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The Cat in the Hat (also known as Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat) is a 2003 American fantasycomedy film directed by Bo Welch in his directorial debut and based on Dr. Seussâs book of the same name. Starring Mike Myers, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, Alec Baldwin and Kelly Preston, it is the second feature-length Dr. Seuss adaptation after the 2000 film How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
The idea was originally conceived in 2001 with Tim Allen initially cast as the Cat, but he dropped his role due to work on The Santa Clause 2 and the role was later given to Myers. Filming took place in California for three months. While the basic plot parallels that of the book, the film filled out its 82 minutes by adding new subplots and characters significantly different from the original story similar to How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Released theatrically on November 21, 2003 in the United States, the film underperformed at the box office, grossed $133 million worldwide against a budget of $109 million,[3] and was panned by critics, largely for its adult themes, toilet humor and innuendos while the musical score, visual aspects and production values were mostly praised. Following the film's release, Seuss' widow Audrey Geisel decided not to allow any further live-action adaptations of Seuss' works to be produced.
Plot[edit]
Conrad and Sally Walden live in the city of Anville with their single mother Joan. Dropbox mac os sierra download. Joan works for neat-freak Hank Humberfloob as a real estate agent and is hosting an office party at her house. One day, she is called back to the office, leaving the children with Mrs. Kwan, the babysitter (after the previous one quit) and forbidding them to enter the living room, which is being kept pristine for the upcoming party. Joan is also dating their next-door neighbor Larry Quinn, much to Conrad's disgruntlement because Larry wants nothing more than to send him away to military school for being a 'hot-headed troublemaker'.
Once Joan leaves on a rainy day, Sally and Conrad meet an anthropomorphic humanoid talking cat with a red-and-white striped top hat and a large red bow tie named the Cat in the Hat, who persuades them to learn to have fun, but the family's fish does not want the Cat around while Joan is away. During his presence, the Cat leaves a trail of destruction across the house and in the process releases two troublemaking things named Thing 1 and Thing 2 from a crate that he explains is actually a portal to his world. The Cat tells Conrad never to open the crate and allows the Things to have fun but they instead make a mess out of the house. Despite the Cat's warning, Conrad picks the lock on the crate, causing the lock to attach to the collar of the family dog Nevins. The three then drive the Cat's super-powered car to town in search of Nevins. During this, Conrad realizes that the Things always do the opposite to what they are told and uses this to their advantage to have them stall Joan.
Meanwhile, Larry is revealed to be an unemployed slob with dentures and in financial debt, though claiming that he is a successful businessman in the hopes of marrying Joan for her money. Larry sees Nevins running across the street and tracks down Joan to tell her, but Things 1 and 2 have stalled her on the road by posing as police officers. Larry, having somehow deduced what Conrad and Sally were plotting, goes back to the house, telling Joan to meet him there.
By the time the kids and the Cat return to the house with the lock, an enraged Larry suddenly cuts them off and orders them inside the house. Conrad tries to warn him, but he simply cannot be bothered to believe him. He then immediately sneezes uncontrollably due to his allergic reaction to the Cat, who takes advantage of this and scares him away, only for the house to fall apart in a paper-like fashion, with Larry falling into a gooey abyss. A huge mess spills from the unlocked crate and engulfs the house, resulting in a surreal dimension-like landscape where the house once stood, aptly named 'The Mother of All Messes'. They navigate their way through the oversized house and find the crate while cleaning up. The house is returned to its normal proportions, but then immediately falls apart to which the children angrily order the Cat to exit the house after learning the Cat planned the mess the whole time. The Cat feebly attempts to reason with them but they firm their resolve and order him to leave anyway.
Conrad prepares to face the consequences when Joan comes home, but Sally says she will share the blame. The Cat, having overheard this, happily returns to clean up the mess with a great cleaning invention and fixes up the house. Conrad and Sally then thank the Cat for everything before he says goodbye to the children and departs just as Joan arrives. Larry, having survived the gooey abyss of the Mother of All Messes, returns, thinking he has busted the kids. However, when Joan sees the clean house and a messy Larry, she does not believe and dumps him. After the successful party, Joan spends quality time with her children while the Cat along with Things 1 and 2 walk off into the sunset.
