Stumbling upon fun shows I never knew existed is one of the fun things I get to do as a reviewer. And who doesn't like to review anything related to Dr. Seuss? Ever since I was able to read, I've loved the tongue-twisting, rhyming stories of author Theodor Geisel (aka "Dr. Seuss"). Geisel managed to write more than 60 books in his career - starting with And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street in 1937 and ending with Oh, the Places You'll Go! in 1990.
Some of his classics include How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Cat in the Hat, and Green Eggs and Ham. There are too many of his stories to count that have twisted my own tongue - such as trying to clearly enunciate Fox in Socks... "When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle..."
But somehow I managed not to ever hear about a series on Nickelodeon (Nick Jr.) that was produced by Jim Henson Productions for a couple of seasons in the mid-1990s. The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss missed my radar entirely. So when it popped up from Lionsgate recently with a Halloween-themed collection of three episodes, I knew I had to see The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss - There is Nothing to Fear in Here!
This DVD gathers three episodes - "There's Nothing to Fear in Here," "The Blag-Bludder Beast," and "Norval the Great." Each is presented with Seussian rhyme and Henson Muppetry, making each episode seem almost surreal at times - though each was a lot of fun to watch with my two daughters. In each episode, we see the Cat in the Hat introduce a story to three Little Cats and provide a little narration or context now and then.
"There's Nothing to Fear in Here," the lights go out in a thunderstorm and the Cat in the Hat has to calm down everyone under the roof of the Cat's Playhouse. The Little Cats and Terrance McBird (who lives in a tree in the middle of the house) are all afraid that the storm might get in and don't know what to do while they're stuck inside. The Cat invents games to play in the dark and tells stories to pass the time. The first story was about Sarah Hall-Small, who is scared by the noises in her closet - and she has to find a way to deal with whatever horrible monster might be lurking there (it turns out to be a couple of mice who are afraid of her). And the second story is about the Grinch who gets a taste of his own medicine after he scares everybody in Seussville and they decide to turn the tables on him.
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