History Film / TheCatInTheHat

* CreditCardPlot: At one point, Larry's TV set gets repossessed due to missing a payment (and there was a mention he wrote a bad check for it). It doesn't help that the credit card he tried to pay for it had expired.

** Larry claims he has to go to a meeting, and heads for his car. As Joan drives off, Larry then exits his car onto his driveway and walks into his house. And what do you know, later turns out he's a disgusting unemployed slob.

* HateSink: Lawrence "Larry" Quinn is a repulsive bum and con man who deceives Joan Walden into thinking that he's highly-successful so that she'll go out with him. When Joan's troublemaking son Conrad shows such intense dislike for him that he wants him out of the way, Quinn [[RightForTheWrongReasons insists Conrad be sent to a military school]] and then [[SmugSnake smugly taunts him]] about it privately only to [[FauxAffablyEvil pretend to be friendly again right after]]. Losing things in his house to repo men and wanting to leech off Joan by marrying her, Quinn also chases the kids down in order to plan for both Conrad and now Sally too to be sent away, only ultimately stopped by The Cat's interference—and Quinn's own allergic reaction to him—in the end.

** Larry Quinn is a greedy, pompous, and lazy man who doesn't show Joan this side at all because he wants to marry her for her money. He does reveal his true colors to her in the end.

** There's a chance he wasn't always lower-class, however, as when he's in his house it's revealed he has won multiple trophies, which coupled with his pompous, self-serving nature make it likely that he was successful when he was younger before his laziness, greed, and arrogance got to him.

* MockMillionaire: Downplayed with Larry. He pretends to be rich and successful because he knows Joan wouldn't like his true nature.

* SmugSnake: Larry has a very inflated ego that leads to him acting pompous and snobbish towards the Walden kids.

''The Cat in the Hat'' is a 2003 film adaptation to [[Literature/TheCatInTheHat the book of the same name]], with the titular character portrayed by Creator/MikeMyers and directed by Bo Welch. This particular adaptation of the book is infamous among Dr. Seuss fans mainly due in part to its rather... interesting humor.

* DisappointedInYou: Joan doesn't outright tell Conrad that she's disappointed in him because she can't trust him to do the right thing, but that implication certainly is there. Although Conrad tries to hide his pain and anger, you can tell he's rather sad... and this is what takes place.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: A downplayed example with Joan. After getting into an argument with Conrad, she essentially said she wished she had a different son. She immediately regrets her words and contemplates going back in the house to apologize. However, since she was worried about getting the party ready, she backed out of it.

* BalloonBelly: Larry's pops out while he's in his house.

* AccidentalMisnaming: Cat keeps getting Conrad's name wrong. Even on the contract he's noted "(AKA Gorman)", which isn't even close to his name. Near the end, he gets Sally's name wrong once as well, calling her Suzie.

** The Cat shilling Universal Studios with a wink and a "Cha-ching!" harks back to the ProductPlacement scene in ''Film/WaynesWorld''.

** The Cat in the Hat in the book and other Seuss incarnations is mischevious, but he's still a friendly feline with nothing but the best of intentions. ''This'' version of the Cat is a perverted, foul-mouthed (though not entirely), wisecracking {{Jerkass}}.
** Since Conrad and Sally didn’t really have any characterization in the book or the special and were just regular bored kids who wanted to have fun. Here, the former is a destructive delinquent and the latter is a sycophant control freak who apparently has no friends for petty reasons.
* AdvertisedExtra: Unlike in the original book, where the Fish served as the StraightMan to the Cat's antics, he barely serves a role in the movie once the "Fun, Fun, Fun" song number comes to a close. Doesn't stop the Fish from making numerous upfront appearances on movie flyers.

* AllAsiansKnowMartialArts: The Taiwanese Government that Mrs. Kwan watches on TV appears to compose of nothing but martial arts fighters.
* AmbitionIsEvil: Larry is ''incredibly'' determined to marry Joan for the opportunity to give himself an easier lifestyle, as well as get rid of her kids by sending them away. He starts acting callous and bossy towards Joan once his goals looked fruitful.