Cast[edit]
Production[edit]Development[edit]
Unblocked web browser no download. DreamWorks Pictures acquired rights to the original book in 1997.[4] However, production did not originally start until after the 2000 Christmas/comedy film How the Grinch Stole Christmas, based on another Dr. Seuss book of the same name, became a commercial success. Brian Grazer, who was the producer of The Grinch, stated, 'Because we grew up with these books, and because they have such universal themes and the illustrations ignite such fantasy in your mind as a child â the aggregation of all those feelings â it leaves an indelible, positive memory. And so when I realized I had a chance to convert first The Grinch and then, The Cat in the Hat, into movies, I was willing to do anything to bring them to the screen.'[5] Grazer contacted Bo Welch over the phone with the offer to direct the film, and he accepted.[6] When production began, songs written by Randy Newman were dropped because they were deemed inferior. Newman's cousin, David Newman, composed the score for the film. Although Welch and a publicist for Myers denied it, several people said Myers had considerable input into the film's direction, telling some of the cast (co-stars Baldwin and Preston) how to perform their scenes.[7]
Casting[edit]
Tim Allen was originally planned to play the role of the Cat. The script would be originally based on a story conceived by Allen, who admitted that as a child he was afraid of Seuss' 'mischievous feline' babysitter. Allen stated, 'My dream is to give it the edge that scared me.'[8] However, producers did not commission a screenplay until late February 2001, when Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and Dave Mandel (who were also writers on Seinfeld) were hired to write the script (replacing the original draft of the film that was written a few years before penned by Eric Roth),[9] so the film would not be ready to shoot before the deadline. Allen was also committed to shooting Disney'sThe Santa Clause 2, which was also delayed because Allen wanted a script rewrite.[10] Due to a scheduling conflict with that film,[11] he dropped out his role.[12] In March 2002, the role of the Cat was given to Mike Myers,[13] even though he had an argument with Grazer about starring in a cancelled film based on his Saturday Night Live sketch Dieter.[14] Myers stated in an interview that he was a long-time fan of the original Dr. Seuss book, and that it was the first book he ever read.[15]
Makeup and visual effects[edit]
Makeup for the character was designed by Steve Johnson. The Cat costume was made of angora and human hair and was fitted with a cooling system. To keep Myers cool during the outdoor shoots, a portable air conditioner was available that connected a hose to the suit between shots. The tail and ears were battery operated.[16] Danielle Chuchran and Brittany Oaks, who portrayed Thing 1 and Thing 2, respectively, wore a prosthetic facemask and wig designed by Johnson as well. The Fish was considered somewhat of a unique character for Rhythm & Hues (responsible for some of the effects and animation in such films as Cats & Dogs, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Scooby-Doo), in that the character had no shoulders, hips or legs, so all of the physical performance had to emit from the eyes, head and fin motion. Sean Hayes, who provided the voice for the Fish, found the role significantly different from his usual on-camera jobs; he did not know how the final animation would look, and all of his work took place alone in a sound booth.[17]
Filming[edit]
Download game psp 3006 terbaru. Prior to filming, giant props for the film were stolen from the set. Championship manager 2010 download full version mac. Local police found the props vandalized with graffiti in a mall car park in Pomona, California. Despite this, no arrests had been made and filming was to start the next week.[18]Principal photography took place mostly in California from October 2002 until January 2003. The neighborhood and the town centre was filmed in a rural valley near Simi Valley, where 24 houses (each 26-feet square and 52-feet tall) were constructed.[19] The downtown area outdoor shots were filmed along a Pomona street where a number of antique and gift shops are located. The community decided not to redecorate after filming ended, so the surreal paint scheme and some of the signage could still be seen today as it appears in the film. Because of so much smog in the area, the sky had to be digitally replaced with the cartoon-like sky and colors of the background had to be digitally fixed.
Music[edit]
The soundtrack was released on November 18, 2003.[20] Originally, Marc Shaiman was going to compose the score for the film, but David Newman was already chosen for the film score, leaving Shaiman in charge of writing the film's songs with Scott Wittman. The soundtrack features a song by Smash Mouth ('Getting Better'), making it the third Mike Myers-starring film in a row to feature at least one song by Smash Mouth after Shrek (2001) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). The soundtrack also includes a couple of songs performed by Mike Myers (the role of the Cat). Newman's score won a BMI Film Music Award.
Track listing[edit]
All music composed by David Newman, except as noted.
