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-If you know me, the people who know me,
know I like to end each evening with a glass of scotch,
watch some Fox news.
And last night I'm watching,
and I can't remember which guy --
it was either the really angry guy
or the really angry guy --
and I see Dr. Seuss is canceled.
And I -- I'm a little ashamed to admit it.
I was happy to hear that.
This is not a long-standing beef that I've had with Dr. Seuss,
but ever since I'd become a dad,
I can tell you that the book "Hop on Pop"
is worse than "Mein Kampf."
[ Laughter ]
Just to encourage children
to surreptitiously hop on their pop.
And I'm very -- I have, like -- My ribs are like fine china.
Turns out, though, that was not the issue.
The issue is that some of Dr. Seuss' books,
six of them, had some racist imagery,
and the Dr. Seuss foundation, Dr. Seuss Enterprises --
I don't exactly know what it was --
decided to stop production on those six books.
They were not ones I will admit to knowing particularly well --
"The Cat's Quizzer," "On Beyond Zebra!"
"Scrambled Eggs Super!" is the most famous egg-based book.
[ Laughter ]
And -- And some people,
you know, were up in arms because this happened.
And I don't want to judge these books that I don't know.
I'm sure to some people,
those are their favorite Dr. Seuss books.
And it would be nice -- I mean, hopefully they can find a way
because these books are not -- these are not six racist books.
I think there is some imagery that is racist.
And it would be nice if they could fix those books
and maybe just take out those drawings.
And then if you read the new one that just has those pages out,
if you read that and you think, "Huh, you know,
I preferred the original," then you would know
that you're a racist.
I think that's just a good thing to know,
'cause I think a lot of people are like, "I'm not racist."
And they're like, "Oh, no, I miss the old ones. I am."
So he's not really cancel--
Also, here's a -- I was looking.
He made -- Dr. Seuss made the second-most money
of any dead person last year.
$33 million.
He made LeBron James money last year.
You could argue death didn't cancel Dr. Seuss.
The only person who made more money -- Michael Jackson --
who was a children's author
who wrote the book "Hop on the King of Pop."
[ Laughter ]
$33 million -- That is a lot of sneeches.
With that said, and, again, I love Dr. Seuss a great deal.
And I'm very happy that he's not actually canceled.
And again, it would be nice if all those books
could be available, minus the racist imagery.
Babar, on the other hand -- problem city.
Reading Babar to my kids -- And again, this isn't about --
Like, page 2, anybody who has Babar knows this.
Mom shot by hunter.
And I know you might be thinking,
"Bambi shot by hunter, too."
But "Bambi's" a movie, so you just, like --
you know, your kids can't ask 100 questions
'cause you can just go, "Shh, let's meet Thumper."
The book, they just want to keep going back.
But that's, you know, whatever. You can --
You can talk to your kids about --
You know what the bummer is in anything where the mom dies,
is, like, the next thing is like,
"And now the adventure begins.
The wonderful world that you find
when a hunter takes out Mom."
But...
Yeah, Babar, the thing that happens is, in the first book,
he's got a couple of cousins -- Arthur and Celeste.
And then you meet them, and then later in the book,
just at the very end, Arthur marries Celeste.
For real. And you're just,
as a parent, you're like, "What?"
And you're flipping back.
"Was there a second Celeste?"
And I'm sure in France it's like,
"Oh, the elephant marries the cousin.
This is not a big deal."
No wonder Polanski went there.
[ Laughter ]
I mean, if you're gonna look the other way on Babar...
But -- But I get --
I mean, I also want to stress that I get why
Fox News is upset,
because their number-one issue, if you watch it as much as I do,
is child literacy.
I read -- You know, but I did read a lot about Dr. Seuss today,
and he also, as a political cartoonist in the '40s
and World War II, he did have a lot of anti-Japanese,
racist cartoons.
And, you know, supposedly, he did realize later.
He felt bad about it.
And supposedly -- And again, you know,
I'm not a Dr. Seuss scholar,
but "Horton Hears a Who" was sort of an apology,
that he actually went to Japan post-war,
and he saw what had happened.
He talked to Japanese schoolchildren.
And "a person's a person no matter how small"
was sort of his means of making amends,
which I think shows --
You know, there's two ways to look at it.
You can say, "Oh, here's a person who created something,
and then, as time passed, he evolved,
and, you know, he had more empathy,"
or you could say that, you know, he canceled himself.
But I think the reality is
we could learn a lot from Dr. Seuss,
who made $33 million last year.
I mean, he's gonna make less this year
'cause he's not gonna get money from "McElliot's Pool."
"McElligot's Pool."
But anyway, that's what happens
when you watch Fox News at night.