As the story opens, it is too rainy and too cold to play outside, so a boy Conrad and his sister Sally sit bored and look out the window. Their mother, Joan Walden announces that she is ready to depart, then tells them to have fun and says she will return at 3:30 sharp. While their mother is out, they have no other choice but to think of something to do ("Nothing To Be Done"). The mysterious Cat in the Hat suddenly enters with a bump and fools around a bit. The family goldfish named Carlos K. Krinklebein orders him to leave but instead the Cat plays a game which he calls "Up, Up, Up, With a Fish", placing the fishbowl on top of a stack of bubbles. The children notice that the Cat is making the house a little untidy and the brother recalls their mother's projected return at 3:30. Noting their objections, the Cat bows to the voice of the majority and dejectedly states that he is going to
Siberia,
Russia. Immediately after leaving, however, the Cat bursts back in claiming that somebody stole his "
moss-covered three-handled family gredunza". The Cat accuses Krinklebein of being the thief and sings a ballad about the loss of his treasured keepsake ("Family Gredunza"). The Cat then leads the kids on a search for the missing gredunza using his method of ("Calculatus Eliminatus"), in which random numbers and letters are drawn anywhere the gredunza should be to mark that they have already checked there. This makes a mess of everything and Krinklebein once again orders the Cat to leave. Ostensibly to gain sympathy, the Cat sings a pessimistic song ("I'm a Punk") to convey his low self-esteem. After Krinklebein shows no sympathy, the Cat puts him to sleep by singing a lullaby ("Beautiful Kittenfish", in the melody of "Beautiful Dreamer"). Having made a miraculous recovery from his bout of depression, the Cat brings out Thing One and Thing Two to aid in the search for the gredunza, singing to the kids that they can find ("Anything Under the Sun") but instead of being productive, the Things play a variety of sports using Krinklebein's fishbowl, noting that with every house they visit, "there’s always some fish who doesn’t like fun". Frustrated, Krinklebein accuses the Cat of not being a real cat and his hat of not being a real hat. However, the Cat indignantly asserts his legitimacy by singing his name in several languages ("Cat, Hat"). The tune becomes so catchy that everyone, even Krinklebein, joins in and contributes, telling the Cat that in
Russian he is a "chapka in a shlyapa". As the song ends, a car horn is heard in the distance. Krinklebein spots the kids' mother on her way home. The Things get back into their box and disappear, then the Cat exits immediately after. With the house an extreme mess, the kids wonder how they will clean up the house in time. The Cat quickly returns, using a motorized vehicle to tidy things up in a jiffy. After cleaning the house, he departs, hinting that he may return someday ("Sweep Up the Memories"). Just as he departs through the back door, the mother walks in through the front door; she asks the kids how their day was and then tells them that she just saw a cat in a hat "going down the street with a moss-covered three-handled family gredunza". The exact identity of the object has never been revealed but this statement indicates that the gredunza was never really lost and the Cat simply wanted an excuse to have more fun. The two children look out the window much as they did at the beginning of the special and watch as the Cat walks off to his next adventure. == Cast ==