Release[edit]Home media[edit]
The Cat in the Hat was released on VHS and DVD on March 16, 2004.[21] It features 16 deleted scenes, 20 outtake scenes, almost a dozen featurettes, and a 'Dance with the Cat' tutorial to teach children how to do a Cat in the Hat dance.[22] On February 7, 2012, the film was released on Blu-ray.[23]
Reception[edit]Box office[edit]
The Cat in the Hat opened theatrically on November 21, 2003 and earned $38,329,160 in its opening weekend, ranking first in the North American box office.[24] The film ended its theatrical run on March 18, 2004, having grossed $101,149,285 domestically and $32,811,256 overseas for a worldwide total of $133,960,541.[2]
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Critical response[edit]
Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 9% approval rating, based on 158 reviews with an average rating of 3.2/10. The website's consensus reads: 'Filled with double entendres and potty humor, this Cat falls flat.'[25] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 19 out of 100 based on 37 reviews, indicating 'overwhelming dislike'.[26] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of 'B-' on an A+ to F scale.[27]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one star, stating, 'Cat, another overblown Hollywood raid on Dr. Seuss, has a draw on Mike Myers, who inexplicably plays the Cat by mimicking Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz.' Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars. Although he praised the production design, he considered the film to be 'all effects and stunts and CGI and prosthetics, with no room for lightness and joy'.[28] Ebert and co-host Richard Roeper gave the film 'Two Thumbs Down'. Roeper said of Myers' performance that 'Maybe a part of him was realizing as the movie was being made that a live-action version of The Cat in the Hat just wasn't a great idea.' Ebert had the same problem with the film that he had with How the Grinch Stole Christmas, in that 'If there is one thing I've learned from these two movies is that we don't want to see Jim Carrey as a Grinch, and we don't want to see Mike Myers as a cat. These are talented comedians, let's see them do their stuff, don't bury them under a ton of technology.'
Concerns were also raised over the PG rating of the film with some critics, stating that it should have instead been rated PG-13 in relation to its high amount of adult content.[29]
Leonard Maltin in his Movie Guide gave it one and a half stars out of four saying that the 'Brightly colored adaptation of the beloved rhyming book for young children is a betrayal of everything Dr. Seuss ever stood for, injecting potty humor and adult (wink-wink) jokes into a mixture of heavy-handed slapstick and silliness.' Maltin also said that the film's official title which included Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat was 'an official insult'.[30]
Conversely, Variety praised it as being 'attractively designed, energetically performed and, above all, blessedly concise, this adaptation of one of the most popular American kids' books walks the safe side of surrealism with its fur-flying shenanigans. The younger the viewers, the better reactions are bound to be, while grownups will sit in varying states of bemusement'.[31]
Baldwin addressed complaints the film received because of its dissimilarity to the source material. He expressed a belief that a film is 'an idea about something' and that because Dr. Seuss' work is so unique, making a feature-length film out of one of his stories would entail taking liberties and making broad interpretations.[32]
Awards and nominations[edit]
The film also received three nominations at the Hollywood Makeup & Hairstylists Guild Awards.[34]
Cancelled sequel[edit]
On the day of the film's release, Mike Myers stated in an interview that he expected a sequel where the kids meet the Cat again, since there was a sequel to the book. A sequel based on The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was in development just over a month before the film's release.[35]
In February 2004, Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, said she would not allow any further live action adaptations of her husband's works and plans for the sequel were cancelled.[36]
Animated remake[edit]
On March 15, 2012, a computer-animatedThe Cat in the Hat remake was announced by Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment following the success of The Lorax.[37][38][39][40][41][42][43] On January 24, 2018, Warner Animation Group announced that they have picked up the rights for the animated Cat in the Hat reboot movie, along with many of Seuss' works.[44]
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Video game[edit]
The film has a 2.5Dplatformer video game published by Vivendi Universal Games and developed by Magenta Software and Digital Eclipse. The game was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Game Boy Advance on November 5, 2003, and PC on November 9, 2003, shortly before the film's theatrical release.[45][46]
See also[edit]References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Cat_in_the_Hat_(film)&oldid=900393015'
The Cat in the Hat is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss and first published in 1957. The story centers on a tall anthropomorphic cat, who wears a red and white-striped hat and a red bow tie. The Cat shows up at the house of Sally and her brother one rainy day when their mother is away. Despite the repeated objections of the children's fish, the Cat shows the children a few of his tricks in an attempt to entertain them. In the process he and his companions, Thing One and Thing Two, wreck the house. The children and the fish become more and more alarmed until the Cat produces a machine that he uses to clean everything up and disappears just before the children's mother comes home.
