From Treehouse Entertrainment and Random House Publishing, its the Cat in the Hat!
As I've outlined in a previous post, we've been looking at the children's stories and illustrations of Dr.Seuss and the animations that draw from them.
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| 'Fox in Socks', Dr.Seuss |
Dr.Seuss' illustrative style is very interesting. He adapts common shapes that children would likely recognise, and makes them into stylized characters. For example, The Cat in the Hat as seen above is essentially a long-neck bottle (like a champagne bottle) with limbs and a head. Similarly, the Fox in Socks consists of two bean-shapes, a circle and some triangles. These very simple designs make for recognisable characters that children (and myself x3) can appreciate.
I find it important to note that while the characters are simple, Seuss has not exchanged style for simplicity. Indeed, the characters are distinctly stylised and its easy to distinguish a Seussian fox from Chaffinian fox, a Seussian elephant from Dumbo and a Seussian Who from a Doctor Who. I think it's because of this that cartoons featuring Dr. Seuss' characters emulate his style. It's part of the character's recognisability.
In the cartoon features 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' (1966) and 'Horton Hears a Who' (1970), directors and designers (notably Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble) worked with Theodore 'Seuss' Geist to keep the stylisation in tact, as you can see in these screengrabs.
You may notice that even in animated form, these characters retain their simplistic shapes. The Grinch has a rounded-off rectangle shape, while Jane Kangaroo has a body like a water balloon.
The animated versions of Dr.Seuss' characters seem to have richer, more saturated colours, too. This would make them more appealing to children, as bright colours are eye-catching and attention-grabbing. A prime example of this is 'The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That'.
