Raggedy Ann & Andy – An Unconventional Feature

For those of you unaware, Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy had quite a few animated products to their name. They had an animated tv series. They had multiple animated shorts spanning multiple decades, one of which was directed by Chuck Jones. But more importantly, they had a feature film, directed and lead animated by Richard Williams, the directing animator of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  It was called, Raggedy Ann & Andy – A Musical Adventure. A strange title, and a unique direction to go for a film at the time, to be sure. But now you ask, is it any good? Well, strangely enough, it might not seem so from the outset.

The film has unfortunately fallen victim to the fate of many big-budget, experimental, or lovingly-crafted animation projects that practically littered the 1970s and 80s. Films like Twice Upon a Time, Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, Felix the Cat the Movie, Lensman, and Animalympics, all remain locked away in VHS tapes with ever increasing price-tags, because no one wants to bother licensing them to DVDs, or even blu-rays for the sake of modern fan consumption. Whereas films like Rock & Rule, Wizards, The Chipmunk Adventure, Little Nemo – Adventures in Slumberland, and most recently Robot Carnival, have been far more lucky to see the light of day on modern media. And thankfully, they’ve also been presented in the best way possible by the right people. The Raggedy Ann film, however, falls under the former category.

All that exists are some fleeting VHS copies in two variations, which periodically show up on Ebay. The film does have a soundtrack album, but that’s even harder to find. A few posters show up as well. Yet unlike a some films which had minor DVD releases in foreign countries, Raggedy Ann has nothing. Zilch, Nadda. It has forever been banished away from the public eye, never to be viewed in pristine quality again, and there’s no clear reason why. Because from the looks of things, this movie should be held up as an example of animation of the highest order, based upon what one can glean from the Youtube uploads.

Yes folks, thankfully one can still sit down to this film through the magic of Youtube, as a version of it almost always exists somewhere out there, usually taken from the rare Laser-disk print of the film. And after sitting down to view this musical romp for myself for the first time, I can honestly say that Raggedy Ann & Andy – A Musical Adventure… is not half bad.

Maybe it’s just me–and that could very well be the case–but I actually found this to be a truly charming piece of animation history. And it’s charming for a few good reasons.

1. I like the design of the whole picture.

The movie works a little like the original “Winnie the Pooh” films by Disney. It starts out in a little girl’s room, in live-action, and then transitions into an animated world to make the toys and dolls come to life. Which means this is also a Proto-“Toy Story” kind of film. Then again, there were tons of living-toy stories, cartoons, and movies throughout the last century. But I like the way they did it here none-the-less.

2. The animation on Raggedy Ann (as well as Andy) is unbelievably cute.

I just love her eyes, the way her mouth moves, her floppy body and her poofy outfit. It’s just such an adorable character from both the point of her being a doll and from the point of her being a very likable and personable character, who is often clumsy, but yet embraces her clumsiness as something to be proud of.

The animators did a masterful job presenting her and her brother’s character with weight, a sense of inertia, and a flare for the expressive. The more expressive animation is, the more engaging it can prove for the audience. And there is no end to how expressive or how engaging these characters can be. Almost every moment I just wanted to hug them both so much because you can literally feel the softness in their cloth and cotton. And that is by no means “easy” to do with 2D drawings.

3. Some of the songs are quite wonderful.

Granted there are a CRAP TON of them, lasting 3 minutes each and roughly coming in every other 5 minutes, one after another. But a few are fairly tolerable, leading to the side of average. One in particular being the song “Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers,” which happens while Raggedy and Andrew are walking through the dark forest on their way to save Babette: a brand-new French Doll that arrived for the little girl (who owns all the toys), for her birthday.

Now this song is nice because it’s a true and honest song; showing the love and faithfulness that Andrew has for his sister: which I believe to be a very sweet sentiment, and something which is thankfully very true of the characters we see before us. Enough is established between these two from their opening lines that we can accept and even empathize with these two on a sentimental emotional level. I too have a lot of love for my sister. We certainly don’t get along as well as Raggedy and Andrew, but we have our moments, and so I am able to connect with this song.

