The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat in the mid-80s via CBS/Fox Video's Playhouse Video division, and reissued later in the decade. This release used its working title The Cat in the Hat Gets Grinched. The special retained its normal name on VHS re-releases (including "Dr. Seuss Sing-Along Classics" by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with CBS Video and Fox Kids Video). It was also re-released on VHS in 2000 by Paramount Home Entertainment. It was later released on DVD by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The special was released again on DVD by Warner Home Video on October 18, 2011 as part of the "Dr. Seuss's Holidays
The Cat in the Hat read, and Spaulding provided Geisel with a similar list. Geisel later told biographers Judith and Neil Morgan that Spaulding had supplied him with a list of 348 words that every six-year-old should know and insisted that the book's vocabulary be limited to 225 words. However, according to Philip Nel, Geisel gave varying numbers in interviews from 1964 to 1969. He variously claimed that he could use between 200 and 250 words from a list of between 300 and 400; the finished book contains 236 different words. Geisel gave varying accounts of how he conceived of "The Cat in the Hat".