The Cat in the Hat is an American animated musical television special originally broadcast March 10, 1971 on CBS.
[1] With voices by Allan Sherman and prolific vocal performer Daws Butler, this half-hour special is a loose adaptation of the book with added musical sequences.
The family goldfish named "Carlos K. Krinklebein" orders him to leave but instead the Cat plays a game which he calls "Up, Up, Up, With a Fish", placing the fishbowl on top of a stack of bubbles.
Ostensibly to gain sympathy, the Cat sings a pessimistic song ("I'm a Punk") to convey his low self-esteem.
The exact identity of the object has never been revealed but this statement indicates that the gredunza was never really lost and the Cat simply wanted an excuse to have more fun.
The production began at Chuck Jones' MGM Animation/Visual Arts in the late 1960s after the studio had finished The Phantom Tollbooth and another Dr. Seuss special, Horton Hears a Who!.
Among the many deviations, the sequence in the book where the Cat balances all sorts of objects while standing on a ball, only to overdo it and come crashing down, is left out.
Although the original book's sequel The Cat in the Hat Comes Back did not receive an animated adaptation, the character went on to appear in several more Dr. Seuss specials.
Here, The Cat in the Hat appeared in bridging sequences where he introduced animated adaptations of three other Dr. Seuss stories: The Sneetches, The Zax and Green Eggs and Ham.
In 1995, the Cat appeared again, this time with the voice of Henry Gibson, to narrate Daisy-Head Mayzie, a special based on a posthumously published Dr. Seuss book.
In 1996, a Muppet version of the Cat starred in The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, where he was voiced by Bruce Lanoil and Martin P. Robinson.