Dr. Seuss on the Loose is an American animated musical television special, first airing on CBS on October 15, 1973, and was sponsored by Nestlé. The special is hosted by The Cat in the Hat, who introduces animated adaptations of the Dr. Seuss stories The Sneetches, The Zax and Green Eggs and Ham. Allan Sherman reprised his role as the voice of The Cat in the Hat from the 1971 television special. Dr. Seuss on the Loose was Allen Sherman's final project. He died a little over a month later on November 20, 1973 (10 days shy of his 49th birthday). The special became a popular annual repeat for most of the decade until its last CBS showing on July 12, 1979. The special aired in various countries in 1975, including ITV in England on January 1, and ABC-TV in Australia on September 21. The anthology was released as Green Eggs and Ham and Other Stories for a sing-along videocassette distributed by Fox Video and released in 1994 (later re-printed in 1997) and a Blu-ray deluxe edition released in 2012. Plot The Sneetches The first (and longest) story in the collection tells of a group of yellow bird-like creatures called the Sneetches, some of whom have a green star on their bellies. At the beginning of the story, Sneetches with stars discriminate against and shun those without, as shown by a star-bellied youngster being instructed by his parents, then going outside and ignoring a non-starred Sneetch saying a simple good morning. The star-bellied Sneetches sing a song about their greatness by having a party on the beach, where the unstarred Sneetches are excluded. An entrepreneur named Sylvester McMonkey McBean (calling himself the Fix-It-Up Chappie) appears and offers the Sneetches without stars the chance to get them with his Star-On machine, for three dollars. The treatment is instantly popular, but this angers the Star-bellied Sneetches, who have not only lost their special status, they cannot discriminate which Sneetch is which. McBean does not share the prejudice of the Sneetches, only caring that he has paying customers, and offers another machine called Star-Off, which removes stars for ten dollars. Soon Sneetches are running from one machine to the next. "...until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew whether this one was that one... or that one was this one... or which one was what one... or what one was who". This continues