You know, over-the-top movies like Cat In The Cat, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, et. al do lend themselves out as being great vehicles for film scoring. You always find within them the usual mysteries, comedies, tragedies, farces, horrors, melodramas, and so forth. Would make for great listening because the music would be varied - adagio and andante in some places, allegro and furioso in others. The problem with The Cat In The Hat score is that ALL of these varied dynamics and tempo are within EACH piece of music. This creates a jolting listening experience because it seems like the musics were just strung together from 1 minute pieces lying around. You know, just stitch them together and maybe they'll fit. Hah! They don't. The reason I'm not only giving this score 1 star is because, without a doubt, young Newman as gifted composer as his older brother and famous cousin. This stitching together of materials is probably the studio's doing. There is no way young Newman could have constructed pieces like these. If he did it was because he had an eye towards the jumpy incoherent film itself. As far as listening to the score on its own merits - it doesn't work.