The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat

The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat
Genre	Animation Children
Written by	Dr. Seuss
Directed by	Bill Perez
Voices of	Bob Holt Mason Adams Frank Welker Joe Eich
Narrated by	Mason Adams
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Production
Executive producer(s)	David H. DePatie
Producer(s)	Friz Freleng Dr. Seuss
Running time	23 minutes
Production company(s)	Marvel Productions DePatie-Freleng (In name only)
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original airing	May 20, 1982

The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat is an animated musical television special and crossover starring two of Dr. Seuss' famous characters, The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat. It premiered on May 20, 1982 on ABC and won two Emmys.

Plot

The special opens on a morning so beautiful that even the Grinch wakes up in a good mood. But his cheerfulness is soon revoked when his reflection in the mirror talks back to him (presumed to be the Grinch's father^{[citation needed]}) and reminds him that he's a Grinch and therefore shouldn't be cheerful, by repeating 'the Grinch's Oath' with him.

Out to prove himself to his reflection, the Grinch goes out to cause misfortune. Meanwhile, the Cat in the Hat goes on a picnic and soon crosses paths with the Grinch when the Grinch crashes into his car. The Grinch demands that the Cat "get this crate out of my way", but when the Cat willingly and cheerfully agrees to his demands, the Grinch pursues him in a car chase for mistakenly calling him 'Mr. Green-Face'.

Realizing he's upset this person, the Cat returns to his house, but the Grinch tracks him there and messes with his voice using a device he has invented, "my Acoustical Anti-Audio Bleeper, otherwise known as my Vacusound Sweeper", to garble the sounds of anything that gets caught in its waves; in fact, he asserts that it has an effective radius of 50 miles. He is undeniably proud of his invention as he sabotages all other nearby sounds, proclaiming himself the 'Master of Everyone's Ears'. Then the Grinch goes back to his house and builds a "Darkhouse" (saying that he could "create gloom for 100 miles round!") with which to mess with the Cat's sight, proclaiming, "That Cat's gonna suffer like never before!"

The Cat becomes upset with the Grinch's hijinks and has a psychiatry session with him in a thought bubble. Predictably he gets nowhere with the virtual Grinch, so he then decides to go over and have a talk with him, but in the process, the Grinch makes it so dark he can't see where he's going, and he crashes his car when he passes a "Dead End" sign (depicted here as a white octagon, instead of a yellow diamond).

The Cat attempts to hide from the Grinch in a nearby restaurant, but the Grinch's machine continues to mess with reality, and his hijinks result in wild and crazy madness all over the restaurant. The Cat is now furious with the Grinch and ponders to himself how he can change the Grinch, eventually racing through a door and sending himself hurtling into the Grinch's Dimension. There, as he ponders, he has to endure visions of a floating Grinch head of laser lights, a spinning spiral, and getting split into four different-colored outlines - blue, green, red, and yellow, which join together to become a white outline, and he turns back into himself. He soon figures it out and rallies everybody in the restaurant to follow him to the Grinch's house.

There, he leads everyone in a song about the love the Grinch received from his mother while using his umbrella as a conductor's baton; the Grinch, having a soft spot in his heart for his mother, begins to cry when he hears this, and is afterward told by the spirit of his mum that "everything's going to be all right." Touched, the Grinch disassembles his machines and goes through his change of heart again the next morning. But when his reflection tries to revert him back to a grouch, his dog, Max, shuts the mirror up with the Vacusound Sweeper.

Awards

1982 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.

Production notes

• This is the last Dr. Seuss ABC television special produced by Marvel Productions.
• This is also the last Dr. Seuss television special produced by DePatie-Freleng Productions.
• Both the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat were recast with different voice actors than the ones used in previous specials, all of whom had died. Bob Holt voiced the Grinch (Hans Conreid, who voiced the Grinch in Halloween Is Grinch Night, died a few months before the special aired; Boris Karloff, the original voice of the Grinch, had died in 1969), while Mason Adams took over voicing the Cat in the Hat from the late Allan Sherman, who died in 1973. (Incidentally, Holt, too, would die prematurely, suffering a fatal heart attack in 1985 at the age of 56.)

Home media releases

The special was first released on VHS in the mid-80s via CBS/Fox Video's Playhouse Video division, and reissued later in the decade. This release uses its working title The Cat in the Hat Gets Grinched and returning to its normal name to VHS in the 1996 release Dr. Seuss Sing-Along Classics by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with CBS Video and Fox Kids Video and a later DVD release by Universal Studios Home Entertainment and cuts out half of the car chase sequence, ending the chase after the Grinch drives into a mud pit.

The special was released again on DVD by Warner Home Video on October 18, 2011 as part of the Dr. Seuss's Holidays on the Loose! DVD set, along with How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Halloween Is Grinch Night.

External links

• The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat