Customer Reviews

Dr. Seuss - The Cat in the Hat Comes Back / Hop on Pop

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

 

 

Anyone who is familiar with the Dr. Seuss series of Videos and DVDs knows that they are not attempting to be animation. While Chuck Jones turned the classic Grinch into the very pleasing, bugs bunny style cartoon, which has survived the test of time in its own right, this series holds true to the creator's original vision. Don't expect a cartoon, expect a Dr. Seuss book!

This is truly a book on video, and if that is what you want than you'll be pleased. It follows the text of the book and the "animation" is pictures from the book mildly animated. My son adores this video and it added to his love of books and his love of Dr. Seuss. He is 4 1/2 and clamors to read Dr. Seuss books daily. However, the video is also a nice addition to our reading time. And in the past, it held my 2 yr old's attention better than the book alone. Now as he matures he sits well for books also.

Somehow, I thought I remembered most of the Dr. Seuss stories being interesting animations from the 1960s, when I was a child. However, I now realize that only a few proper animations were created (like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas). This DVD is an overpriced, underproduced waste of time. It is merely the illustrations from the books brought to life - poorly. The movements are jerky and silly, the voiceovers are embarassing, and it captures my 3 year old twins imagination about as much as a blank screen. They LOVE the equivalent books, and we read them constantly. They are NOT interested in these amateurish renderings (which at times look like cut and paste silliness like Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame). If a three year old can tell the difference, then you will too. Even though the animation is limited, in the "Ken Burns" style or worse, the DVD compression is lousy with tons of visible artifacts all over the images. Do yourself and your kids a favor and buy the real books. Random House and Sony Wonder - whose logos introduce these productions - should be ashamed to market such inferior nonsense.

This is extremely poor exploitation of Dr. Seuss book. This DVD has very poor animation. They took the shots of book and did not work on animation. The quality of picture is very poor too. It looks like someone's middle school project. Does not look like professsionaly done.

It takes a lot of tallent to make Dr. Seuss boring. The makers of this DVD somehow managed. There are lots of videos from the 1960s and 70s that have fully animated musical adaptations of Dr. Seuss stories with scripts and lyrics by Ted Geisel himself. My daughter loves them. Actually, so do I. This one, however, was so unappealing we both wanted to turn it off.

I object to the reviewer who labelled this as "for parents who don't have time to read to their kids." You sit down with the kids and help them follow along in the book. When they're older they can follow along by themselves. You can use this in addition to reading to them. If you're going to stick your kid in front of the TV, wouldn't you like them to pick up a book?