Ellen DeGeneres announced on her show Wednesday that she is producing a Green Eggs and Ham TV series for Netflix, something sure to excite children and the children in many of us.
Since the 13-episode cutting-edge animated show isn’t coming out until 2018, DeGeneres didn’t have many details to share on the show that combines her two favorite things: Dr. Seuss and binge-watching.
It’s for the whole family, she said, and she even gave a little rhyme to demonstrate that point.
You can watch it with a fox
You can watch it on the rocks
You can watch it without socks
And I’m gonna leave the rhyming to Dr. Seuss.
According to Variety, the show will continue the story and follow the various adventures of “some of its characters,” but A.V. Club’s Sam Barsanti isn’t entirely convinced. The book, while excellent, has only 50 words in it, and it gets pretty repetitive. And that’s before where the Netflix show would pick up.
“Green Eggs And Ham has about five characters, and that’s if you count the fox, goat, and mouse that Sam-I-Am and the other guy run into,” he wrote.
We’re inclined to agree with him. It makes for a great children’s book, and it was adapted as part of the 1973 TV special Dr. Seuss on the Loose. But stretching it out into 13 episodes? Even taking into consideration that it’ll be mainly geared for children and not adults on yet another nostalgia kick, the concept is a bit thin.
So we’ve taken it upon ourselves to scour through Theodor Geisel’s bibliography to see what else could make for better binge-worthy TV. After all, the magical minds of Hollywood took How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, already a beloved TV special, and stretched it out into a 104-minute movie starring Jim Carrey that wasn’t completely terrible. (The Cat in the Hat? Not so much.)
1) Horton Hears a Who
It was already made into a 2008 feature film starring Carrey and Steve Carell, but a new series could expand into their world, their politics, and even the Mayor of Whoville’s family life. (Things must get kooky with 96 daughters and a son named JoJo.) Now safe, they can get back to some sense of normalcy while the jungle’s animals seek to protect them—and can make a few cameos.
A person’s a person, no matter how small (a part they may play in Whoville).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXu-zxNNIQc
2) The Lorax
The film adaptation ends differently than the book, with the Once-ler’s reunion with the Lorax (and many more characters), leading to a realm of possibilities for the town and the creatures of the forest.
3) If I Ran the Zoo
A zoo owner’s child’s imagination runs wild while he or she roams around the zoo growing up and gets into mini-adventures with friends. Kind of like Rugrats but with more exotic animals.
4) The Butter Battle Book
This adaptation would need a name change, but putting two groups of people and having them work together despite their differences would create plenty of conflict—and lessons along the way.
5) The Cat in the Hat
Another adaptation of Seuss’s most famous story would be worth it to see how his own community handles him and his trickster ways—and whether he actually suffers any consequences. Plus you have Thing 1 and Thing 2 to lead the B-plot.
H/T A.V. Club | Photo via Michael Senchuk/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