Geisel created the book in response to a debate in the United States about literacy in early childhood and the ineffectiveness of traditional primers such as those featuring Dick and Jane. Geisel was asked to write a more entertaining primer by William Spaulding, whom he had met during World War II and who was then director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin. However, because Geisel was already under contract with Random House, the two publishers agreed to a deal: Houghton Mifflin published the education edition, which was sold to schools, and Random House published the trade edition, which was sold in bookstores.
Geisel gave varying accounts of how he created The Cat in the Hat, but in the version he told most often he was so frustrated with the word list from which he could choose words to write his story that he decided to scan the list and create a story based on the first two words he found that rhymed. The words he found were cat and hat. The book was met with immediate critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised it as an exciting alternative to traditional primers. Three years after its debut, the book had already sold over a million copies, and in 2001 Publishers Weekly listed the book at number nine on its list of best-selling children's books of all time. The book's success led to the creation of Beginner Books, a publishing house centered on producing similar books for young children learning to read. In 1983, Geisel said, 'It is the book I'm proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the Dick and Jane primers.' The book was adapted into a 1971 animated television special and a 2003 live-action film.
Plot[edit]
The story begins as a girl named Sally and her brother, who serves as the narrator of the book, sit alone in their house on a cold, rainy day, staring wistfully out the window. Then they hear a loud bump which is quickly followed by the arrival of the Cat in the Hat, a tall anthropomorphic cat in a red and white striped hat and a red bow tie. The Cat proposes to entertain the children with some tricks that he knows. The children's pet fish refuses, insisting that the Cat should leave. The Cat responds by balancing the fish on the tip of his umbrella. The game quickly becomes increasingly trickier, as the Cat balances himself on a ball and tries to balance lots of household items on his limbs until he falls on his head, dropping everything he was holding. The fish admonishes him again, but the Cat in the Hat just proposes another game.
The Cat brings in a big red box from outside, from which he releases two identical characters, or 'Things' as he refers them to, with blue hair and red suits called Thing One and Thing Two. The Things cause more trouble, such as flying kites in the house, knocking pictures off the wall and picking up the children's mother's new polka-dotted dress. All this comes to an end when the fish spots the children's mother out the window. In response, Sally's brother catches the Things in a net, and the Cat, apparently ashamed, stores them back in the big red box. He takes it out the front door as the fish and the children survey the mess he has made. But the Cat soon returns, riding a machine that picks everything up and cleans the house, delighting the fish and the children. The Cat then leaves just before their mother arrives, and the fish and the children are back where they started at the beginning of the story. As she steps in, the mother asks the children what they did while she was out, but the children are hesitant and do not answer. The story ends with the question, 'What would you do if your mother asked you?'
Background[edit]
An article by John Hersey about literacy in early childhood provided inspiration for The Cat in the Hat.
Theodor Geisel, writing as Dr. Seuss, created The Cat in the Hat partly in response to the May 24, 1954, Life magazine article by John Hersey titled 'Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading'.[1][2] In the article, Hersey was critical of school primers like those featuring Dick and Jane:
In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. All feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls. In bookstores anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.[3]
After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma connected with student reading levels, Hersey asked toward the end of the article:
Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrateâdrawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children's illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, 'Dr. Seuss', Walt Disney?[4]
This article caught the attention of William Spaulding, who had met Geisel during the war and who was then the director of Houghton Mifflin's education division.[5] Spaulding had also read the best-selling 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolf Flesch.[6] Flesch, like Hersey, criticized primers as boring but also criticized them for teaching reading through word recognition rather than phonics.[7] In 1955, Spaulding invited Geisel to dinner in Boston where he proposed that Geisel create a book 'for six- and seven-year-olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading'.[5] He reportedly challenged, 'Write me a story that first-graders can't put down!'[5]
At the back of Why Johnny Can't Read, Flesch had included 72 lists of words that young children should be able to read, and Spaulding provided Geisel with a similar list.[7] Geisel later told biographers Judith and Neil Morgan that Spaulding had supplied him with a list of 348 words that every six-year-old should know and insisted that the book's vocabulary be limited to 225 words.[5] However, according to Philip Nel, Geisel gave varying numbers in interviews from 1964 to 1969.[8] He variously claimed that he could use between 200 and 250 words from a list of between 300 and 400; the finished book contains 236 different words.[8]
Creation[edit]
Geisel gave varying accounts of how he conceived of The Cat in the Hat. According to the story Geisel told most often, he was so frustrated with the word list that William Spaulding had given him that he finally decided to scan the list and create a story out of the first two words he found that rhymed. The words he found were cat and hat.[8] Near the end of his life, Geisel told his biographers, Judith and Neil Morgan, that he conceived the beginnings of the story while he was with Spaulding, in an elevator in the Houghton Mifflin offices in Boston.[9] It was an old, shuddering elevator and was operated by a 'small, stooped woman wearing 'a leather half-glove and a secret smile'.[9]Anita Silvey, recounting a similar story, described the woman as 'a very elegant, very petite African-American woman named Annie Williams'.[10] Geisel told Silvey that, when he sketched the Cat in the Hat, he thought of Williams and gave the character Williams' white gloves and 'sly, even foxy smile'.[10]
According to Geisel, one of the stories he pitched before The Cat in the Hat involved scaling Mount Everest.
