A Festival, for Seuss! : Celebration: Balboa Park tribute to the late author and illustrator of famed children’s books will be fun for children.

Theodor (Dr. Seuss) Geisel’s whimsical imagination transported three generations of children to magical destinations--the subatomic world of “Horton Hears a Who,” the Truffula Tree land of the Lorax, and the Grinch-plagued Whosville to name just a few.

On Sunday, the somewhat less magical Balboa Park will have its buildings and courtyards molded into a Seuss-like playground as host of “Sunday in the Park with Seuss,” a celebration to honor the late Geisel. The author died Sept. 24 at the age of 87 after a long series of illnesses.

The festivities will permeate the park. Seuss characters the Cat in the Hat, the Grinch and Bartholomew Cubbins will be prancing around and entertaining visitors. The San Diego Zoo will re-create the festive spirit of Seuss’ “If I Ran the Zoo” by admitting children free when accompanied by an adult and by decorating the elephant topiaries with a “Horton Hears a Who” theme. As an added attraction, park vendors will dispense bite-sized portions of “Green Eggs and Ham” to honor that popular Seuss book.

The gathering, sponsored by the City of San Diego, the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce and Balboa Park museums and institutions, promises to be a major spectacle for children of all ages. “Sunday in the Park with Seuss” will include a formal tribute from noon to 2 p.m. at the Organ Pavilion and a series of informal activities throughout the park from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“We could have 50,000 people in the park for this,” said Carolyn Wormser, the city’s special events administrator who helped organize the special activities. “It’s going to be very Dr. Seuss in nature. Very diverse, very creative, lots of imagination. And a lot of fun.”

The Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and Science Center, for example, will demonstrate experiments with “Oobleck,” the gooey substance featured in Seuss’ “Bartholomew and the Oobleck.”

“Children will be able to use all their senses in these experiments,” Wormser said. “Oobleck is this strange substance--something like silly putty--and the experiments will help children understand how they perceive things.

“Afterward, the kids can take a sample of the Oobleck substance home with them,” Wormser added with a laugh. “I’m not sure how the parents will respond to that.”

The Museum of Photographic Arts’ (MOPA) exhibit should be a bit less sticky. To commemorate the star-bellied stars of Seuss’ “The Sneeches,” MOPA will provide an elaborate machine that children can walk through. Kids will emerge from the device with stars on

their bellies.

Other highlights include:

* The San Diego Museum of Art will display a variety of exhibits featuring cats in honor of Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat.”

* The San Diego Natural History Museum will show the film version of Seuss’ book “The Lorax” at 11 a.m. and noon, and encourage children to draw scenes from the story.

* San Diego Junior Theatre will sponsor a face-painting exhibit, drama exercises and a reading of “Horton Hears a Who.”

The two-hour formal tribute, however, remains the centerpiece of Seuss Sunday.

“It’s going to be a very hometown tribute to a great man,” said Wally Schlotter, director of the San Diego Motion Picture Bureau. He produced the tribute portion of the celebration. “It won’t be too slick. The audience will be a part of the presentation. I think that’s the way it should be.”

In keeping with the Dr. Seuss theme, Schlotter elected to incorporate children into the tribute.

“Children sing most of the songs,” he said. “The celebrity is a 5-year-old Cosby kid, Raven Symone. And City Moves, a children’s dance group, will do a dance interpretation of the Dr. Seuss book ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go.’ ”

Other tribute highlights include a videotape of Jesse Jackson reading “Green Eggs and Ham” (it first appeared on NBC’s Saturday Night Live), a rhyming Charles Osgood eulogy, and the world premiere of a song titled “Seuss-Colored Glasses.”

Both Wormser and Schlotter commented that providing San Diego with the means to say “goodby” to Dr. Seuss has been a difficult but rewarding challenge.

“Ordinarily, we would have wanted six months to a year to produce this sort of event,” Schlotter said. “We had three weeks.”

Still, neither regrets undertaking the project.

“It’s fun to work on project like this because everyone comes together, and amazing things happen when there is this much energy,” Wormser said. “We formed a committee in one day, had a brainstorming session, everybody went off and came up with ideas, and then we put it all together.”

Generous contributions of goods and services helped make “Sunday in the Park with Seuss” possible.

“The outpouring of generosity is testament to this man’s wonderful talent,” Wormser said. “This event really evolved out of San Diego’s great love for Ted Geisel.”

The list of donations is impressive. Ted Turner’s Turner Broadcast Systems donated $10,000. American Airlines will fly Symone round-trip between New York and San Diego. The Old Globe Theatre is building and painting 8-foot representations of Dr. Seuss book covers to decorate the Organ Pavilion.

Pamela Phillips Oland, a Los Angeles lyricist, happily donated her time to pen the words to “Seuss-Colored Glasses.”

“The prospect of working on a song for a legend like Dr. Seuss was so thrilling to me,” Oland said. “He’s more than a legend. His work has a universal quality. This was a privilege for me.”

An excerpt from Oland’s lyrics reads:

I can be anything, anything, and so can you

When Seuss-colored glasses is what you look through.

“I wrote a song about the things he taught me,” Oland added.

To create a program Geisel would have been proud of, festival planners remained in close contact with Geisel’s widow, Audrey.

“I was called by (Chamber of Commerce President) Lee Grissom and told that the city was contemplating doing something in memory of its favorite son, and it would include all of Balboa Park,” Audrey Geisel said. “I’ve attended the meetings and watched this thing evolve. There were over 40 people at the first get-together in the Aerospace Museum board room. There were representatives on hand from all of the museums and institutions in the park. I was amazed to see all those people.

“I quickly realized we had to do something on a grand scale that would include everyone. I felt there was a need for a leave-taking for the kiddos, the mothers, the grandmothers, or whoever was interested. Anyone and everyone who wants to say goodby in any way will be able to.”

“Sunday in the Park with Seuss” will run from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday throughout Balboa Park. The formal tribute will begin at noon at the Organ Pavilion. For more information, call Balboa Park information at 239-0512.