(Grand Rapids, MI, August 25, 2010)

PBS KIDS will bring the iconic Cat in the Hat to television for the first time as an animated series. THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT! will premiere on WGVU-TV on Monday, September 6th at 8:30am, and will air Monday – Friday at 8:30am and at 4:00pm and on Saturday’s at 7:30am. Award-winning actor Martin Short will voice The Cat in the Hat.
Developed for television by Portfolio Entertainment and Collingwood O’Hare Productions, the animated preschool series is based on Random House’s bestselling Beginner Book franchise, The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library. THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT! will offer viewers 40 half-hour episodes for the first season.

THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT! features six-year-old Sally and Nick, best friends and next door neighbors, who are transported on a magical journey to all corners of the globe to make natural science discoveries, with the Cat in the Hat as their guide. Along for the ride are the Cat’s two energetic helpers, the mop-headed zany duo: Thing One and Thing Two.

Sally and Nick embark with the Cat in his one-of-a-kind custom vehicle, the Thinga-ma-jigger, a quintessentially Seussian contraption that can sprout wings, pontoons, booster rockets, skis—just about anything! In the Thinga-ma-jigger, they can journey down to the bottom of the sea to observe the giant sea worms, zip over to the rain forest to find out how many animals make their home in the great Kapok tree, or shrink down to the size of a bee to visit a hive and discover how honey is made.

“Research tells us that children are natural scientists who develop ideas and concepts about their world as they explore it,” says Kate Klimo, Executive Director of Development for Random House Children’s Entertainment and Vice President and Publisher of Random House Children’s Books. “When it was published in 1957, Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat changed the way children learn to read and arguably improved the state of children’s literacy in America. It is our belief that this same Cat can turn his charismatic skills to promoting science literacy, which is of vital importance to young people today.”