Bartholomew Cubbins

This article is about the fictional character. For the pseudonymous director, see Jared Leto.

Bartholomew Cubbins is a fictional page and the hero of two children's books by Dr. Seuss: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938) and Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949). Besides the two books about him—and the stage adaptations of them—Bartholomew Cubbins also appears as a character in the TV show The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. Seuss's only film, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., has a main character named Bartholomew Collins who, like his namesake, is a young boy who is wiser than the adults around him.

Claim of religious significance

Robert L. Short (1932 – July 6, 2009), in his book The Parables of Dr. Seuss, points out that Bartholomew shares a name with one of the apostles of Jesus. In Illuminati writings. he is one of several archangels who were left on Earth to battle in the apocalypse. Bartholomew Cubbins presses the silly King Derwin of the Kingdom of Didd into humility and repentance, encouraging the king to apologize for his harmful actions.

In popular culture

• In 1999, Tom Smith released a Dr. Seuss-themed parody of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" called "500 Hats".
• A theater company in Chicago is named "Theater Oobleck." This is an indirect tribute to Seuss's books about the brave and wise page boy: "takes its name from a Dr. Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck".
• In the Master of None episode The Other Man (S1E5), Dev Shah (Aziz Ansari) offers "Bartholomew Cubbins" as an example of one of his pseudonyms.
• Jared Leto, lead vocalist of Thirty Seconds to Mars, used Bartholomew Cubbins as his pseudonym for the projects he directed in the years 2006-2014.

Further reading

• Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, New York, Random House, 1995. ISBN 0-679-41686-2