88 Fun Facts About The Lorax

The Lorax appeared in 1971, the year after Americans first marked which annual environmental day?

Earth Day was first held in April 1970, so Seuss's book arrived the very next year, just as the modern American environmental movement was taking off.

Which publisher released The Lorax?

Random House's Bennett Cerf once bet Seuss that he couldn't write a book using just 50 words, and lost when Green Eggs and Ham appeared.

Among all of his own books, Dr. Seuss singled out The Lorax as what?

His personal favorite was The Lorax, the book that loggers later objected to as unfair to their industry.

In the book, where does the Lorax first appear from?

A fresh tree stump: he pops out of the first tree the Once-ler chops down, which one Seuss scholar reads as a sign that the Lorax is part of the forest itself.

What does the Once-ler lower to the boy's ear to tell the tale of the Lorax?

A Whisper-ma-Phone slupps down from the Once-ler's Lerkim because, as he puts it, the secrets he tells are for the boy's ears alone.

What one word does the Lorax leave behind on a small pile of rocks?

UNLESS puzzles the Once-ler for years, until the boy's visit makes it clear: unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.

What does the Once-ler give the boy at the end of The Lorax?

The last Truffula seed comes with orders to plant it, give it clean water and feed it fresh air, so that the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.

Which made-up word does the Once-ler use for expanding his factory, roads and wagons?

Biggering is his word for it: he biggers his factory, his roads, his wagons and his loads, and keeps on biggering until the very last tree has been chopped down.

Which Great Lake was named in a line about dirty water that Seuss later cut from The Lorax?

Lake Erie was the butt of the line until people from the Ohio Sea Grant program wrote to Seuss about how far the cleanup had come, and he cut it some 14 years after publication.

In The Lorax, what leftover goo from the Thneed factory gums up the Humming-Fish's gills?

Gluppity-Glupp, along with Schloppity-Schlopp, gets dumped in the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed, gumming their gills until the Lorax has to send them away.

What is the title of the logging industry's answer to The Lorax, told from a logger's point of view?

Truax is a logger who harvests trees for ball bats and houses; oak flooring makers funded the booklet, which casts its tree defender, the Guardbark, as a creature that throws tantrums.

A 2018 study suggested the Lorax's appearance was inspired by which African animal?

The patas monkey may have been the model: it lives off Kenya's whistling thorn acacia, and face-matching software paired the Lorax with it more closely than with an earlier Seuss creature.

What kind of tree near Seuss's La Jolla home is said to have inspired the story's tufted trees?

A Monterey cypress in a seaside La Jolla park is said to have been the model; thought to be 80 to 100 years old, the lone tree toppled in June 2019.

In 1989, a logging town in which state tried to pull The Lorax from its second-grade reading list?

California's Laytonville was the town: a logging-supplies dealer campaigned against the book after his second-grader took its lesson to heart, but the school board voted to keep it.

Which word completes the Lorax's line 'I speak for the trees, for the trees have no ...'?

Tongues is the word, chosen to rhyme with the next line, in which he asks the Once-ler at the top of his lungs what he has made out of a Truffula tuft.

How does the Once-ler expand his knitting business?

He brings in his relatives with one radio-phone call, summoning brothers, uncles and aunts to knit Thneeds, and every one of them drives off the moment the last tree falls.

Why do the Brown Bar-ba-loots have to leave the valley?

They are hungry: with too little Truffula Fruit to go round, the Bar-ba-loots get what the Lorax calls the crummies in their tummies, and he sends them off to find food.

What must the boy pay the Once-ler?

Fifteen cents, a nail and a snail shell, and not just any shell: it must come from a great-great-great-grandfather snail, all tossed into a tin pail he lowers on a rope.

The studio behind the 1972 Lorax TV special also created which cartoon character?

The Pink Panther made DePatie-Freleng's name: hired to animate the 1963 film's opening titles, the studio spun the cat into his own cartoons before turning to Dr. Seuss specials.

In The Lorax, Truffula tufts have the sweet smell of fresh what?

Butterfly milk is the Once-ler's phrase for it, right after he calls the tufts softer than silk; the 2012 film keeps the line, then has its young hero ask what that even means.

How does the Lorax leave after the last Truffula tree falls?

By the seat of his pants, the Lorax hoists himself up and away with one sad backward glance and not a word; the Once-ler says he never forgot the grim look he wore.

The 1972 Lorax special was narrated by Eddie Albert, the star of which 1960s rural sitcom?

Green Acres cast him as a Park Avenue lawyer who flees to a farm, and he lived the part: a campaigner against DDT, he turned the front yard of his Los Angeles home into a cornfield.

Thurl Ravenscroft, a bass singer in the 1972 Lorax special, was for decades the voice of which cereal mascot?

