The Cat in the Hat

When I was in my mum’s womb, my mum played Dr. Seuss audiobook tapes into her belly to stop me kicking. Because of this, I know One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Fox in Socks and Green Eggs in Ham almost off by heart. Growing up, I was consistently read these books as well but my least favourite of these was The Cat in the Hat – mostly because my mum named me Thing 1 and my sister Thing 2.

I loved the film adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, even if the Whos’ noses creeped me out. So, when I heard there was a The Cat in the Hat movie being made, I begged my mum to let me go (I was 7). It turns out that there were 2 The Cat in the Hat movies: one of them was a hand-drawn animated TV show which I never saw, but the one that haunted my young nightmares was the 2003 live-action adaptation with Mike Myers, Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin. I revisited this movie yesterday and found that it hasn’t lost any of its horror.

The world of the film is very colourful and lively, which appeals a lot to younger audiences, but very early on into the film the boss (‘Hank Humberfloom’) of the children’s mother (‘Joan’) literally screams in Joan’s face, which doesn’t fit into a children’s film at all – one would expect more of a lighthearted tone so early on in the film.

Joan has to leave her kids (Fanning and Breslin) with a terrible babysitter who makes them watch political television (in a kid’s film?) so when the children dispose of her The Cat (Mike Myers) appears at their door. Myers’ ability to make fun of himself infinitely is a point in favour of the movie but when he sees a picture hidden from the view of the audience and his hat springs up erect, I couldn’t help but think “In a kid’s film?”

The Fish was another character which I absolutely despised. In the book, I didn’t mind him, but the film’s CGI render of him frightened me hugely. His buggy eyes and lack of a nose meant that I never watched the film again (until yesterday). In fact, his design overall wasn’t appealing to children in the slightest nor was it representative of his character – in the book the Fish was plain and boring in conjunction with his ideas to stop the Cat’s lunacy. In the film it looks like the designers wanted to make a ‘cute’ Fish but it didn’t work – he only looked creepy.

The movie only gets worse from thebeginning. Thing 1 and Thing 2 just looked like blue-haired midgets and nothing more, there was a scene involving PARIS HILTON where the Cat takes the children through an underground club playing loud rock music (in a kids’ film?), and when complete chaos is released onto the world, there’s a short sequence where the Cat and the children are sliding down a slide when the action suddenly stops, the Cat turns to the camera, holds up a leaflet for Universal Studios (a theme park in Orlando, Florida) and says that there’s a Cat in the Hat ride that children can go on there. Mike pulls one of his trademark cheeky grins seen in the likes of Austin Powers, then the action un-pauses and continues.

It’s quite literally the most blatant and cheap form of advertising I’ve ever seen in a movie – and I thought Transformers was bad! I can’t begin to desicribe how utterly shocked I was when I saw this scene. I can perfectly well understand making a movie and maybe subliminally putting some adverts on a billboard which someone drives past – something which doesn’t stop the action – but pausing the action, confusing the viewers, then just shoving this advert down their throat is almost inexcusable.

Come to think of it, there are plenty of ‘pulp fiction’ (not the excellent movie, the literary term) movies and TV shows that rely on blatant advertising to make profits. In fact, lots of TV shows – especially kids’ shows – ARE just huge adverts. Take the recent Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated show that ran on Cartoon Network – or maybe the LEGO shows which have been running recently – or for girls, the My Little Pony or Care Bears shows. Compared to some old Nickelodeon shows like Ren and Stimpy or Hey Arnold! or The Wild Thornberries...

Even shows for adults could be seen as giant adverts. One that springs to mind is Game of Thrones, which just begs people to buy the books to read on and find out more with the year-long gaps between seasons. And hilariously, the enormous The Walking Dead has action figures despite being aimed at adults – in an adult’s show?

Is everything nowadays an easy way to get money?