Everybody Needs a Thneed

https://youtu.be/uZuYFbSdL-w

Character Personality:

The Once-ler has, in what he later in life described as "a completely irrational sense of optimism". He firmly believes that he is going to change the world, that his product is revolutionary, and that the future is going to fantastic! Any attempts by others to dissuade him from this, are met with genuine shock and disbelief. He feels bad for these dream-squashers, but, he'll show them all. The Thneed will change the world!

By and large, he's a genuinely nice guy, if a little self-centered.

He eats up praise. Since he didn't hear enough of it as a kid, even the slightest compliment gets him flustered and delighted. He especially likes to be told how great his ideas and creations are.

The Once-ler is a dreamer. He likes to invent things that look cool (although his definition of "cool" doesn't always mesh with the rest of the world's.) and he puts fun before practicality. As a result a lot of the things he makes are more showy than functional.

He can't see disaster until it's too late. Planning ahead is not the Once-ler's strong suit. He's not a particularly brave man, but, he doesn't look before he leaps.

Power and the Once-ler are a very, very, bad, totally "ungood" mix. Power goes right to his head. He does not handle it well, and his worst personality traits (namely greed and pride) take over. He is not the man you want to give unlimited magical powers to---disasters would rain down. (And he would later, feel genuinely awful about it, and beat himself up for decades.)

Luckily, the Once-ler is a complete non-believer in magic. Even having met the Lorax, a living, breathing, ancient magical being, he has to see something in action before he'll believe it.

The Once-ler lived with his mother Isabella, his brothers Brett and Chet (who are identical twins), and his aunt Grizedla and uncle Ubb. When he set out to sell his invention, "the Thneed" he had not yet made even a prototype. The Once-ler's initial goal was to find a material to make Thneeds.

He left home with a cart, a mule, supplies, and his guitar. (Although a date is never given, it can be estimated to be the 1960s.) After traveling for quite a long ways, he came to the Truffula Valley, a stunning place of fluffy trees, humming fish, swommee swans, and bar-ba-loots.

Deciding that these trees provided the perfect material for Thneeds, he promptly cut down a tree and started harvesting its tufts.

This action summoned the Lorax, a small, orange, grumpy "speaker of the trees". The Once-ler missed the display of lightning and thunder that accompanied the Lorax's sudden appearance, and was more than a little skeptical when the mustached guardian tried to kick him out of the Valley.

The Lorax then tried to evict the Once-ler by putting his bed in the river while he slept---but, due to a bar-ba-loot cub joining the sleeping inventor, he had to abandon that plan. It was fortunate he did so, because if he nearly drowned the poor man as he slept, when the bed took an unexpected detour near a waterfall.

After nearly killing (and then saving) him, the Lorax and Once-ler reached a compromise. He wouldn't cut down any more trees, and the Lorax would let him stick around--and keep an eye on the young man.

(Past this point, he actually manages to start selling Thneeds. He brings his family in to help him with his new company, and his mother manages to convince him to start cutting down trees to make the harvesting of tufts easier.

Success goes to his head, fueled by greed and the desire to please his mother, and he manages to not only pollute the air with smog, fill the river with schlop, but he also cuts down every single Truffula-tree in existence. The environment destroyed, the animals leave the valley in search of someplace they could live. His family abandons him the moment he is no longer a financial success, and the Lorax himself leaves for the sky, leaving the Once-ler alone with the ruins of his factory and a stone circle with the word "Unless".)