Some Of Seinfeld’s Best Writers Are Responsible For One Of The Worst Movies Ever Made

Writing TV is a collaborative process, which often means that seeing a writer’s credit on top of a TV episode isn’t as strong an indicator of their writing style as you’d think. They may have written most of the script, sure, but a lot of what happens is often decided by the showrunner and the other staff writers. Throw in the general chaos that comes with trying to make a career in Hollywood, and the result is you sometimes get writers who veer off in a surprisingly different direction after a major project is finished. 

For example: Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer were all writers for the hit sitcom “Seinfeld,” which went on for nine seasons and became one of the most critically acclaimed and popular shows of all time. When the series wrapped up in 1998, did these writers continue writing for Emmy-nominated, boundary-pushing sitcoms? Well, sort of, but they also wrote for 2003’s “The Cat in the Hat,” starring Mike Myers as the titular Cat. The movie has a whopping 4.0 on IMDb, a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was considered a box office disappointment.

The movie was so poorly received, in fact, that it seems like its director, Bo Welch, was never allowed to direct a movie again. Since “Cat in the Hat” he’s only directed a handful of episodes for the fun Netflix show, “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” As NYT film critic A. O. Scott wrote at the time:

“First-time director Bo Welch has put together a vulgar, uninspired lump of poisoned eye candy that Universal has the temerity to call ”Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat.” It is nothing of the kind, despite voice-over narration that occasionally tries to imitate the cadences of Seussian verse and sets that sporadically evoke Seuss’s antic draftsmanship.”

The good news is that “The Cat in the Hat” was not the new normal for any of those “Seinfeld” screenwriters. Alec Berg would go on to do great work at the HBO series “Barry,” David Mandel would write for HBO’s “Veep,” Jeff Schaffer would write for FXX’s “Dave,” and all three of them would write for Larry David’s “Seinfeld” follow-up, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The Razzie-nominated “Cat in the Hat” was bad, but not quite bad enough to ruin their careers. The other good news is that, as time goes on, more people are starting to wonder if “The Cat in the Hat” was actually sort of good, maybe?