The Cat In The Hat Gets Grinched; Horton Hatches The Egg; Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?; Yertle The Turtle

Older and newer titles are offered in the latest batch of Dr. Seuss videos from Random House, based on works by the late, great children's author Theodor Geisel. The Emmy-award winning The Cat In The Hat Gets Grinched, while not on a par with How The Grinch Stole Christmas, is nevertheless a delightful fully-animated story about the trials and tribulations of the cat in the hat who has an unfortunate run-in with the vengeful grinch. The grinch, in true grinch fashion, has devised a couple of new machines designed to rid the world of warmth and happiness (a vacuum cleaner which sucks up sound and a darktower which projects darkness). A wonderful good vs. evil tete a tete, the program also features cute tunes by Joe Raposo (of Sesame Street fame). Raposo's songs are also found on the wacky Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?, in which the title character whizzes through the (un)known universe on a magic piano. Pock, a failure at a pickle factory, visits many strange lands and falls in love with Neefa-Feefa the eyeball dancer, before realizing ala Dorothy that there's no place like home. Horton Hatches The Egg and Yertle The Turtle are new, iconographic animation adaptations featuring the voice talents of Billy Crystal and John Lithgow. Horton, the Crystal-narrated piece, is the more disappointing of the two, with Crystal adopting the shopworn Jewish shtick voice for the story of an elephant who lands the unfortunate job of sitting on Mayzie the lazy bird's egg, while she books to Florida. Great tale, uninspired telling. The companion piece "If I Ran The Circus," which features a young boy reading Seuss's verbal fireworks is better, as Morris McGurk relates the numerous fantabulous attractions that would be found if he ran his own Circus McGurkus. Finally, Yertle The Turtle delivers exceptional narration by John Lithgow (who clearly prepared for the reading), in a telling story of equality and human rights. When Yertle declares himself king of the swamp, he forces the turtles to stand on each others backs making a high tower that he can sit atop and survey his domain. But, Mack, the absolute bottom turtle, feels "we at the bottom should have rights," and does something about it. Also included are Lithgow's readings of "Gertrude McFuzz," a tale of tailfeather envy, and "The Big Brag," in which a bear and a rabbit are upstaged by a wise old worm. The Cat In The Hat Gets Grinched, Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?, and Yertle The Turtle are all highly recommended, and Yertle The Turtle is an Editor's Choice. Horton Hatches The Egg is recommended. (Available from most distributors.)