Geisel gave two conflicting, partly fictionalized accounts of the book's creation in two articles, 'How Orlo Got His Book' in The New York Times Book Review and 'My Hassle with the First Grade Language' in the Chicago Tribune, both published on November 17, 1957.[8] In 'My Hassle with the First Grade Language', he wrote about his proposal to a 'distinguished schoolbook publisher' to write a book for young children about 'scaling the peaks of Everest at 60 degrees below'.[11] The publisher was intrigued but informed him that, because of the word list, 'you can't use the word scaling. You can't use the word peaks. You can't use Everest. You can't use 60. You can't use degrees. You can't.'[11] Geisel gave a similar account to Robert Cahn for an article in the July 6, 1957, edition of The Saturday Evening Post.[8] In 'My Hassle With the First Grade Language', he also told a story of the 'three excruciatingly painful weeks' in which he worked on a story about a King Cat and a Queen Cat.[12] However, 'queen' was not on the word list, nor did his first grade nephew, Norval, recognize it. So Geisel returned to the work but could then think only of words that started with the letter 'q', which did not appear in any word on the list. He then had a similar fascination with the letter 'z', which also did not appear in any word on the list. When he did finally finish the book and showed it to his nephew, Norval had already graduated from the first grade and was learning calculus. Philip Nel notes, in his dissection of the article, that Norval was Geisel's invention. Geisel's niece, Peggy Owens, did have a son, but he was only a one-year-old when the article was published.[13]
In 'How Orlo Got His Book', he described Orlo, a fictional, archetypal young child who was turned off of reading by the poor selection of simple reading material.[14] To save Orlo the frustration, Geisel decided to write a book for children like Orlo but found the task 'not dissimilar to. being lost with a witch in a tunnel of love'.[14] He tried to write a story called 'The Queen Zebra' but found that both words did not appear on the list. In fact, like Geisel wrote in 'My Hassle with the First Grade Language', the letters 'q' and 'z' did not appear on the list at all. He then tried to write a story about a bird, without using the word bird as it did not appear on the list. He decided to call it a 'wing thing' instead but struggled as he discovered that it 'couldn't have legs or a beak or a tail. Neither a left foot or a right foot.'[15] On his approach to writing The Cat in the Hat he wrote, 'The method I used is the same method you use when you sit down to make apple stroodle [sic] without stroodles.'[15]
Geisel variously stated that the book took between nine and 18 months to create.[16] Donald Pease notes that he worked on it primarily alone, unlike with previous books, which had been more collaborative efforts between Geisel and his wife, Helen.[17] This marked a general trend in his work and life. As Robert L. Bernstein later said of that period, 'The more I saw of him, the more he liked being in that room and creating all by himself.'[18] Pease points to Helen's recovery from GuillainâBarré syndrome, which she was diagnosed with in 1954, as the marker for this change.[18]
Publication history[edit]
Bennett Cerf, the head of Random House, negotiated a deal that allowed both Random House and Houghton Mifflin to publish versions of The Cat in the Hat.