Tony the Tiger's 'They're g-r-r-reat!' was his for some fifty years; he also sang 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch' but went uncredited, so many viewers assumed the singer was Boris Karloff.

Chris Renaud, director of the 2012 Lorax film, had earlier co-directed which animated hit?

Despicable Me came out two years earlier, and the Lorax film was sold with the line 'From the creators of Despicable Me'; Renaud also voices its assorted forest animals.

Which animation studio made the 2012 Lorax film?

Illumination was then a young studio on only its third feature, a year after its Easter Bunny comedy Hop, and its founder Chris Meledandri produced the film himself.

The 2012 Lorax film's writers had already scripted which other big-screen Dr. Seuss adaptation?

Horton Hears a Who! was also written by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, four years earlier, and NPR's critic called it the much better Seuss feature of the two.

In The Lorax, why can the Swomee-Swans no longer sing?

Smog in their throats silences them, so the Lorax sends the whole flock away, warning that they may have to fly for a month or a year to find clean air.

Which actor re-recorded the Lorax's voice himself for the 2012 film's Spanish, Italian, German and Russian dubs?

Danny DeVito speaks none of those languages, so he learned every line phonetically with two native coaches per language; the idea was his own, floated on a call with the producer.

Zac Efron voices which character in the 2012 Lorax film?

Ted is named after Theodor Geisel, the man behind the Dr. Seuss pen name, as the film's producer confirmed when an interviewer asked him.

Which pop star voices Audrey in the 2012 Lorax film?

Taylor Swift voices Audrey, who paints Truffula trees so vividly that the young hero sets off to find one, less out of love for nature than to impress her.

Who voices the Once-ler in the 2012 Lorax film?

Ed Helms voices him at two ages: the ambitious young inventor seen in flashback and the aged recluse who, decades later, tells the boy how the forest was lost.

Rob Riggle voices which character in the 2012 Lorax film?

Aloysius O'Hare appears nowhere in the book: the screenwriters invented him, and NPR's critic called him a stock villain, a pint-sized mogul who pollutes by design.

Which television legend voices Grammy Norma in the 2012 Lorax film?

Betty White was 90 when the film opened, and her Grammy Norma is the one who sets the story moving by telling her grandson where to find the Once-ler.

What is the name of the walled, treeless city in the 2012 Lorax film?

Thneedville has no living plants: every tree and flower inside its walls is artificial, and the walls keep residents from seeing the barren wasteland the old forest has become.

In the 2012 Lorax film, what does the villain sell to the townspeople?

Bottled air is his fortune, so real trees, which make clean air for free, threaten it; NPR's critic noted that he pollutes on purpose, since fouler air means better sales.

On Rotten Tomatoes, critics agreed the 2012 Lorax film's zany Hollywood production values buried what?

The book's moral simplicity 'gets lost', the consensus says, though it grants the film is cute and funny enough; NPR's critic felt its makers did not trust their material.

A tie-in with the 2012 Lorax film gave a 'Truffula Tree Seal of Approval' to what product?

An SUV, the gasoline-powered Mazda CX-5, claimed the seal in an advert that drove it through the Truffula valley, and critics found that an odd fit for a fable about greed and pollution.

Roughly how many promotional partners and product tie-ins came with the 2012 Lorax film?

About 70 signed on, from IHOP meals and HP printers to the Environmental Protection Agency, and critics said so much selling sat oddly with the story's warning about greed.

At what point did the 2012 Lorax film's North American ticket sales first match its production budget?

Its opening weekend took in almost exactly what the film had cost to make, the biggest debut of 2012 up to then, so ticket sales had matched the budget within three days.

In the 2012 Lorax film, which song does the Once-ler sing as his business fells the Truffula forest?

How Bad Can I Be? carries a pointed joke: mid-song a snapshot of the Lorax holding a Thneed lands on a billboard stamped Lorax Approved, making the forest's guardian an unwilling pitchman.

The 2012 Lorax film opened in American cinemas on March 2, which marks what occasion for Dr. Seuss?

His birthday: Theodor Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, and Variety noted at the film's 2009 announcement that the target date fell on it, so it opened on what would have been his 108th.

In the 2012 Lorax film, the girl Audrey shares her name with which person in Dr. Seuss's life?

His wife Audrey Geisel outlived him, served as an executive producer on the film, and is credited with nudging him to take on social issues in books such as this one.

In Dr. Seuss's book The Lorax, what is all the reader ever sees of the Once-ler?

His arms and eyes are all Seuss ever draws: long green arms and hands, and a pair of eyes peeking out of the shutters, so the man telling the story stays a mystery figure throughout.

In The Lorax, what does the Lorax say about the Once-ler's very first Thneed?

Nobody will buy it, he scoffs, and the very next minute a passer-by happily pays three ninety-eight for it, leaving the Once-ler to gloat that you never can tell what some people will buy.

