Undescribable Perfection

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

. . . Red Commie KGB Chief Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin began fingering his sock puppet Don Juan Rump toward America's once-respectable White House in 1989. Dr. Seuss nailed this emerging threat to America at this time (that is, 28 years ago) by including ALL of the most deranged elements of Putin's Deplorable Rump Administration within the 24 minutes spanned by BUTTER BATTLE BOOK. As most American Media Outlets predict the END of Life as We Knew It will occur Tomorrow (that is, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017) because Rump and his counterpart madman in North Korea BOTH have their itchy trigger fingers hovering over their respective Nuclear Missile Launch Buttons, this moment is perfectly captured by BUTTER's Yook and Zook leaders on the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction from their own "Itsy Bitsy Big Boy Boom-Er-Roo" weapons as this animated short concludes on an ambiguous note. The entire cartoon takes place at or near the Great Wall of Rump, and Dr. Seuss is surely quoting Rump at some future date when the Yook Grandpa boasts "with my Triple Sling Jigger, I sure felt bigger!" Putin's Secretary for U.S. Miseducation, Billionairess Betsy "Amway Calling" DeVos, even makes a cameo appearance here at 2:45, as she leads the tykes of Yook in a brainwashing song at one of her for-profit Charter Bamboozling Shacks.

I first saw this short upon purchasing a 4-DVD pack containing 'The Best of Dr Seuss,' 'Laura's Star,' 'Quest for Camelot' and 'The Powerpuff Girls Movie.' While it's not the best of 'The Best of Dr Seuss,' it still had rhyming narrative, Dr Seuss-illustration-type characters and a storyline that reminded me of that from the 'My Little Pony ' episode 'Ice Cream Wars.'The animation style is sketchy, is not as smooth as that in 'Daisy-Head Mayzie' or 'Horton Hatches the Egg' and has a few lip-syncing flaws but the colours are bold. A lot of the musical score was military and although there were a few moments with no music at all, I liked the harmonious vocals of a group of female characters.. While a lot of the story was hard to follow, I liked the concept of one community spreading their bread butter-side down and the other butter-side up. The pace dragged on in the middle and while I found the ending abrupt, it was something of a cliffhanger as well.Overall this is the weakest addition to 'The Best of Dr. Seuss' DVD but its most positive assets are the narration, the colours, the music and the nostalgic appeal it brings to a certain extent by reminding me of one of my favourite episodes of one of my favourite childhood cartoons. 7/10.

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

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.