40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't confuse it w/ the '72 version! This is the cat's meow!, November 10, 2003
"Very well...I'm a punk!" Ah, the Cat in the Hat classic songs finally on durable DVD! Buyers out there beware! Remember that this 1971 version is the animated TV version that we all remember, while the 1972 version is essentially the book being read out loud with some pans and close ups of the original pages. I bought the 1972 version last Xmas and my mouth hung open watching the book in action. However, up, up, up with this version! All the songs are classics and take me back to the days when it was okay to leave the kids at home alone. A great, great story!
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From a 3 1/2 year old..., November 30, 2003
This is the version of "The Cat in the Hat" that I remember, from constant re-runs on HBO in the early 1980s. This is the version of "The Cat in the Hat" that I think of, in the same way that my nephew, now 3 1/2, will think of the Mike Myers' movie as "his" "Cat in the Hat". So, I had to buy this DVD... not just to show him, but also for myself, because I hadn't seen the whole thing in about 20 years, and recapturing my own childhood is almost as important as influencing his!
First, I watched it by myself. Hmm. 1971 was a lot less jarring in 1983. In 2003, the music seemed a lot... more corny, I guess. The "Fun" song, the one song on the soundtrack not performed by Allan Sherman, is pretty bad. However, the rest of it held up just as I remembered it. I appreciate the special feature sing-along version of "Calculatus Eliminatus", a song I had committed to memory 20 years ago, and then forgot (displaced, no doubt, by the useless Paula Abdul song lyrics that crowded up my brain in the intervening years).
Then, I screened it for the nephew. He sat through the whole thing, mesmerized, looking away only occasionally to play with the tiny Thing 2 toy he got from Burger King. He was upset when it was over and kept asking to watch the extra features (the "Calculatus" sing-along, and the two-minute promo for the Myers movie). We essentially watched the whole cartoon twice.
The final verdict is that the 1971 "Cat in the Hat" holds up very well today, as both a 30 year-old and a 3 1/2 year-old see it. Obviously the animation is flat and dated -- but it's faithful to the book, and, of course, this is Dr. Seuss's own version (Ted Geisel was producer and scriptwriter for the affair). The music is also dated (of course), but kids won't notice, and the Sherman songs are still delightful. The educational component is also funny -- the Cat sings his name out in seven or eight different languages, and several more made-up ones.
In other words, add this katze-in-a-hut to your collection today.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Our Family Loves This Version!, March 12, 2004
By A Customer
I don't recall ever seeing this version of the animated Cat in the Hat before, even though I was a kid who watched television faithfully in 1971, when this first aired on network television. My husband bought the video at a neighborhood garage sale last fall for $1 - what a bargain! The animation is very 1960's, combining both Dr. Seuss-ish artwork and a Chuck Jones/dePatie-Freleng style that seems at once very familiar, and yet, is now considered very oldtimey.
My 2-1/2 year old loves the songs. She asks for the video by demanding to watch "Chat Chapeau," the French names for cat and hat which the cat sings about in the wackiest song on the video, where he recites his name in about ninety gazillion languages. I personally love hearing Thing 1 and Thing 2 sing in those ridiculously deep voices about the "killjoy fish" who doesn't like fun and doesn't want to fly kites in the house. And since my parents used to play Allan Sherman records, I love hearing his authoritative voice, as the Cat, reciting the most nonsensical stuff.
Even though the video departs from the book in major ways, I don't mind because Dr. Seuss himself was involved in this production. I figure this made-for-TV version gave him a new opportunity to create additional riffs and plays on words to his own classic book.
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