Green Eggs and Ham (Series) - Part II

MAJOR

SPOILER ALERT

Earlier this year, I spoke of Green Eggs and Ham

and how its skillful merits made it a grand slam.

I still find it a true work of televised art,

and it left me appreciating Seuss’ part

in terms of its imaginative structure and heart.

I wrapped up Part I, of course, of my review

with a promise to look at three highlights for you

that elevated this series into fame

and made it the cult classic it became.

With that said, I am now under the inclination

to address number one: the animation.

When you think of Green Eggs and Ham for TV,

you’d look at this small screen take on the classic tale and see

the usual displays of color and light

just like with any TV show, right?

It’s different, all right, but for the right reasonings.

This show surprised me with visual seasonings

that were so smooth, crisp, colorful, and rich

that it made Dr. Seuss’ drawing styles, the likes of which

were made iconic from his classic books,

come alive throughout the show thanks to the hooks

of Chuck-Jones-or-Disney-Renaissance-style looks.

Plus, whenever things got serious or quiet,

the show captured the tension and disquiet

from the emotional baggage and mistakes

the characters dealt with as they raised the stakes,

as well as all the energy most chaotic

and riotous, to the point that it felt hypnotic.

My guess is that this show lunged forth in streaming

and wasn’t broadcast, so I felt like I was dreaming

for the animation to be this breathtaking.

Regardless, the idea that such an undertaking

was achieved by the artists as they breathed

new life into drawings of a wreathed,

popular classic like Green Eggs and Ham

continues to leave me awestruck. Yes, I am!

And another thing. Judging from what I’d seen,

when I think ‘Green Eggs and Ham’, the show’s small screen

beauts might come to mind, ‘sides the pages in-between.

Yes, the animation was that pristine!

As for the second of the show’s things of beauty,

the voice acting went beyond the call of duty.

But it’s not just the acting that went unbeaten.

Just look. Michael Douglas, the late Diane Keaton?

With stars like them in here, the deal they’d sweeten!

Starting with Adam Devine as Sam-I-Am,

he portrayed the hero of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’

with sheer cheer, wackiness and even pathos

to spice up ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ like a bathos.

He nailed his optimism and was also downbeat

when distraught or upset without missing a beat.

Once again, the rest of the actors in the show

did wonders for their characters on the go.

Michael Douglas seamlessly voiced his gruffiness,

not to mention some surprising fluffiness,

through Guy-Am-I, for he had a ton on his mind,

whether it was his inventions, Sam as he dined,

sudden greetings that threw him a curveball,

or unforeseen snags like E.B. over the wall.

You know this, in case you’re aware?

I do not like them here or there,

I do not like them anywhere.

I do not like green eggs and ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.

When you hear Douglas deliver this line,

you’d be shocked just what a fine

bout of rage he conveyed with it. How he did shine!

In the book, the line was said with vibes of a grump.

In the show, Guy-Am-I said it with a lump

of scorching indignation in his voice

once he ripped Sam to shreds for his bad choice.

For what a chipper voice Michellee had,

who’d have thought it’s Diane Keaton who’d done her glad

after being made a legend by The Godfather?

Despite Michellee’s quirks, her voice was no bother

for Keaton conveyed it with sincerity,

and expressed her worries with clarity

while balancing it out with how lighthearted

she could’ve been from where she started.

Even if Michellee wasn’t conveyed enough

as a character to land the right stuff

for this character’s personality skills

outside of her bean-counting and painting skills,

Keaton, with her voice work, helped her come alive

as her versatility fueled her drive.

Ilana Glazer, as Michellee’s daughter,

E.B., played her role like a duck takes to water.

She innately captured her excited nature,

and sounded frenetic and hopeful in nature.

But while Glazer helped E.B. sound childlike for sure,

her instincts helped her also sound mature.

I also have a soft spot, I surmise,

for the voice actors who played the ‘bad guys’,

McWinkle and Gluntz. Let’s start with Jillian Bell.

She dished out her more chipper vocal tones well

to emphasize Gluntz’s wacky overtones,

plus her absentmindedness concerning the unknowns.

But for all her fabulous zingers, Jeffrey Wright

provided dignity that’s worth a spotlight.

He played McWinkle with evident conviction

as he masterfully framed McWinkle with the depiction

of a committed follower who’s devout

in his background and his need for a good turnout.

As McWinkle prepped to retire, as he’d recount,

Wright’s voice told me he tried to make his amount

of seconds to finish his ‘one last job’ count.

