The Cat in the Hat

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The Cat in the Hat is a fictional cat created by Dr. Seuss. He appears in two of Seuss's rhymed children's books.

1 The Cat in the Hat
2 History
3 The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
4 Adaptations
- 4.1 Television
- 4.2 Film
5 External links
6 ISBNs

The Cat in the Hat

Image:Seuss-cat-hat.gif In the first book in the series (The Cat and the Hat, 1957), the Cat brings a cheerful and exuberant form of chaos to the household of two young children one rainy day while their mother is out. Bringing with him Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat performs all sorts of wacky tricks to amuse the children, with mixed results. The Cat's antics are vainly opposed by the family pet, who is a sentient and articulate goldfish. The children (Sally and her older brother, who is the narrator) ultimately prove exemplary latchkey children, capturing the Things and bringing the Cat under control. He cleans up the house on his way out, disappearing seconds before the mother arrives.

The book has been popular since its publication, and a logo featuring the Cat adorns all Dr. Seuss publications and animated films produced after Cat in the Hat.

The 1626 word story includes only 222 common words of which 54 occur exactly once and 33 occur twice. The most common words, "the", "and", "i" and "not" occur more than 40 times each. The longest words are "something" and "playthings".

Seuss wrote the book because he felt that there should be more entertaining and fun material for beginning readers. From a literary point of view, the book is a feat of skill, since it simultaneously maintains a strict triple meter, keeps to a tiny vocabulary, and tells an entertaining tale. Literary critics occasionally write recreational essays about the work, having fun with issues such as the absence of the mother and the psychological or symbolic characterizations of Cat, Things, and Fish.

The Cat in the Hat has also been translated into Latin with the title Cattus Petasatus.

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History

Dr. Seuss books were created to supplement the 'look say' reading programs taught in schools. Dr. Seuss' publisher supplied him with a sight vocabulary of 223 words which he was to use to write his books, a sight vocabulary that was in harmony with the sight words the child would be learning in school.

Dr. Seuss in an interview he gave in Arizona magazine in June 1981 claimed the book took nine months to complete due to the difficulty in writing a book from the 223 selected words. He continued to explain that the title for the book came from his desire to have the title rhyme and the first two words that he could find from the list, were 'cat' and 'hat'. Dr. Seuss also regrets the association of his book and the 'look say' reading method adopted during the Dewey revolt in the 1920's by expressing the opinion "I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country."

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The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

The Cat in the Hat made a return appearance in this 1958 sequel. On this occasion, he leaves Thing One and Thing Two at home, but does bring along Little Cat A, nested inside his hat. Little Cat A doffs his hat to reveal Little Cat B, who in turn reveals C, and so on down to the microscopic Little Cat Z, who turns out to be the key to the plot. The crisis involves a pink bathtub ring.

The book ends in a burst of flamboyant versification, with the full list of little cats arranged into a metrically-perfect rhymed quatrain. It teaches the reader the alphabet.

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Adaptations

Image:The Cat in the Hat (Animated).jpg

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Television

A 30-minute animated musical adaptation of The Cat in the Hat was produced for television in 1971. It was produced by Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Dr. Seuss and David H. DePatie and directed by Hawley Pratt. Allan Sherman provided the voice of the Cat. It was produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

The special loosely follows the shell of the book's plot, but throws in some new material to fill out the show's 26-minute time slot. After the Cat makes his entrance and fools around a bit, the kids request that he leave. He does so, but then comes back in, claiming that his "moss-covered three-handled family gredunza" has been stolen, and he accuses the Fish, who is given the name Karlos K. Krinklebine in the special. The Cat sings a ballad about the loss of his treasured keepsake and then tries to describe it to the kids, even though they don't understand what he's talking about. The Cat then leads the kids on a search through the house, using his method of "Calculatus Eliminatus" (better known as the process of elimination), which involves writing marks on every place they've already checked. This makes a mess of everything, and Mr. Krinklebine demands that the Cat leave, but it only prompts the Cat to sing another song, this one about feeling negative. Then he proceeds to put the cynical fish to sleep by singing a lullaby. Once that's done, he brings out Thing One and Thing Two, singing to the kids that "they can find anything under the sun", all the while the Things play sports using Mr. Krinklebine's fishbowl as the ball/puck. (According to them, every house they visit has a pessimist fish.) Mr. Krinklebine then accuses the Cat of not being a real Cat ("Whoever heard of a six-foot cat?!"), and his hat of not being a real hat. This cues arguably the wackiest song in the special, where the Cat sings out his name in practically every other language ("In Spanish, el gato en un sombrero."). The song becomes so catchy that everyone, even Krinklebine, joins in. Just as they finish up the song, though, they hear the mother coming home. The Cat then proceeds to clean up the house, just like in the book. Just as he leaves, the mother returns, telling the kids that she just saw a Cat in a Hat "going down the street with a moss-covered three-handled family gredunza."

The special is currently available on DVD.

Although the original book's sequel did not receive an animated adaptation, the Cat went on to appear in several more Dr. Seuss specials. In 1973, there came Dr. Seuss on the Loose, where Allan Sherman reprised his role as the Cat. Here, the Cat appeared in bridging sequences where he introduced animated adaptations of three other Seuss stories - The Sneetches, The Zax, and Green Eggs and Ham. Then, in 1982, there came The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat, where the Cat, now voiced by Mason Adams, meets the title character of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and sets out to reform his new green adversary. Later, in 1995, the Cat appeared again, this time with the voice of Henry Gibson, to narrate Daisy - Head Mayzie, a special based on one of Dr. Seuss' lost works. (It was later adaptated into a book.) Most recently, in 1996, he starred on the Muppet-like kids' show The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, where he was voiced and puppeteered by Bruce Lanoil.