TV series The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, as performed by John Kennedy. Horton is also a principal character in Seussical (2000), which uses most of the two Horton books as its primary plot. Kevin Chamberlin originated the role of Horton on Broadway.
Stories
Horton Hatches the Egg: Mother bird Mayzie lays an egg, but becomes weary of incubating it, and persuades Horton to take her place. As Horton spends months at this, he suffers rainstorms, snowstorms, and the mockery of the other animals, while Mayzie relaxes abroad. When three hunters approach him, Horton defies them to shoot him, while refusing to leave the nest. The hunters, realizing they have found a rare attraction—an elephant sitting on a nest—dig up the tree and sell him to a circus. When the circus arrives in Palm Beach, Mayzie goes to Horton demanding the return of her egg, but when the egg hatches, it produces a hybrid elephant-bird, who returns with Horton to the wild.
Horton Hears A Who!: Horton is bathing in a pond when he hears a speck of dust emit cries for help and places it on a red clover for safety. Upon investigating, he learns that the speck of dust is a microscopic world named Whoville, inhabited by a microscopic species called Whos. When he talks to the Whos, the Sour Kangaroo and her son brand Horton as insane to the entire animal kingdom. When Horton retains the Whos, the Wickersham Brothers steal the clover and request Vladikoff to dispose of it, whereupon Vladikoff discards the clover among a field of identical plants. After a day of searching, Horton locates Whoville, but Mother Kangaroo arrives with an army of monkeys, to imprison him and destroy the clover. When the Kangaroos fail to hear a chorus of Whos announcing their presence, the monkeys attack Horton, who shouts at the Whos to prove themselves. All their efforts fail, though, until the Who child, JoJo, shouts the syllable "YOPP!", breaking the sound barrier. The monkeys and Kangaroo apologize to Horton and promise to cooperate with him in protecting Whoville.
Horton and the Kwuggerbug: Horton walks through the jungle when he meets a Kwuggerbug, who tells him about a Beezlenut tree and offers to give him half the nuts if he brings him there. Horton, wanting the Beezlenuts, agrees. However, the bug turns out to be rude and demanding, and forces Horton to swim across a lake infested with crocodiles and climb a treacherous mountain to get to the tree on top, where he is then forced to stretch over a ledge to the tree to allow the bug to get to the nuts. When the bug gets the nuts, he cracks them, then points out that half of every nut is the shell, and he intends to give Horton the shells while he gets the insides. He jams the shells into Horton's trunk. Horton, in anger, and in pain from the shells in his trunk, sneezes, blowing the bug so far away he can never get back to the Beezlenut tree.