In The Lorax, what does the Once-ler invent to chop down four Truffula trees at a time?

The Super-Axe-Hacker whacks off four trees at one smacker, the Once-ler boasts, so Thneeds get made four times as fast, and within a week the Lorax is at his office door to protest.

What is the most famous feature of the Lorax's face?

A bushy mustache is his trademark: one theatre critic summed him up as something like a beaver with a walrus moustache, and the 2012 film kept it on its bright orange hero.

In the Old Vic's 2015 musical of The Lorax, the title character appeared on stage as what?

A puppet played him, fat-bellied and orange and worked in full view by three puppeteers, in a show that mixed human actors with puppet fish and swans.

Which Broadway show originally included a Lorax segment that was cut before opening?

Seussical dropped its Lorax section before the Broadway opening, flopped there anyway, and then rose again as a favourite of school and community theatres.

A blocked Dr. Seuss finally wrote the text of The Lorax during a trip to which African country?

Kenya gave him the break he needed, because he had drafted the book at home and disliked the result. He wrote the words there and did the drawings once he was back in the United States.

The Lorax of the 2012 animated film is covered from head to toe in fur of which bright color?

Orange fur made the film's Lorax instantly recognizable, and the teaser poster was little more than his face against a background of the same shade.

A bronze Lorax stands in a sculpture garden in which Massachusetts city, where Dr. Seuss was born?

Springfield placed its Lorax in front of the city's science museum, which has exhibits on global warming. The garden's five large bronzes were designed by the author's stepdaughter.

Whose petition got the studio to add an environmental message to the 2012 Lorax film's website?

A fourth-grade class in Brookline, Massachusetts, ran the campaign on Change.org and won, a neat echo of a story that ends by handing the job of fixing things to a child.

Dr. Seuss said his environmental fable The Lorax came out of him feeling what?

Angry was his own word for it: the ecology books he had read struck him as dull, so he wrote one that went on the attack and let the consequences land where they might.

The Brown Bar-ba-loots that play under the Truffula Trees in The Lorax look most like which animals?

Bears are the closest match: the Bar-ba-loots are small, brown and fuzzy, and they are the first creatures the Lorax has to send away from the valley.

The 2012 Lorax film's Once-ler inspired a wave of fan art and song remixes on which blogging site?

Tumblr users adopted the film's Once-ler so completely that they produced cosplay, fan fiction and even alternate versions of the character to pair off with each other.

In its second week on top, the 2012 Lorax film outsold which costly new Disney science-fiction epic?

John Carter managed about $30 million against the Lorax's $38.8 million, an early sign of trouble for a film that forced Disney into a $200 million writedown.

In The Lorax, how do the Humming-Fish get away once their pond has been ruined?

Walking on their fins is the only way out, so the fish leave the water and set off overland. They are the last of the valley's creatures to be sent away.

In the 2012 Lorax film, what does Audrey long to see, sending her young admirer off on his quest?

A real tree is her wish, because every plant in their walled town is artificial. To find one, the boy has to leave the city for the wasteland outside.

Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated The Lorax under a pen name; what was the author's real surname?

Geisel was his family name, and Seuss was both his middle name and his mother's maiden name, which is how it ended up on the covers of his books.

Dr. Seuss said that when The Lorax finally came to him, he grabbed which piece of paper to write it on?

A laundry list was all he had within reach when his writer's block finally broke, and by his account nearly the whole book poured out onto it in one sitting.

In the 2012 Lorax film, who tells the young hero about a recluse who knows where the trees went?

His grandmother points him toward the hermit beyond the city wall, and at the climax the whole family, grandmother included, helps him reach the center of town.

Friz Freleng, producer of the 1972 Lorax special, was said to look like which Looney Tunes hothead?

Yosemite Sam, the short and fiery gunslinger, was one of the stars Freleng introduced at Warner Bros., where he directed more cartoons than anyone else at the studio.

John Powell, who scored the 2012 Lorax film, got his first Oscar nomination for which animated film?

How to Train Your Dragon was his sixth DreamWorks film but the first he scored entirely by himself. His second nomination came years later for Wicked.

At the climax of the 2012 Lorax film, the young hero smashes through the city wall with what?

A bulldozer does the job, and the gap it leaves shows the crowd the barren land outside. That sight is what turns the townspeople against the villain.

Which song from the 2012 Lorax film became the soundtrack's lead single, sung by Ester Dean?

Let It Grow appears twice on the album: once sung by the film's cast and choir, and once as Ester Dean's pop single, which carries the subtitle Celebrate the World.

The 2012 Lorax film was animated at a newly acquired studio called Mac Guff in which country?

France is home to the studio, which the film's producers had acquired only the summer before. Their later films were mostly animated there too, helped by French subsidies.

The 2012 Lorax film was the first released with a new logo marking which studio's 100th anniversary?