While he and Bell both felt like an odd couple,

their performances together were so supple

that they’d feel like they’d make a good power couple,

like McWinkle and Gluntz would’ve done anything

it took to get their job done with zing.

Sometimes, their impressions felt like Bonnie and Clyde,

if not compared with Mulder and Scully with pride.

Frankly, Patrica Clarkson was also a hoot.

Playing a torn mother, who’s also a spy to boot,

she mastered Pam-I-Am’s instincts and skillsets

plus her motherliness mixed with past regrets.

Much like Jeffery Wright when he played McWinkle,

Clarkson sounded experienced, but with a sprinkle

of nobility, when Pam lunged forth as a spy.

Making a scene with duties with which to soar high,

she helped Pam sound like she knew every in and out,

every gizmo, and, without being in doubt,

flashed on the next step to take in her mission.

Yet, when it came to her maternal condition,

Clarkson’s mellow, tender nature through Pam-I-Am

would’ve shown her still-there devotion to Sam-I-Am.

Revisiting what she thought she left behind,

Pam sounded guilty for having felt so blind

to leave Sam-I-Am in an orphanage post-haste

despite meaning to leave him safe, if not misplaced.

Clarkson conveyed such inner turmoil with ease,

especially when Pam told Sam that her expertise,

due to her dealing with danger at every turn,

would’ve roped Sam in the crossfire in turn.

Let’s also give credit to Darren Criss.

Looka, E.B.’s beau, couldn’t sound better than this.

He sounded like your everyday teenage boy,

but what Criss snuck in is what I enjoy.

There’s something about his inflections and fears

that made Looka sound wise beyond his years,

just like E.B., and, though it’d surround him,

would’ve looked past the prejudices that’d bound him;

the bigger picture is what he’d see around him.

The Dukes of both Yookia and Zookia?

Their voice actors were worthy of either -ookia!

Rita Moreno as the Dookess of Zookia

infused her role with the sheer royalty

she would’ve conveyed, even in her utmost loyalty,

along with manners of a prima donna.

Of course, even while in her zealous nirvana,

Moreno still played her with concern for Zookia,

despite being blinded by her distaste for Yookia.

Hector Elizondo, on the other hand,

as the Dooka of Yookia, expressed a command

and painted him as a bumbling kind of fella,

almost like the king from Cinderella.

Even then, though, Elizondo’s voice work,

coupled with the graceful animation at work,

helped make the Dooka look more dignified

in his stance, especially when applied

to his familial ties, like with Looka, his son.

Oh, what wonders the voice performances have done!

Eddie Izzard must’ve had the time of his life

playing Snerz in all his contempt, mirth, and strife.

Outside of owning up to his boastful outlook,

Snerz even sounded professional for a crook,

and it was all brought out with flair by Izzard,

even when Snerz sounded as slick as a lizard.

We’d see through his high-and-mighty demeanor

for we knew his motives made him look meaner,

but Izzard’s money’s worth will not be less greener.

Now, let me shed light on one standout in ‘Mouse’,

when Sam and Guy ended up in the big house.

The ‘mouse’ in question bemoaned as he sang and spoke

of his background with theatrics to evoke.

Sam and Guy, however, nicknamed him ‘Squeaky’,

‘cause they heard him just in squeaks, which was quite cheeky.

But his dramatic bravura, which went on to throb,

emulated Jean Valjean from Les Misérables.

But what helped hone this appearance

was the vocal work provided with adherence

by the famous Broadway star, Daveed Diggs.

‘Green Eggs and Hamilton’? Bring on the jigs!

While Sam, Guy, and ‘Squeaky’’s methods of exemption

took a page out of The Shawshank Redemption,

I felt for the poor mouse’s condition

as I silently wished him luck in his mission.

And last but not least, Keegan Michael-Key

soared through his role as the narrator to a tee.

He took on his role with evident spirit

and as he told the tale, once you hear it,

he’d sound as beguiling as he was beguiled,

almost like an excitable child.

But whenever the narrator mellowed out,

his ponderations of what went about

in the story evoked an inner wisdom

that captured his omniscient system.

Plus, in more humorous moments, he broke the fourth wall

and remarked on weird events, should there be at all,

as if he stood with the characters in the tale

and experienced all the chaos that’d entail.

Heck, they sometimes even spoke to each other,

adding flavor to the narrator’s smother.

But the real reason the narration shone in time?

