The Cat in the Hat (film) with some critics, stating that it should have instead been rated PG-13 in relation to its high amount of adult content. Leonard Maltin in his Movie Guide gave it one and a half stars out of four saying that the "Brightly colored adaptation of the beloved rhyming book for young children is a betrayal of everything Dr. Seuss ever stood for, injecting potty humor and adult (wink-wink) jokes into a mixture of heavy-handed slapstick and silliness." Maltin also said that the film's official title which included "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat" was "an official insult". Conversely, "Variety" praised
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.