The Cat in the Hat (1971) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Animation |
Menu Audio Featurette-Sneak Peek At Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat Motion Picture Song Lyrics-Sing-Along-Song Music Highlights-Song Selection (5) |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1971 | ||
Running Time | 25:02 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Hawley Pratt |
Studio
Distributor |
Universal Pictures Home Video |
Starring |
Chuck Jones Dr. Seuss Daws Butler Gloria Camacho Pamelyn Ferdin Tony Frazier Lewis Morford Thurl Ravenscroft Allan Sherman |
Case | ? | ||
RPI | $24.95 | Music | None Given |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) | |
Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
Cat in the Hat (1971) is the original animated, made-for-television adaptation of the famous children's book by Dr. Seuss.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 in Massachusetts. After briefly attending Oxford University, Geisel returned to the US and embarked on a career as a cartoonist. Geisel supported himself by being an advertising artist, and working on marketing campaigns. During World War II, Geisel served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps, making training movies. Having been taught the techniques of animation, Geisel developed a series of animated training films for the US Army.
Following the end of the War, Geisel was contracted to illustrate a children's book. While sales were not encouraging, Geisel was inspired to write and illustrate his own, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The book was rejected 27 times before being published. While not being very successful, in terms of sales, a later book would change Geisel's life . . .
The Cat in the Hat was created when Geisel's publisher asked him to write and illustrate a book with only about 200 "new-reader vocabulary words". Published in 1957, The Cat in the Hat was an outstanding success. Geisel went on to write and illustrate 44 children's books, including Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Translated into many languages, over 200 million copies of Dr. Seuss books have been sold around the world. Interestingly, despite being the quintessential children's author, Geisel never had any children of his own.
"It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how".
The Cat in the Hat tells the story of a mischievous, manipulative, man-sized cat (voiced by Allan Sherman), who invades the home of two small, and bored, children. Ignoring the warnings and wisdom of their fish, Krinklebein (voiced by veteran performer, Daws Butler), the children allow the Cat in the Hat to wreak havoc in their home. Soon things are completely out of hand . . .
"That top-hatted cat should not be about, should not be about when your mother is out".
This animated, made-for-television production was commissioned by CBS, and co-produced by Geisel and legendary Loony Tunes Producer/Director Chuck Jones. Although Geisel wrote the adaptation, this version of the story has a very different feel to the book. For example, the lengthy tongue-twisting passages of fun rhymes have been replaced by a series of songs. I found that a lot of the rhyme, rhythm and playful wit (and nonsense) of the original story has been lost as the dialogue is now broken up between different speaking characters, as opposed to being read by one person. While the animation is very faithful to the look of the original book, it looks a little crude. For example, there is some very poor clean-up work leaving obvious pencil lines on-screen.
With the imminent arrival of the live-action movie starring Mike Myers, I imagine that there will be increased interest in this DVD. I think that this disc will make a nice companion to that movie (when it is eventually released on DVD), and with its relatively short running time, it makes an excellent 'just-before-bed' viewing experience for kids.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, full frame.
The sharpness suffers throughout, but it is acceptable. As one would expect, the image features plenty of bright primary colours, but after 30 years, the colour often looked a little washed-out and drab. There was also some colour bleeding at times, and yellow backgrounds suffered from strobing.
MPEG artefacts and film-to-video artefacts were not a problem, but there are plenty of film artefacts throughout.
There are only English subtitles, and they are accurate.
This is a single-sided, single-layered disc, which is very acceptable considering the very short running time.
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The only audio option is English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), and I assume that it is a mono track.
There are no problems with the dialogue quality, and the characters' speech was always clear.
The music is composed by Dean Elliot, and song's lyrics are provided by Geisel himself.
As a Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) audio track, there is no surround presence and activity, and certainly no subwoofer action.
Dialogue | |
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Overall |
Featurette - Sneak Peek At Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat Motion Picture (4:09)
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with English Dolby Digital Stereo Surround audio, this is a short bit of marketing fluff. There are a few behind-the-scenes moments, peppered with soundbites from Mike Myers and the director.
Music Highlights - Song Selection (5)
This is similar to a Chapter function, in that it allows the viewer to select particular songs in the feature.
Song Lyrics - Sing-Along-Song
The song Calculatus Eliminatus is presented with the lyrics in large subtitles. The words light up as the song progresses.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
In terms of content, the R1 and R4 are identical, except that on the R1 disc, trailers for Casper, Babe 1 & 2, Sinbad and Back to School with Franklin automatically play when the disc begins.
Overall, this DVD provides a short, but enjoyable, classic Dr. Seuss story.
The video quality is a little poor, but acceptable.
The audio quality is very limited, but acceptable for what it is.
The extras are very slim.
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Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
Display | Grundig Elegance 82-2101 (82cm, 16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
Speakers | Sony SS-V315 x5; Sony SA-WMS315 subwoofer |