Yep. Everything the narrator said was in rhyme.

Much like Anthony Hopkins from Jim Carrey’s Grinch,

Keegan Michael-Key had to hone the slightest pinch

of the structure and rhythm of the Seuss prose

and fit it in the artistry to which it owes.

Hearing what he said in all two seasons, it shows.

Finally, the third strength that’s worth highlighting

I might have said, but will say once more: the writing.

Again, it’d be so easy to take the story

as Seuss wrote it and run with it in its glory

like in Dr. Seuss on the Loose. But instead,

this show flipped writing conventions on their head

and did more than stretch the book to a TV show.

The writing expanded the scope and helped it grow

as a work of art beyond belief with callbacks

and connections to other Seuss tales in its tracks,

plus bombshell moments of characterization,

resulting in a monolithic creation

that did Seuss justice, and that’s putting it lightly.

This was one of those works that had shown brightly

that to be faithful to an original source,

whether it’s books, films, TV shows, or plays, of course,

you don’t have to stress over how it’s written,

structured, performed, or whatever leaves you smitten.

What matters the most is to prioritize

the spirit, essence, and themes, through compromise,

of the original story and embellish it

as it’d best fit its bound format so you’d relish it.

Some of the plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein

found further life in film and are favorites of mine.

I caught on to how The Man in the High Castle

suited TV more by, without a hassle,

expanding on the ideas, the concept,

the characters, and the world through which they crept.

Green Eggs and Ham benefitted the same way.

It flourished on TV because of the leeway

it had with its designs, rhymes, and storytelling,

with their faithfulness making it quite compelling.

But the plots, characters, and many a bombshell?

With these handy for Green Eggs and Ham, they’d propel

it into the pantheon of Seuss adaptations.

There’s nothing else that’d warrant correlations

with Green Eggs and Ham except the ’66 Grinch.

The series is that good, if just by a half-inch.

But while the expansions were inventive,

look at what the first season served while attentive.

Sure, its thirteen episode titles look light,

but what they carried underneath set them alight.

You’ll notice that every episode title,

while referencing circumstances most vital,

referenced with whom or from where Sam, from his outlook,

said green eggs and ham could be eaten in the book.

Wow! As far as general faithfulness was concerned,

this told me that no stone was left unturned.

Hopping back to the ‘with whom or from where’,

Sam scored green eggs and ham to eat and try to share

with Guy in every season one episode,

telling him it’s a dish made more à la mode

with whoever or in wherever he’d want,

tying into each episode’s focus and jaunt.

Every time, Guy defiantly responded with

“I won’t eat them in…” or “I won’t eat them with…”

just like in the book, again with noticeable pith.

As for the second season’s episodes,

each of their titles evoked more spy modes.

They referenced espionage classics with pride,

including James Bond, as most of them implied,

so their references were more on the fun side.

What’s more, once I lunged into the second season

and witnessed the story, characters, and reason

for the ongoing war between the two nations,

the result in groupings and ruminations…

may have made this feel, again, like a crossover,

given its foreign conflicts and deft changeover.

But it’s clear the writers and animators took

sweet advantages with The Butter Battle Book

just like they had done with Green Eggs and Ham.

What I’ll say next also enriched this program.

To start, the show got the ball rolling with a clue

besides what the Yooks and Zooks were to do:

it concerned the two nations’ shared origins, too.

One of the most charming episodes of the show,

‘To Yookia With Love’, had E.B. and Looka go

and spend a night all across Yookia

since E.B. had already toured through Zookia.

Then, Looka thought to sneak himself and E.B.

into Yookia’s local museum and see

the historical patterns that made up Yookia.

But they learned more than just the facade of Yookia.

Behind an ‘under construction’ sign awaited

a closed-off room on which they fixated.

Once inside, E.B. and Looka unveiled some walls

and saw the two nations’ true origins and brawls.

They both used to be one nation called Ookia,

until they split apart as Yookia and Zookia.

Two siblings, who ruled Ookia, got into a fight,

and yes, it was about how to eat toast right,

whether it’s with the butter side up or down,

and the siblings’ toast-centered fight spread throughout town.

With mass warfare and capricious game plans charted,

it was thus how the Butter Battle got started

as the sibs, the Dooka and Dookess, outsmarted.

This was a most creative exploration

of Yookia and Zookia’s sense of formation

while keeping true to the countermeasures

of their inspirations in equal measures.