Universal unveiled its centenary logo in front of the film, set to a rearranged version of the fanfare Jerry Goldsmith had composed for the studio.

Which Parks and Recreation actress voices Mrs. Wiggins, the hero's mother, in the 2012 Lorax film?

Jenny Slate, the sitcom's Mona-Lisa Saperstein, took the part a year before joining that show, and she went on to voice characters in Zootopia and The Secret Life of Pets.

Bob Holt, who voiced both the Lorax and the Once-ler in 1972, later voiced which Marvel hero on TV?

The Hulk was his in Marvel's 1982 cartoon, where another actor played the scientist and Holt supplied the voice of the green giant he turns into.

The Old Vic's stage musical of The Lorax earned a 2016 nomination for which British theatre prize?

An Olivier Award nomination came in the Best Entertainment and Family category, after a Guardian review that called it the best family show since Matilda.

After London, the Old Vic's Lorax musical began its North American run in which Canadian city?

Toronto hosted the show at the Royal Alexandra Theatre over Christmas, before it moved on to Minneapolis in the spring and San Diego in the summer.

Before the Lorax stage musical, David Greig adapted which Roald Dahl story for the West End?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reached the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 2013 with a script by Greig, two years before his Lorax arrived at the Old Vic.

In The Lorax, where does the Once-ler tuck away the boy's payment once he has counted it?

A hole in his glove does the job, and the author even gave it a name, the Snuvv. Long after his business has collapsed, the Once-ler still checks the fee carefully before he says a word.

In the book The Lorax, how does a reader learn that a boy is listening to the Once-ler's tale?

Only from the pictures: the text never mentions the boy and addresses the reader as you, so the Once-ler seems to be speaking to whoever is holding the book.

Which restaurant chain joined Whole Foods and the EPA as a marketing partner of the 2012 Lorax film?

IHOP signed up alongside a brand of disposable diapers, among dozens of tie-ins for a story about a man who sells everyone something they do not need.

In North America, the 2012 Lorax film was the first $200 million cartoon since which Disney hit?

Tangled had been the last to manage it, more than a year before. The Lorax film crossed the mark on April 11, 2012, about six weeks into its run.

A 2012 essay tied to Dr. Seuss's Lutheran faith likened the Lorax to which figures from the Bible?

Prophets were Travis Scholl's comparison, for a character who warns of ruin and goes unheeded until it arrives. Seuss was raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran and stayed one all his life.

In The Lorax, what grows at the far end of town along the Street of the Lifted Lorax?

Grickle-grass is one of the made-up words that set the bleak first scene, a name built to sound as scraggly and unwelcoming as the growth it describes.

Hawley Pratt directed the 1972 Lorax special a year after making which other Dr. Seuss TV special?

The Cat in the Hat aired in March 1971 with Pratt directing, and he later completed a trio of Seuss specials with Dr. Seuss on the Loose.

In a 1990s timber-industry reply to The Lorax, the logger argues with Guardbark, who is what?

A talking tree is the environmentalist of the piece, and in this version it is the tree that refuses to listen until the logger's case for replanting wins it over.

In The Lorax, the Once-ler will only tell his secrets at midnight during which month of the year?

August is the only month he will speak, and even then only on damp, gloomy nights. By coincidence, the book itself went on sale in August 1971.

Charlie Fink, songwriter of the Lorax stage musical, fronted which British indie folk band?

Noah and the Whale made his name, and the Lorax score launched a second career: the Evening Standard has since called him a theatre composer of the first rank.

The 1972 Lorax TV special won the critics' prize at an animation festival in which European city?

Zagreb's festival was holding its very first edition that year, and only the one at Annecy, founded in 1960, has been running longer.

Dr. Seuss said the sight of a herd of which animals on safari finally unblocked The Lorax?

Elephants were what he saw, by his own account, and nearly the whole stalled book poured out that same afternoon. The trip had been suggested simply to get his mind off the work.

Which trade group published a 1990s booklet answering The Lorax from a logger's side of the story?

Oak flooring makers put out the 20-page booklet through their national association, and its author came from a family that ran a hardwood flooring plant.

Which Saturday Night Live cast member voices the Once-ler's scheming mother in the 2012 Lorax film?

Nasim Pedrad was in her third season on the sketch show when she played the unscrupulous Isabella, and she left it in 2014 to star in the sitcom Mulaney.

Which actor, Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, voices the Once-ler's Uncle Ubb in the 2012 Lorax film?

Stephen Tobolowsky plays one of the family members who push the Once-ler into felling every tree, alongside an aunt and a pair of dim-witted twin brothers.

Which British comedian, a star of The Young Ones, narrates the UK audiobook of The Lorax?

Rik Mayall read the British edition for HarperCollins, while American listeners got a separate recording by the actor who played Sam Malone in the sitcom Cheers.