Don't Mess With The Cat
Last updated: 03/08/2006 - 13:13
The movie adaptation of Dr Seuss's loveable children’s classic heads our way on DVD, having already taken the US by storm.
The Cat in the Hat
Mike Myers stars in the title role of Dr.Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, the highly-anticipated film adaptation of the beloved literary classic. The film stormed the US Box office on it's opening weekend (taking a monumental total of $38,329,160).
Pictured (right): Mike Myers, virtually unrecognisable as the eponymous cat.
The mischievous feline visitor in the striped stove-pipe hat makes his big screen debut with this live action production, which will bring the delightfully off-kilter Dr.Seuss characters – as well as some new ones especially created for the film – to life on the big screen.
Home Alone
Conrad and Sally Walden – played by Spencer Breslin and Dakot Fanning - are home alone with nothing to do. That is, until the eponymous 'Cat in the Hat' - alias Mike Myers (So I Married An Axe Murderer, the Wayne’s World and the Austin Powers series) - introduces them to their imagination.
First it's all fun and games, until things get out of hand, then it’s a race before time before their parents get back.
The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss was first published in 1957 and remains one of the top ten best-selling hardcover children’s books of all time. And yes, just in case you’re wondering, there really was a Dr. Seuss. He was not an official doctor, but his prescription for fun has delighted readers for more than 60 years. Theodor (‘Ted’) Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA.
Academic
If you’ve never seen a photograph of Dr. Seuss, you probably picture him as a young child or a grandfatherly gentleman. You may not have considered his robust years as a college student. Ted attended Dartmouth College and by all accounts was a typical, mischievous college student. According to Judith and Neil Morgan, co-authors of Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel and personal friends of his, "Ted grew to respect the academic discipline he discovered at Dartmouth—not enough to pursue it, but to appreciate those who did."
Ted decided that he could make a living as a cartoonist and was thrilled when one of his submissions was published in The Saturday Evening Post. His work caught the eye of the editor for Judge, a New York weekly, and Ted was offered a staff position. Many of the characters from these sketches resemble the more-familiar characters of his books: Horton-esque elephants, turtles that look like Yertle, Nizzard-like birds, etc.
Ted was contributing to Life magazine, Vanity Fair, Judge etc....when an editor at Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children’s sayings called Boners. While the book received bland reviews, Ted’s illustrations were championed; he considered the opportunity his first official 'big break' in children’s literature, and another turning point in his career.
Primers
His next career turning point was in response to Rudolf Flesch’s book and John Hersey’s article, both entitled Why Johnny Can’t Read; the premise for both article and book was that children’s books were boring. Hersey was outraged with the current primers, calling them 'antiseptic' and the children in them 'unnaturally clean.' He called for illustrations "that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words," and concluded that the work of artists like Geisel and Walt Disney would be more appropriate.
So in an unusual act of sharing an author, Houghton Mifflin and Random House asked Ted to write a children’s primer using 220 new-reader vocabulary words; the end result was The Cat in the Hat.
Though Ted’s road to children’s books had many twists and turns, The Cat in the Hat catapulted him from pioneer in children’s literature to definitive children’s book author illustrator, a position he has held unofficially for many decades since.
A Cat, A Hat, A Hit?
Here's what some of the critics made of The Cat In The Hat:
"The Cat in the Hat is long on visual dazzle but short on warmth, and the humor is excessively raunchy for a family film." - Claudia Puig (USA Today).
"While Myers is certainly one of the more creatively gifted comics on the scene today, his character-based spoofy style doesn't translate as well to the demands of a creature-suited performance." - Michael Tunison (Boxoffice Magazine).
"The film is the kind of betrayal of the book's kooky elegance in which Myers' magical, maniacal talking cat finds it necessary to cough up hair balls." - Bob Strauss (Los Angeles Daily News).
"A vulgar, uninspired lump of poisoned eye candy that Universal has the temerity to call Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat." - A.O. Scott (New York Times).
"The film is the kind of betrayal of the book's kooky elegance in which Myers' magical, maniacal talking cat finds it necessary to cough up hair balls." - Bob Strauss (Los Angeles Daily News).
Special features on the DVD of The Cat In The Hat look like this:
A Universal Pictures/Dreamworks Pictures/Imagine Entertainment presentation, The Cat in the Hat is produced by Academy Award winner Brian Grazer and directed by Bo Welch, an Oscar nominated film production designer making his debut as a film director.
If you want to find out for yourself just what happens when Austin Powers collides with the genius author of Green Eggs and Ham you can now pick up The Cat In The Hat on DVD.
More information available in Humour, DVD / Home Video