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Crate is in actuality a portal which links our world to [[WorldOfChaos his world]], [[NoodleIncident how or why this crate was made in the first place is never explained]] but we do see it was made in the Philippines although according to the cat "not this Philippines" jury is still out on [[ParallelUniverse what the hell]] [[MirrorWorld that's meant ]] [[EldritchLocation to imply.]]
* BalloonBelly: Larry's pops out in his house.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Larry sets himself up as an handsome, successful salesman, but is actually a lazy, unemployed slob with a big gut (which he conceals with a corset under his suit) and just wants to marry Joan for money to get himself out of debt. For the first part of the film, only Conrad sees Larry for the sleazy {{Jerkass}} that he really is. Later, him calling Sally a suck-up when he came to raid the family’s fridge gets her to realize what an unpleasant jerk he really is.

** Mrs. Kwan, the hopelessly narcoleptic babysitter is constantly abused by the Cat, the children and Thing One and Thing Two to levels that are just plain psychopathic. They even use her as a boat when the Cat's magic overruns the house. Not that she ever realizes that, mind you.

* ChekhovsGun: The contract that the children sign, guaranteeing them "all they fun they want" with no consequences. At the end of the film, the house is destroyed, the Cat has been chased away, and Conrad and Sally are waiting for their mother to arrive home and chastise them... only for the Cat to return, remind them of the contract, and fix everything.

* ChildishOlderSibling: Conrad and Sally represent opposite extremes of AllWorkVsAllPlay. Sally is an uptight control freak while her older brother, Conrad, is an immature rule breaker who doesn't think about the consequences of his actions. While both are portrayed as flawed, the film portrays Conrad as the bigger problem as his rule breaking puts their mother's job in jeopardy.

* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: In a spiritual sense. The Cat in the Hat, without question, differs from the Grinch in personality. The Grinch was a cynical, introverted hermit until his change of heart while the Cat is pretty extroverted and hedonistic. The Cat is also shown to be perverted when he was attracted to the photo of Joan and a female dancer in the rave, whist the Grinch was more discreet when he was around Martha May-Whovier. And as the Grinch was paired with Cindy Lou-Who, he wanted nothing to do with her at the start, even when he was forced to save her; during the Cat's time paired with Conrad and Sally, he sticks around and wants to bond with them, yet he brings little to their situation to help them, even when they tried to shut the crate towards the end, especially when Sally was almost sucked into the tornado.

* CrazyPrepared: ''Everything'' that happened in the film was planned in advance by the Cat, including Nevins being taken by Larry. Except chopping off his own tail; was purely an accident.

* DemotedToExtra: The Fish played a major role in the book. In the movie, he gets limited screen-time and is more of a running gag than an important character.

* RuderAndCruder: While the live-action ''Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'' was more careful about its adult humor and used them sporadically enough to avoid butchering the story, this film goes too far and abuses it to near-fatal levels, with its abundance of innuendo, mild swearing and toilet humor.

* KarmicButtMonkey: For most of the second half, Larry Quinn, the antagonist of the movie, is humiliated in various ways. In his final scene, he emerges covered in purple goo and finally shows his pathetic true self to Joan, who breaks up with him.

* [[OffToBoardingSchool Off to Military School]]: Larry apparently knows that Conrad knows what kind of a man he is and wants the boy sent off to Colonel Wilhelm Military Academy for Troubled Youth, which is about 8 hours away from home. Conrad is very much against this idea, especially since according to Larry, it is "like summer camp except with brutal forced marches and soul crushing discipline." Even Joan doesn't feel that it is right for Conrad.

** In a deleted scene, Joan would have been seen playing on Conrad's video game when she should be working.

->''"Why, I'm [[TitleDrop the Cat in the Hat]]!''

->''({{Beat}})''
->'' [[LeastRhymableWord 'Meline'...'key lime'...'turpentine?' I got nothing. I'm not so good with the rhyming. Not really, no.]]"''