Who doesn't have fond memories of Dr. Seuss?  Everyone remembers The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, they are standard books that everyone reads while they are growing up.  I knew a man in college who's claim to fame was that he could recite Green Eggs and Ham from memory, and by the time he was done, everyone was laughing an recalling their favorite Seuss book.  But who was the man behind the Lorax and Sneetches?  This 1994 made-for-TV biopic attempts to give children the history of the famous author.

A reporter (Kathy Najimy)  tries to get the scoop on Dr. Seuss for her newspaper.  She goes to his house, and manages to convince the Cat in the Hat (Matt Frewer) to tell her all about the good doctor.  He takes her on a trip through Dr. Seuss' imagination.  She meets his most famous characters who tell her all about his life.  Between these segments, his books are brought to life in both animated and live action sequences.

Dr. Seuss was born Theodore Geisel.  He was an avid reader as a child and spent a lot of his free time at the library.  As he grew older, he retained his love for reading, and also discovered a talent for art.  At Dartmouth, he was the editor of the school newspaper until he was caught one evening with alcohol.  Since this was during probation, he was kicked off the paper.  Banned having anything included in the paper, he started submitting cartoons using his mother's maiden name, "Seuss."  After Dartmouth he went to Oxford to study English literature.  Here he met the woman he would eventually marry.   Finding the study at Oxford rather dull, he dropped out and eventually took a job at a New York based magazine, Judge.   When some of his cartoons were spotted by an executive at Standard Oil, he was offered, and accepted, a high paying job in their advertising department.  He would stay in advertising, though he disliked it, for 35 years.

The movie tells the story of Geisel writing his first popular children's book, And to Think I saw it on Mulberry Street while in a storm on a ship at sea.  The book was rejected by 27 publishers before it was finally accepted.  Soon after, WWII broke out, and Theodore took a break from advertising and writing children's books to help with the war effort.  He drew political cartoons for PM magazine, and penned the Private Snafu cartoons for the army under the direction of Chuck Jones.

After the war, he went back to advertising.  Then in 1957, a friend challenged Geisel to write a school text book that would be easy for children to read, but would not be dull and boring.  Out of this dare came The Cat in the Hat.  Though it was never used as a school primer, it was a huge success and allowed Geisel to quit his day job for good.

The rest of the story is well known, he spent the rest of his long life writing children's books, many of them considered classics.  He wrote 50 books and sold over 100 million copies world wide.

Since this film is aimed at children, the story of his life is interspersed with cartoon and live action retellings of his stories.  None of the animation was original to this show.  Unfortunately, they edited just about all of the stories down for time reasons, including the classic animation pieces.  It was really too bad, because some of the stories, like the Lorax, are not nearly as effective when cut down to five minutes.  The newly created live action productions, also heavily edited, are hit and miss, but mostly miss.  Robin Williams reading of The Cat in the Hat was very good, but it was the only stand out.  Even with the very talented guest stars this production was able to attract, the various segments are uninspired.  There are appearances by Christopher Lloyd, Andrea Martin, David Paymer, Patrick Stewart, Howie Mandel, and Billy Crystal, but even these stars can't save this show.  Most of this is due to the way the various stories are adapted.  It is very hard to improve on classic stories, but the writers tried.  They had Eileen Brennan redo Boris Karloff's narration when the show How the Grinch Stole Christmas!  What were they thinking???  Instead of a simple reading of the stories, they turned some of them into song and dance numbers.  This was done for Yertle the Turtle, Green Eggs and Ham, and Oh, the Places You'll Go, and it ruined them.  This did not add anything to the stories, the music was horrid, and the 'big dance number' look they were going for didn't materialize due to the low budget they had to work with.

While there is a lot of interesting information about Dr. Seuss in this show, it would have been much better had it been cut down to about half an hour, and left out all of the edited productions of his stories.
 

Audio:

The audio on this disc was a two channel mono mix.  It was acceptable.  There were no glaring defects, but it wasn't very dynamic either.  The song numbers never really captivated me, but the dialog was clear and easy to understand.  An average sounding disc.  There are English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

Video:

The video was also standard.  There were some digital defects present, especially some aliasing in the background, but it wasn't too extreme and was never distracting.  The costumes all have vivid colors, and these are fairly bright, though not stunning.  The movie is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

The Extras:

In addition to the movie, this DVD also has an episode of Private Snafu that was written by Ted Geisel, Spies.  There are trailers for Tom and Jerry:  Paws for the Holidays, Caillou's Holiday Movie, and The Little Polar Bear.

Final Thoughts:

This is could have been a much better show.  I wish they had drastically reduced the number of stories they had adapted, and cut out the dance numbers all together.  There was plenty of colorful characters and wild events occurring without them.  Children would probably be more forgiving of the horrid songs and edited stories, but I can't see this being a child's favorite DVD.  I'd say rent it first.