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in: The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss Characters, The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That,
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The Cat in the Hat

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The Cat in the Hat is a tall anthropomorphic cat who wears a red and white-striped top hat and a red bow tie. He sometimes carries a magic umbrella that is mostly green, blue, or red.

He is a farm cat in Dr. Seuss's short story The Cat in the Hat. With his book being an overwhelmingly successful best-seller, the Cat in the Hat has become a logo for Random House's beginner books, the production logo for all of Seuss's animated shorts, and Dr. Seuss's most famous character worldwide.

Voices

The Cat has made several appearances in works written by Seuss aside from The Cat in the Hat, including the book's sequel The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

Portrayals

Appearances

Books

Television programs

Films and direct to video programs

Films

Video games

Family

He has two kitten children: a son named Young Cat and a daughter named Sister Cat. His great-great-great-grandfather is King Looie Katz.

In the book The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, the titular character is shown to have little cats inside his hat, each representing a letter of the alphabet from A to Z. In an episode of The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That, it is revealed that these cats are actually the character's cousins and they help him out from time to time.

About the Cat

At times, The Cat assumes the role of a part-time magician, a feline with a knack for conjuring tricks from his hat or any other object. He's not just a magician, but a musician too, skilled in playing the lute, trombone, and most notably, the piano. His melodious voice adds to his charm. And when he's not performing, he's often found engrossed in a good book.

On his whimsical journeys, The Cat often carries an umbrella, a beacon of his colorful personality. But it's not just a fashion statement. This orange umbrella is his ticket to the skies, allowing him to soar above the town and explore new horizons. In one memorable adventure, he even took a passenger, Mayzie McGrew, on a flight to reunite her with her loved ones.

Relationships

Sally and Conrad

Img drseuss cat

The Cat meets Sally and Conrad in their home, who were both bored in the house with nothing to do, and he entertains the two with the tricks he can perform for them, much to the Fish's' dismay. Months later, he arrives back at their house unexpectedly while Sally and Conrad are both too busy with their chores shoveling snow. Still, he goes in anyway to get out of the snow. He is seen by Conrad eating cake in the tub, but as Conrad lets the water out after reprimanding the Cat, a pink ring is left around the tub Conrad notices. Hence, the Cat comes up with several ways to get rid of the ring: cleaning the tub by using Joan's white dress, then shaking the stained dress onto the wall and rubbing the wall with Mr. Walden's shoes to the rug, then the bed and then off the bed onto the tv from the tv into the pan and out of the house by fan onto the snow where then the cat has an Idea where he has his little cats from A to Z do all the work as then Z used his power called Voom to clean up everything which blows all the little cats back in the Cat's hat. It completes Conrad and Sally's work in the process. Later, he returns, taking Conrad and Sally on many fun learning and exploring adventures with him in several stories.

The Fish

The Little Cats

When deciding not to use Thing One and Thing Two, The Cat in the Hat will have the little cats come and help him out, depending on the job, which may seem too difficult for the Cat himself to handle. When the Cat visits Conrad and Sally unexpectedly and accidentally leaves a pink cat ring in the tub after taking a bath and eating cake, The Cat uses a dress to clean the spot out of the tub and then from the dress to the wall and off the wall to the shoes and off the shoes to the rug then the bed, upon noticing that this job to get it off seems difficult for him, he has them the little cats appear out of his hat starting with Cat A who them takes the hat off his head to reveal Cat B who then takes the hat off his head to reveal Cat C who then reveals Cat D and so forth onto the cats with a letter from D up to Z. Cat Z the tiniest cat of all that is impossible to be seen as a strong power in his hat that can clean up all the pink snow and get the job done much to Sally and Conrad's surprise.

In The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, the Little cats are revealed to be his cousins.

Mayzie McGrew

Young Cat and Sister Cat

The Grinch

In The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat, he seems to hold a grudge against The Cat because of his playful and mischievous tricky personality. And when The Cat tries to help with his grumpy personality but is not having it with Cat. But after he heards a song about his mother, he leaves his grinchy attitude away and somewhat makes up with Cat.

Thing One and Thing Two

These two are The Cat's number one helpers and will do anything to help their master.

Physical appearance

According to the original cartoon, the Cat is six feet tall, the size of an average man. He is lean for the most part but has a stomach that sticks out like most Seuss characters. He wears white gloves, a red tie, and his signature red and white top hat.

What has changed about the Cat the most over all his adaptations are his markings. In all adaptations, he has a white face that stops at the neck or goes down—his stomach, on the other hand, changes. The original short gives him an all-black stomach, as I can read with my eyes shut; however, Daisy Head Mayzie and The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! both give him a white stomach. The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat is especially unusual in his design, as his stomach is a dark gray. [1]

Background

An article by John Hersey about literacy in early childhood inspired The Cat in the Hat.

Theodor Geisel, writing as Dr. Seuss, created The Cat in the Hat partly in response to the May 24, 1954, Life magazine article by John Hersey titled "Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading" In the article, Hersey was critical of school primers like those featuring Dick and Jane:

After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma connected with student reading levels, Hersey asked toward the end of the article:

This article caught the attention of William Spaulding, who met Geisel during the war and was then the director of Houghton Mifflin's education division. Spaulding had also read the best-selling 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolf Flesch. Flesch, like Hersey, criticized primers as boring but also criticized them for teaching reading through word recognition rather than phonics. In 1955, Spaulding invited Geisel to dinner in Boston, proposing that Geisel create a book "for six- and seven-year-olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading." He reportedly challenged, "Write me a story that first-graders can't put down!"

At the back of Why Johnny Can't Read, Flesch had included 72 lists of words that young children should be able to read, and Spaulding provided Geisel with a similar list.> Geisel later told biographers Judith and Neil Morgan that Spaulding had supplied him with 348 words that every six-year-old should know and insisted that the book's vocabulary be limited to 225 words. However, according to Philip Nel, Geisel gave varying numbers in interviews from 1964 to 1969. He claimed he could use between 200 and 250 words from a list of between 300 and 400; the finished book contains 236 words.

Origin

Theodor Geisel created The Cat in the Hat in response to a May 24, 1954, Life magazine article by John Hersey, titled "Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading.” In the article, Hersey was critical of school primers:

In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with six books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. Primers feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls. In bookstores, anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.

Hersey’s arguments were enumerated over ten pages of Life magazine. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma connected with student reading levels, Hersey asked toward the end of the article:

Why should school primers not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate? Drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, "Seuss", and Walt Disney?

Ted Geisel's friend William Ellsworth Spaulding, who was then the director of Houghton Mifflin's education division, invited Geisel to dinner in Boston and "proposed” that Ted write and illustrate such a book for six- and seven-year-olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading. “Write me a story that first-graders can't put down!" he challenged. Spaulding supplied Geisel with a list of 348 words that every six-year-old should know and insisted that the book's vocabulary be limited to 225 words. Nine months later, Dr. Seuss finished The Cat in the Hat, which used 223 words that appeared on the list plus 13 words that did not. Because Geisel was under contract with Random House, Houghton Mifflin retained the school rights to The Cat in the Hat, and Random House retained the rights to trade sales. In an interview in Arizona magazine in June 1981, Dr. Seuss claimed the book took nine months to complete due to the difficulty of writing a book from the 223 selected words. He added that the title for the book came from his desire to have the title rhyme, and the first two suitable rhyming words he could find from the list were "cat" and "hat". Dr. Seuss also regretted the association of his book and the "look-say" reading method adopted during the Dewey revolt in the 1920s. He said, "Killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country."

Mascot

The Cat in the Hat is Seuss’ most famous and popular character, followed by the Grinch and Horton the elephant. Because his book has become such a landmark in children’s literature, he became the mascot of Random House. The Cat in the Hat emblem has been featured in almost every book published by the company since the character’s debut. “The Cat in the Hat Productions” was also the name of the production company that animated the Dr. Seuss specials from 1966 to 1989; the Cat in the Hat was also the mascot.

A statue of the cat stands next to Theodor Giesel in his memorial.

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