Geisel agreed to write The Cat in the Hat at the request of William Spaulding of Houghton Mifflin; however, because Geisel was under contract with Random House, the head of Random House, Bennett Cerf, made a deal with Houghton Mifflin. Random House retained the rights to trade sales, which encompassed copies of the book sold at book stores, while Houghton Mifflin retained the education rights, which encompassed copies sold to schools.[5]
The Houghton Mifflin edition was released in January or February 1957, and the Random House edition was released on March 1.[19] The two editions featured different covers but were otherwise identical.[19] The first edition can be identified by the '200/200' mark in the top right corner of the front dust jacket flap, signifying the $2.00 selling price. The price was reduced to $1.95 on later editions.[20]
According to Judith and Neil Morgan, the book sold well immediately. The trade edition initially sold an average of 12,000 copies a month, a figure which rose rapidly.[21]Bullock's department store in Los Angeles, California, sold out of its first, 100-copy order of the book in a day and quickly reordered 250 more.[21] The Morgans attribute these sales numbers to 'playground word-of-mouth', asserting that children heard about the book from their friends and nagged their parents to buy it for them.[21] However, Houghton Mifflin's school edition did not sell as well. As Geisel noted in Jonathan Cott's 1983 profile of him, 'Houghton Mifflin. had trouble selling it to the schools; there were a lot of Dick and Jane devotees, and my book was considered too fresh and irreverent. But Bennett Cerf at Random House had asked for trade rights, and it just took off in the bookstores.'[22] Geisel told the Morgans, 'Parents understood better than school people the necessity for this kind of reader.'[21]
After three years in print, The Cat in the Hat had sold nearly one million copies. By then, the book had been translated into French, Chinese, Swedish, and Braille.[21] In 2001, Publishers Weekly placed it at number nine on its list of the best-selling children's books of all time.[23] As of 2007, more than 10 million copies of The Cat in the Hat have been printed, and it has been translated into more than 12 different languages, including Latin, under the title Cattus Petasatus.[24][25] In 2007, on the occasion of the book's fiftieth anniversary, Random House released The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats, which includes both The Cat in the Hat and its sequel, with annotations and an introduction by Philip Nel.[19]
Reception[edit]
Geisel in 1957, holding a copy of The Cat in the Hat
The book was published to immediate critical acclaim. Some reviewers praised the book as an exciting way to learn to read, particularly compared to the primers that it supplanted. Ellen Lewis Buell, in her review for The New York Times Book Review, noted the book's heavy use of one-syllable words and lively illustrations.[26] She wrote, 'Beginning readers and parents who have been helping them through the dreary activities of Dick and Jane and other primer characters are due for a happy surprise.'[27] Helen Adams Masten of the Saturday Review called the book Geisel's tour de force and wrote, 'Parents and teachers will bless Mr. Geisel for this amusing reader with its ridiculous and lively drawings, for their children are going to have the exciting experience of learning that they can read after all.'[28] Polly Goodwin of the Chicago Sunday Tribune predicted that The Cat in the Hat would cause seven- and eight-year-olds to 'look with distinct distaste on the drab adventures of standard primer characters'.[29]
Both Helen E. Walker of Library Journal and Emily Maxwell of The New Yorker felt that the book would appeal to older children as well as to its target audience of first- and second-graders.[30] The reviewer for The Bookmark concurred, writing, 'Recommended enthusiastically as a picture book as well as a reader'.[31] In contrast, Heloise P. Mailloux wrote in The Horn Book Magazine, 'This is a fine book for remedial purposes, but self-conscious children often refuse material if its seems meant for younger children.'[32] She felt that the book's limited vocabulary kept it from reaching 'the absurd excellence of early Seuss books'.[32]
Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named The Cat in the Hat one of its 'Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children'.[33] In 2012 it was ranked number 36 among the 'Top 100 Picture Books' in a survey published by School Library Journal â the third of five Dr. Seuss books on the list.[34] It was awarded the Early Readers BILBY Award in 2004 and 2012.[35]
The book's fiftieth anniversary in 2007 prompted a reevaluation of the book from some critics. Yvonne Coppard, reviewing the fiftieth anniversary edition in Carousel magazine, wondered if the popularity of the Cat and his 'delicious naughty behavior' will endure another fifty years. Coppard wrote, 'The innocent ignorance of bygone days has given way to an all-embracing, almost paranoid awareness of child protection issues. And here we have the mysterious stranger who comes in, uninvited, while your mother is out.'[36]
Analysis[edit]
Philip Nel places the book's title character in the tradition of con artists in American art, including the title characters from Meredith Willson's The Music Man and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.[37] Nel also contends that Geisel identified with the Cat, pointing to a self portrait of Geisel in which he appears as the Cat, which was published alongside a profile about him in The Saturday Evening Post on July 6, 1957.[37]Michael K. Frith, who worked as Geisel's editor, concurs, arguing that 'The Cat in the Hat and Ted Geisel were inseparable and the same. I think there's no question about it. This is someone who delighted in the chaos of life, who delighted in the seeming insanity of the world around him.'[37] Ruth MacDonald asserts that the Cat's primary goal in the book is to create fun for the children. The Cat calls it 'fun that is funny', which MacDonald distinguishes from the ordinary, serious fun that parents subject their children to.[38] In an article titled 'Was the Cat in the Hat Black?', Philip Nel draws connections between the Cat and stereotyped depictions of African-Americans, including minstrel shows, Geisel's own minstrel-inspired cartoons from early in his career, and the use of the term 'cat' to refer to jazz musicians.[39] According to Nel, 'Even as [Geisel] wrote books designed to challenge prejudice, he never fully shed the cultural assumptions he grew up with, and was likely unaware of the ways in which his visual imagination replicated the racial ideologies he consciously sought to reject.'[39]
Geisel once called the fish in The Cat in the Hat 'my version of Cotton Mather'.
