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To promote the feature-length computer animated remake of Horton Hears a Who!, Warner Bros. release of the Dr. Seuss Deluxe Collection on DVD features not only the original half-hour Chuck Jones cartoon, but three more Dr. Seuss animated films, including the Butter Battle Book, Daisy-Head Mayzie and Horton Hatches the Egg. The first three were appropriately created with the help of Theodor Geisel himself (which of course is Dr. Seuss) who aided in creating additional song lyrics and worked as a producer.

Horton Hears a Who! is a classic animated short originally made for TV that looks amazing in its newly remastered form, as well as retaining all of its charm and family-friendly appeal that it had back in 1970. A jungle elephant named Horton happens upon a floating dust speck that emanates a tiny voice shouting for help. He places it on a peculiarly pink clover for safe-keeping, but a sour kangaroo, with a devilishly obnoxious joey in her pouch, demands that action be taken against the seemingly senile elephant, who is the only one that can hear the tiny voices. The microscopic town of Whoville that thrives in the dust speck must band together to make themselves heard, before they succumb to a horrible fate at the hands of the kangaroo and her band of monkey-like henchman known as the Wickersham brothers.

Obvious parallels to government investigatory committees such as the House Un-American Activities Committee can be drawn, as well as red scare fearmongering and Horton representing a nonconformist savior of social injustices, but from a child's perspective, the film beautifully captures the simple theme that "a person's a person, no matter how small." It takes great disaster for the Whos to believe Dr. Who-Vee, the scientist who communicates with Horton, that their world sits on the end of an elephant's nose, just as it almost takes the death of an innocent elephant to convince the Nurse Ratched-fashioned kangaroo that the tiny world indeed exists. Banding together for an uncompromising friendship, Horton and Who-Vee shed light on simple, short and sweet morals that immortalize this award-winning cartoon.

The Zooks and the Yooks do battle in the second short, Dr. Seuss' Butter Battle Book, directed by Ralph Bakshi, involving two towns divided by an enormous wall. The Yooks spread butter on the top of their bread, while the "uncouth" Zooks eat bread butter side down. The pervading theme of "never give up" is at times dwarfed by the search for bigger and better

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