Squash And Stretch...Cause And Effect:

Horton Crosses A Bridge -- As The Mayor Visits The Dentist

Endeavoring to fully capture the wondrous and wildly imaginative worlds of Dr. Seuss, the filmmakers push the animation and rigging beyond the traditional boundaries of animation physics and character performance and believability.

They employ "squash-and-stretch" techniques to push Horton and the Mayor to extreme looks and movements. In traditional 2-D animation, squash-and-stretch gives characters elasticity and movement. But Hayward, Martino and the Blue Sky artists, animators and technicians take the technique to a new level.

Perhaps no scene better demonstrates the effectiveness of their squash-and-stretch techniques than when Horton -- clover in tow -- attempts to cross a long, rickety bamboo bridge overhanging on a deep gorge. At the same time, the Mayor is visiting the dentist, who is about to use a giant hypodermic needle on the Mayor. Hayward and Martino intercut the two hyper-precarious situations, creating an intricately constructed scene of cause-and-effect. Every Horton action (or stumble) has an equal (or equally crazy) reaction on the Mayor.

In the sequence, the filmmakers employ squash-and-stretch to inflate Horton's trunk -- the ten-thousand-pound elephant (and eternal optimist), thinking air to be "lighter" than anything, believes he can float across the bridge like a dirigible. Needless to say, Horton's expectations aren't quite fulfilled. As Horton, inflated trunk and all, continues to stumble, leaving broken pieces of the bridge behind every step, the dentist's hypodermic ends up in the Mayor's arm instead of his mouth. The filmmakers again seize the opportunity to push the animation, stretching the mayor's injected arm 30-feet¬long. As the Mayor flees the office, his newly-elongated and flaccid limb accidentally smacks a few people across the face.

Hayward credits Jim Carrey with coming up with the idea for the situation: "Jim asked, `If an elephant was carrying your world around on a speck, where would be the worst place for the Mayor to be?'" remembers Hayward. "After suggesting something to do with power tools, Jim asked, `What if the Mayor was at the dentist -- who's wielding a hypodermic?'"

The animators also used squash-and-stretch for a "smear" effect, where, for example, a character's legs move so quickly, they begin to smear -- and look like they're doubling or tripling in number.

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