A Design Attempt For The Butter Battle TV Special

This is another Reagan-esque president I did (well, it was the late '80s). We went to visit Dr. Seuss in La Jolla, where he promptly threw out six weeks of my work! I'd never had that happen before, so it was devastating.

It seems I'd miscalculated in thinking that Mr. Geisel had really liked Chuck Jones' re-stylings of his characters for the Grinch special. While he came to appreciate and enjoy Jones' work later, at this point he really wanted his book to be animated with as little adaptation as possible - not as much fun for me, but I can't say as I blame him. By making the characters more individual, I also upset his conscious de-politization of the story and universal indentification with the cast. Oops!

Fortunately, I was working with Maurice Noble, who, true to his name, offered considerable consolation. Dr. Seuss did his part and gave me one of my most memorable autographs: "To Jeff, with sincere apologies for being such a bastard."

PS - Chuck Jones, Dr. Suess, Ralph Bakshi and I were all at that review meeting. Talk about a gnat among giants!