The Cat in the Hat been adapted for various media, including theater, television, and film. The animated musical TV special premiered in 1971 and starred Allan Sherman as the Cat. In 2003, a live-action film adaptation was released, starring Mike Myers as the Cat. Boxoffice.com reports that the film grossed $133,960,541 worldwide on an estimated $109 million budget. In 2012, following the financial success of "The Lorax", the animated film adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book of the same name, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment announced plans to produce a CGI adaptation of "The Cat in the Hat". Rob Lieber was set to write the
The Cat in the Hat "My Hassle With the First Grade Language", he also told a story of the "three excruciatingly painful weeks" in which he worked on a story about a King Cat and a Queen Cat. However, "queen" was not on the word list, nor did his first grade nephew, Norval, recognize it. So Geisel returned to the work but could then think only of words that started with the letter "q", which did not appear in any word on the list. He then had a similar fascination with the letter "z", which also did not appear in any word on the list.