The Butter Battle Book

The Butter Battle Book was a controversial children's book for its time. Written and published during the Cold War, it was a parable about the arms race, and taught a heavy lesson. The book came out in 1984, and in 1989, the book was adapted into a television special.

So, in case you never read the book (or you are one of those people who hate reading books in particular), here's the story: The Yooks and Zooks live on two opposing sides of a wall, as they are divided based on one thing: A disagreement over how to eat bread. The Yooks eat it butter-side up while the Zooks eat it butter-side down. However, it does not take long for a Zook to torment Grandpa (voiced by Charles Durning) with a slingshot, which triggers an arms race.

This TV special is praised by Dr. Seuss as the most faithful adaptation of his works, and watching it, I have to agree. The TV special follows the book closely. The voice actors do a good job voicing the characters, and the animation is vibrant. Also, the songs put in are catchy, and fit with the show. This is one I recommend showing to your kids, as it is a good lesson on how easy it is for two sides to escalate into a war, even one that could spell the end the of the human race.

Even from an early age I have loved Dr Seuss, and I find the animated versions of his work on the most part classics(1966's How the Grinch Stole Christmas is my favourite). Ralph Bakshi's The Butter Battle Book is not an exception. While I am more familiar with and prefer Chuck Jones' visual style, the animation is very good, not always smooth but always colourful and vibrant. The score has the right mix of whimsy and energy, while the songs are very catchy and succeed in making Dr Seuss' classic rhymes highly memorable. With or without song, the rhymes have razor-sharp bite and wit and move along at a sprightly(and gentle when needed) pace. The story is simple, smart, charming and true to Dr Seuss' book, with many funny moments for children and adults to savour. The message is important and doesn't feel thankfully overly-didactic in how it was put across. The characters are wholly engaging and the voice acting I can't fault either. All in all, terrific like most of the Dr Seuss animated adaptations. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Wow. Wow, wow. Hmmm. Do I waste the words? In the spirit of Bakshi, I'll stay human and fail by trying. I won't believe the Grandfather. Anyone who studies Bakshi feels the tides of generations, of change, of the street, of music, and art, addiction and emotion. Of the loss of soul which accompanies conviction. So those few will suck on the sour, ironic pill of these comments like they have every minute of Bakshi film, and twist their face wry, and spit it out and never forget. They illustrate alike. Let me simplify and close; from 'a brilliant, if all-too-brief, collaboration...' "Soon there are goofy attempts by a hired Grandfather Yook (voiced by Charles Durning) to take on the task of stopping the Zooks from continuing on their bottom-buttered path." And contrast. From 'Simplistic and misguided' "In any event, the cartoon is little more than simplistic propaganda which does little to explore the nuances of the ethical questions behind nuclear armament and instead tries to inculcate fear of weapons technology into children." Do I really need to summarize? Probably, but I won't. Conviction becomes reality. What acts is indestructible.

This was one of my favorite adaptations of a Dr. Suess story. On one side of a stone wall, there's the Yooks, the "proper" race that butters their bread "butter side up". On the other side live the Zooks, which (gasp!) butter their bread "butter side down". The two groups, whom appear to be the exact same with the exception of this one characteristic, have waged war with each other for countless years. The Butter Battle Book shows the story of an old man who was once patrolled the wall, protecting the Yooks from the terror of the Zooks. With the help of his advisor, things get worse and worse until he and Zooks' protector both bring out a device that will destroy both sides of the wall forever. Who's going to drop it first? We may never know...

I saw this when I was a child, and it left a lasting impression on me. These two races are fight over something as simple as this, and it shows what happens if we don't learn to get along and accept one another as each other. In a way, this story is the summary of every war that has happened: the fighting gets worse, and if we don't learn to get along, things are only going to get worse until both sides will destroy one another. Even though the story is very humorous, the moral is an important one. I'm hoping that one day I can share this story with my children and my grandchildren.

Butter Battle is an entertaining story about two fictional cities and their arms race. It is also as misguided allegory about the Cold-War and arms races in general. Yes, it is a children's book, but like so many of Theodor Seuss Geisel's works it hits people over the head with its moral.

And that moral is what, exactly? Sure it is laudable to encourage us to concentrate more on what unites us than what divides us. It is even a good thing to encourage international cooperation. But to equate the differences between the Warsaw Pact nations and the Nato west to a difference in butter application is just plain wrong. To point out the obvious, many Warsaw Pact nations enjoyed intermittent periods of shortages of butter and bread -- they would have been happy to eat it butter sideways if it were available. On a less literal level, and whatever your political inclination, Soviet socialism versus Western (particularly Anglo-American) democracy is not a mere question of preference and custom.

To make the point even clearer, nuclear weapons were not developed in a Cold War with the Soviets, but in a hot war with the Axis powers. There is no doubt that Germany was developing nuclear capability during the war. Should the US have refrained from nuclear weapons research putting their trust in their (less than inevitable) victory in the conventional war? Once the weapons were developed they were used against the enemy who attacked us at Pearl Harbor. What does a nation do at this point when the genie is out of the bottle? Furthermore, hindsight is 20-20, which is to say that there was no way of assuring another half crazed dictator wouldn't crop up with his eyes on developing nuclear weapons. The second Gulf War has shown the incredible difficulty in ascertaining credible threats and neutralizing them.

In any event, the cartoon is little more than simplistic propaganda which does little to explore the nuances of the ethical questions behind nuclear armament and instead tries to inculcate fear of weapons technology into children.