Customer Reviews

Dr. Seuss - The Cat in the Hat Comes Back [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not one of the animated Dr. Seuss episodes (such as The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas) created by the Looney Tunes animators. This video is primarily a reading of the book illustrated mostly with stills from the book (which are either totally static or in some cases, panned to give the impression of animation.)

So, if you're buying it for older kids or adults, I would recommend against it--it's not a very memorable experience. But, on the other hand, if you're buying it for a young child, I highly recommend it--my 3 year old daughter loves it!

The Cat returns! This hilarious sequel is great! The reason why I gave this review its title is because the Cat in the Hat brings all his friends, Cats A to Z. Just like Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the original story, these cats reek havoc in the Walden home. Also check out the stories of Fox in Socks and There's a Wocket in My Pocket!

My daughter rented this video from our local library, hoping it was an animated version of a story from her favorite author. We were both sorely disappointed at the result. This video covers three books by Dr. Suess; The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Fox in Socks and There's a Wocket in my Pocket. The video does not present animated versions of the books. The camera shows stills from the books while off-screen actors read the text. In a sense it is like the video reads the book to the children, except there are no words to actually be seen.

Overall this video serves little purpose. Animated verisons of Dr. Suess's stories present dynamic and engaging visuals, and generally try to give a visual exploration of the text of the story. As there is no true animation here there is no engagement that would no be obtained from reading the book. At least the actors remain true to the original text, and we are not subjected to nauseating "improvements" of Dr. Suess's work, as in certain recent live action films.

Where the video really fails though is the loss of the visual text. These books were written to be read to children to first of all introduce them to the concept of printed words having meaning, and second of all to inspire children to want to learn to read. This video presents books with no words, and thus fails its target audience on both counts.

My personal conclusion is this; I cannot recommend this video to parents or educators. It doesn't engage the viewer like an animated feature, nor will it inspire a love of reading. I would recommend instead that people get the books and read them to their children. Doing this will provide the children with benfits that this dreary video could never hope to achieve.

my son just loves "there's a wocket in my pocket!" and "fox in socks". he enjoys reading the books and it's a special treat to see the original illustrations animated. this video would be highly recommended except for the first story and title of the video "the cat in the hat comes back". i'm not for censorship but i wonder if words like "kill" should be part of our pre-schoolers vocabulary? and in our generation of gun problems, should we show our children guns? understandably, this was written in totally different times.

MY HUSBAND GREW UP READING CAT IN THE HAT AND OTHER DR. SEUSS BOOKS. I BOUGHT THE VIDEO FOR MY DAUGHTER AND SHE JUST LOVES IT. SHE ENJOYS THE SONGS AND LAUGHS AT THE ANTICS OF THE CAT IN THE HAT. IT'S VERY ENTERTAINING AND THE SONGS ARE CATCHY. VERY CLEVER DIALOGUES. TEACHES KIDS TO RYHME.