Dr. Seuss created the two warring nations

to allude to West and East Germany’s stations

as they were still in the middle of the Cold War.

But wait! Regarding such resemblances, there’s more.

In the second season - and series - finale,

once the Yooks and Zooks had all the troops to rally,

the ultimate outcome came to feel more

like the ultimate outcome of the Cold War.

Let me explain how. The Butter Battle Book,

both the book and the 80s special, took a took

at how they thought the war could have ended

with nothing; they wrapped up open-ended.

They left their audiences begging for more,

unaware that, regarding the Cold War,

Seuss and the artists didn’t know how it’d end, either,

hence the surprises in this alleged breather.

In Green Eggs and Ham, while the climax was intense,

the resolution could not have made more sense.

It's a perfect reflection of the Cold War’s finish

that did not in the slightest diminish

its place in the war of The Butter Battle Book.

In this circumstance, every Yook and Zook

all came together as they inspected

their dividing wall’s remains, which reflected

how the Germans saw the fall of the Berlin Wall

as the Cold War came to an end once and for all.

And as for how the Butter Battle’s end occurred?

The sealing of the Yooks and Zooks’ fates stirred

when the Dooka and Dookess took a bold move

with each other’s toast with one bite. What did it prove?

Would it make a difference how it’s eaten? Not so.

This kind of taste-testing felt most apropos

because it tied back to Green Eggs and Ham’s MO.

For Green Eggs and Ham to take this and explore

the deepest aspects of what we’ve known before,

it bore magnificent outcomes that were to breeze in,

just like what it utilized in its first season.

This should explain to you just how much thought

the writers, animators, and voice actors brought

to their translation of Green Eggs and Ham

and why it is anything but flimflam.

However, if I had to address one nitpick,

the green eggs and ham’s origins would be my pick.

In episodes ‘Fox’ and ‘The Mom Identity’,

they introduced us to a unique entity:

green chickens. And what did they lay? Green eggs.

But there’s one important question it begs:

how was the green ham alone ever made?

For a show that was keen with how it displayed

half the origins of its famous dish,

showing the other half would’ve been my biggest wish.

Was there no such thing as green pigs in this world?

If there was, what connections to pork would’ve unfurled?

Ah, well. Long story short, allow me to come clean.

It’s not just the best Seuss show I’ve ever seen,

it’s one of the best animated shows I’d seen.

It took everything that’s iconic, well-known,

and familiar about Green Eggs and Ham alone

and embodied even more inspirations,

touches, depth, and unexpected alterations

that tie back to Dr. Seuss' sense of style

and artistry, and for what it had to compile,

the paths it took the story through were for the best.

They’re fitting in some spots and clever in the rest.

I was as won over by this program

as Guy was by the deceptive green eggs and ham.

However, this show’s barely talked about at all,

especially compared to Stranger Things, Russian Doll,

Squid Game, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,

and so many other Netflix gems galore.

This show deserves such recognition and much more.

Here’s what else about this show I find hypnotic.

Sometimes, we’d expect this to be episodic,

with each episode coming forth self-contained

and filled with solo adventures to keep maintained.

Well, guess what? Like Netflix’s all-time greatest shows,

Green Eggs and Ham went through with the plot that arose

and spanned it across each entire season.

Given how its story’s told, that’s the reason

it flowed less like distinct journeys with a set hook

and more like ongoing chapters in a book.

Much like how Stranger Things and Russian Doll were told,

it threw intrigue to how Green Eggs and Ham was told,

which is miraculous given its source’s length.

Such creativity served as its greatest strength.

Because of this, here’s what I would suggest.

Whoever wants to do a Seuss retelling expressed

in film, television, or even on stage,

take notes. Green Eggs and Ham, in this day and age,

should give a good idea of what should and must

be done to timeless stories if they’re to adjust

to any other medium for which they’re set.

The Seuss films have some value, but don’t forget,

they made the mistake of being too preoccupied

with stretching the plots out so they could abide

by their feature-length runtime to understand

how to properly retell them in film as planned.

Not only did Green Eggs and Ham know that in spades,

but it did so by letting its escapades

flesh out its story and do the unexpected.

It’s adventurous, human, deep, intersected,

colorful, and goofy yet monolithic fun.

You can either take my word for it or take none,

but don’t let its source and outcome fool anyone.

Check this TV show out. Once you give it a bite,

its ingenuity will whet your appetite.

My Rating

Season 1: A high A Season 2: A

Series Rating: A