I also appreciate “Candy Hearts…” because it’s one of the only songs that doesn’t sound bad “vocally.” The voice actress for Raggedy; while having a very unique, sweet, and child-like speaking voice (kind of a Tom-boyish, Rainbow Dash sort of sound), does not have the best of singing voices. Although, it never feels like it goes against the character. Her singing voice sounds rough, because the character herself can’t sing very well, and so it kind of works. The actor playing Andrew, however, has a very strong and professional singing voice, because he’s played by an actor who’s been trained in the art. And so when these two sing “Candy Hearts…” together, you can get past Raggedy’s short comings and just revel in their family bond.

The other song that is marginally tolerable is Raggedy Andrew’s solo song, entitled “I’m No Girl’s Toy:” which is interestingly styled as a 1940s jazz hit. He hits all his notes well. The song has a good tempo and a good tune. A pretty successful early number.

The rest of the songs, on the other hand, either last too long, are overly generic (utilizing every single cliche word in the song writer’s dictionary), and/or are just badly sung. All in all, it’s once again a charming aspect when considered as a whole.

The visuals for this film are quite unique, and a little jarring; going from pasty yet well defined bedroom locale to a spooky high contrast forest, and then into a world of crazy laughing nutballs where there’s nothing but empty blackness. The spatial representation of sky, ground, and any discernible walls are never the same throughout the film.

Oh! sorry for sounding a little too technical there, but it’s all quite true. The backgrounds are very inconsistent with each other, and you never quite know where you’re going, or better yet, where they’re going.

At one point we’re in the middle of a forest, then we somehow end up in a Candy Land. But you never notice because the backgrounds are so lightly painted and all in blue-tones. You have to look real hard to actually tell “oh, there are candy-canes and ice-cream cones there!” But the fact that we are in a candy land is quickly made apparent when the characters fall into a gelatinous pit full of candy and sludge. It’s…honestly one of the more disgusting things I’ve seen if film. I’d give props to the animator who had to create the constantly shape-shifting create that is “The Greedy;” a large amorphous blob man that is constantly eating…well…himself, and really anything that falls into him from the Candy Land up above. His song is one of the bad ones.

One interesting thing to note, is that if you are familiar with that Top 11 episode of the Nostalgia Critic that I mentioned earlier, you probably also know that Richard Williams is the guy that directed this movie, and he also directed “The Thief and the Cobbler;” something else the Nostalgia Critic reviewed. Well it turns out that while I was watching the second half of “Raggedy Ann and Andy…” a sequence popped up where the siblings and their blue camel friend are sliding around on an ever winding spiral stair-case, while being chased by a wacky knight. If you had recently seen either the movie or the review of “The Thief and the Cobbler,” you should recognize this scene because it’s almost the exact same animation that was used in a scene where the Cobbler chases the Thief in the palace along giant winding stair-cases. There are some differences though, the version in the Cobbler film is much more dynamic and exciting, while the version in Raggedy Ann is more stiff and stilted; leading me to believe that Richard Williams took the animation from Raggedy and simply redid some of it to improve it, kept other parts, and then inserted it into his own film to save some effort.

So after watching this film once, for the first time ever, I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself, and had a few laughs; for the good and the bad about this film. Like I said, it is charming, if you can pick up on what I thought was charming about it.

And if I were to put it on a 1/10 scale, I’d give it a 7 for good honest effort.

This is also one of the only films in history where the Animators are topped billed in the opening credits instead of any of the actors. Not even the voice actress of Raggedy or Andrew are mentioned in the opening credits. And each credit is carefully laid out in specially designed text and artwork to show who animated what characters. Quite a strange way to open a movie of this type.

Anyways, if you haven’t seen this movie, look around and check it out when you can. I promise, if you are a student of animation, you will get a retro high from watching this gem from the late 70s.

Next up, I’m going to talk about 1966’s “The Yellow Submarine”

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