Geisel once called the fish 'my version of Cotton Mather', the Puritan moralist who advised the prosecutors during the Salem witch trials.[40] Betty Mensch and Alan Freeman support this view, writing, 'Drawing on old Christian symbolism (the fish was an ancient sign of Christianity) Dr. Seuss portrays the fish as a kind of ever-nagging superego, the embodiment of utterly conventionalized morality.'[40] Philip Nel notes that other critics have also compared the fish to the superego. Anna Quindlen called the Cat 'pure id' and marked the children, as mediators between the Cat and the fish, as the ego.[40] Mensch and Freeman, however, argue that the Cat shows elements of both id and ego.[40]
In her analysis of the fish, MacDonald asserts that it represents the voice of the children's absent mother.[41] Its conflict with the Cat, not only over the Cat's uninvited presence but also their inherent predator-prey relationship, provides the tension of the story. She points out that on the last page, while the children are hesitant to tell their mother about what happened in her absence, the fish gives a knowing look to the readers to assure them 'that something did go on but that silence is the better part of valor in this case'.[41]Alison Lurie agrees, writing, 'there is a strong suggestion that they might not tell her.'[42] She argues that, in the Cat's destruction of the house, 'the kidsâand not only those in the story, but those who read itâhave vicariously given full rein to their destructive impulses without guilt or consequences.'[42] For a 1983 article, Geisel told Jonathan Cott, 'The Cat in the Hat is a revolt against authority, but it's ameliorated by the fact that the Cat cleans up everything at the end. It's revolutionary in that it goes as far as Kerensky and then stops. It doesn't go quite as far as Lenin.'[43]
Donald Pease notes that The Cat in the Hat shares some structural similarities with other Dr. Seuss books. Like earlier books, The Cat in the Hat starts with 'a child's feeling of discontent with his mundane circumstances' which is soon enhanced by make believe.[44] The book starts in a factual, realistic world, which crosses over into the world of make believe with the loud bump that heralds the arrival of the Cat.[44] However, this is the first Dr. Seuss book in which the fantasy characters, i.e. the Cat and his companions, are not products of the children's imagination.[44] It also differs from previous books in that Sally and her brother actively participate in the fantasy world; they also have a changed opinion of the Cat and his world by the story's end.[44]
Legacy[edit]
Ruth MacDonald asserts, 'The Cat in the Hat is the book that made Dr. Seuss famous. Without The Cat, Seuss would have remained a minor light in the history of children's literature.'[45] Donald Pease concurs, writing, 'The Cat in the Hat is the classic in the archive of Dr. Seuss stories for which it serves as a cornerstone and a linchpin. Before writing it Geisel was better known for the 'Quick, Henry, the Flit!' ad campaign than for his nine children's books.'[46] The publication and popularity of the book thrust Geisel into the center of the United States literacy debate, what Pease called 'the most important academic controversy' of the Cold War era.[46] Academic Louis Menand contends that 'The Cat in the Hat transformed the nature of primary education and the nature of children's books. It not only stood for the idea that reading ought to be taught by phonics; it also stood for the idea that language skillsâand many other subjectsâought to be taught through illustrated storybooks, rather than primers and textbooks.'[47] In 1983, Geisel told Jonathan Cott, 'It is the book I'm proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the Dick and Jane primers.'[22]
A Cat in the Hat Christmas decoration in the White House, 2003
The book led directly to the creation of Beginner Books, a publishing house centered on producing books like The Cat in the Hat for beginning readers.[21] According to Judith and Neil Morgan, when the book caught the attention of Phyllis Cerf, the wife of Geisel's publisher, Bennett Cerf, she arranged for a meeting with Geisel, where the two agreed to create Beginner Books.[21] Geisel became the president and editor, and the Cat in the Hat served as their mascot. Geisel's wife, Helen, was made third partner. Random House served as distributor[21] until 1960, when Random House purchased Beginner Books.[48] Geisel wrote multiple books for the series, including The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (1958), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Hop on Pop (1963), and Fox in Socks (1965).[49] He initially used word lists of limited vocabularies to create these books, as he had with The Cat in the Hat, but moved away from the lists as he came to believe 'that a child could learn any amount of words if fed them slowly and if the books were amply illustrated'.[50] Other authors also contributed notable books to the series, including A Fly Went By (1958), Sam and the Firefly (1958), Go, Dog. Go! (1961), and The Big Honey Hunt (1962).[49]
The book, or elements of it, has been mentioned multiple times in United States politics. The image of the Cat balancing many objects on his body while in turn balancing himself on a ball has been included in political cartoons and articles. Political caricaturists have portrayed both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in this way.[51] In 2004, MAD magazine published 'The Strange Similarities Between the Bush Administration and the World of Dr. Seuss', an article which matched quotes from White House officials to excerpts taken from Dr. Seuss books, and in which George W. Bush's State of the Union promises were contrasted with the Cat vowing (in part), 'I can hold up the cup and the milk and the cake! I can hold up these books! And the fish on a rake!'[52] In 2007, during the 110th Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared the impasse over a bill to reform immigration with the mess created by the Cat. He read lines of the book from the Senate floor.[53] He then carried forward his analogy hoping the impasse would be straightened out for 'If you go back and read Dr. Seuss, the cat manages to clean up the mess.'[54] In 1999, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring the Cat in the Hat.[55]
The Cat in the Hat's popularity also led to increased popularity and exposure for Geisel's previous children's books. For example, 1940's Horton Hatches the Egg had sold 5,801 copies in its opening year and 1,645 the following year. In 1958, the year after the publication of The Cat in the Hat, 27,643 copies of Horton were sold, and by 1960 the book had sold a total of over 200,000 copies.[46]
Adaptations[edit]
The Cat in the Hat has been adapted for various media, including theater, television, and film.
Story[edit]
The animated musical TV special premiered in 1971 and starred Allan Sherman as the Cat.[citation needed] In 2003, a live-action film adaptation was released, starring Mike Myers as the Cat. Boxoffice.com reports that the film grossed $133,960,541 worldwide on an estimated $109 million budget.[56] In 2012, following the financial success of The Lorax, the animated film adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book of the same name, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment announced plans to produce a CGI adaptation of The Cat in the Hat.[57] Rob Lieber was set to write the script, with Chris Meledandri as producer, and Audrey Geisel as the executive producer. However, the project never came to fruition.[58] On January 24, 2018, it was announced that Warner Animation Group was in development of a different animated Cat in the Hat film as part of a creative partnership with Seuss Enterprises.[59]
In 1984, the book was adapted in Russian as a 9 minute cartoon called ÐÐ¾Ñ Ð² колпаке (The Cat in the Cap). The short omits Thing One and Thing Two, along with changing the Cat's hat into a cap; initially an umbrella when it comes in from the rainy street, and making a number of additional transformations throughout the story. Sally's name isn't mentioned.
In 1997, the book was made into a Living Books adaption for the PC and then, there were similar differences to reflect the new media such as Conrad sings his lines at the subtitles of the story as the narrator in the rainy day.
In 2009, the Royal National Theatre created a stage version of the book, adapted and directed by Katie Mitchell.[60]
Character and themes[edit]
Seussical, a musical adaptation that incorporates aspects of many Dr. Seuss works, features the Cat in the Hat as narrator.[61] The musical received weak reviews when it opened, in November 2001, but eventually became a staple in regional and school theaters.[61]
A ride at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure park in Orlando, Florida, has a Cat in the Hat theme.[62]
See also[edit]References[edit]Watch Cat In The Hat Movie Free
Cat In The Hat MovieBibliography[edit]
Download The Cat In The Hat
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