Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure - Movie Review (Part 3)

Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure (Part 3)

Welcome back my beautiful fairies, it's about time we return to the toybox with Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure. The slow pace at the beginning was saved only by its songs and charming characters, but now that the plot is really moving, the madness can begin! Let's not waste any time in getting to it.

After the song "Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers", the sentimental sweetness keeps coming, as we’re introduced to The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees, voiced by Fred Stuthman- who wasn’t an actor at all. Composer Joe Raposo simply noticed Stuthman from the studio's demo room due to his similarity to The Camel and asked him to read the script and sing a song. And because of that, The Camel found his voice. The Camel’s main animator was famous Disney animator Art Babbitt, who said he divided the design of the character into three personalities: a "pretty dumb" back end, a "little bit smarter" front end, and a head. And lastly, The Camel was actually inspired by a real camel toy that Johnny Gruelle bought for his two sons Dick and Worth (yes, those were their names). The boys ended up playing with the camel so much that the rods in its legs started to poke out of the fabric, so Johnny removed the metal rods due to fearing injury. This caused the camel’s legs to lose their stiffness, especially in its knees. He ended up being inspired by this toy and put it as a character in his comic books, as The Camel first appeared in the self-titled story Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees in 1924.  

Fred Stuthman next to concept art of The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees.

In the movie, The Camel used to be owned by a little boy, but ever since he was thrown out by the boy’s mother for being so worn, he’s on a personal mission to find his 'real' camel family. The Camel is probably one of the more interesting characters in the movie, as he’s so desperately lonely that he starts seeing camels dancing in the sky and hopelessly chasing after them, thinking they’re his family. This character could’ve been pretty cliché, with his standard toy backstory of being thrown away, but something about the way The Camel moves, the music, and the general delivery of both the dialogue and acting makes what could’ve been a predictable scene genuinely sympathetic. It's amazing how the act of combining character-driven animation, down-to-earth voice acting, and moody atmosphere can make such simple dialogue feel all the more rich.

The Camel: “My legs, you know. They’re not what they used to be. I had real sticks in them once. Then, I… I used to have a lot of real things once. But things are sure different now.”

Not to mention, he has another beautiful song for us.

"Blue" from Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure.

“Blue” is definitely one of my favorite songs in the movie. It’s a melancholy banjo ballad about sadness and loneliness, and for a movie as upbeat and childlike as this one, I appreciate having a song about the difficulty of remaining positive in sad situations. It makes the song unique in this movie’s line up. Not to mention the beautiful blue backgrounds in this number are some of the most elegant in the whole film. The melody is very soothing and gloomy while still keeping that whimsical edge, and The Camel's singing has the same humble imperfection that made Ann's voice so charming. The lyrics may be simple, but they make you really care for this saggy old stuffie. Lyrics with references to things like, "The smell of sweet vanilla livin' blows in every breath of air", really keep the song endearing yet still depressing. 

It also helps both perfectly detail the Camel’s character and establish his role in the greater themes of the film, that being the recurring theme of true happiness. The Camel’s delusions obviously represent his desire for a family, to not be alone. It would be sad enough if this was his entire backstory, but the movie does establish he was a toy belonging to a kid named Sam before being thrown out by Sam's mother when his knees broke. The camels in the sky aren’t representing actual camels: they’re representing the lost love The Camel wants to recapture. The camels in his hallucinations are cartoony, but they’re obviously drawn more as animals than toys. The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees isn’t a camel, he’s a toy, and wants to be loved as a toy. The camels he envisions are representative of the idea of being loved by a child or recapturing the love of a family of his own. The Camel is so hyper-focused on chasing a fantasized family that he doesn’t even realize when he has a real family in Ann and Andy, who were already willing to take him to Marcella’s nursery shortly after they heard his song. But despite his dream being literally handed to him by the protagonists, The Camel has only one unchanging idea on what his family is or should be. He's quite literally blind to the people surrounding him. The Camel’s character arc is learning that, while it’s not the specific family he dreamt about, the toys truly love him as their own and he ends up finding family in an unexpected place.

I guess I should also discuss Ann and Andy, but they don’t really have character arcs, nor do they really need to. Ann and Andy are static protagonists who don’t really grow or change throughout the course of the movie, usually acting as a catalysis for the other characters to develop, rather than getting development themselves. This doesn’t mean Ann and Andy are boring. They have defined personalities and their gentle demeanors that warm up all the other characters are infectiously endearing. Them being their lovable selves often inspires others or makes others show their true colors as well. I don’t think writing static characters is objectively lazy as long as you know how to keep them likable and know how to play to their strengths within the story and themes, which I think Ann and Andy are good examples of. In terms of the themes, Ann represents being happy and grateful for where you are in life, and wishing to bring that happiness to others. She is simple, but she embodies the absolute best of a doll: sweet but humble, with the goal of making the lives of others brighter in small but meaningful ways. Andy is there to fulfill a similar role, someone who is willing to go through heck and back for the ones he loves, as well as providing more spice in contrast to Ann’s sugar so the movie doesn’t become too saccharine. They make a perfect balance.

Don't start drawing lines now. It gets worse.

In a vain effort to chase after his family, The Camel ends up careening the dolls down the endless abyss and smack dab into a pit of melted taffy. I don’t know if this was before or after the drugs started kickin' in, because from here on out, this film abandons any sense of disbelief. This is point of no return for this film.

This living cavern of candy is The Greedy, voiced by late Joe Silver and primarily animated by the late Emery Hawkins (famous for his work on Looney Tunes shorts, such as Hillbilly Hare and Rabbit of Seville). The Greedy's scenes were personal favorites of all the animators. The sequence was actually going to be trimmed down in production, but the artists put so much time and effort into it that they didn’t want a second wasted. And I can see why! This sequence is as ominous as it is odd; a bizarre, unavoidable blend of honey and horror baked in Hell. Every detail and every frame, each drip of cookie dough down to the last gobble of gumdrops, is so lusciously drawn; the buttery flow and thick weight of the entire character is nothing short of awe-inspiring. The constant reshaping of The Greedy himself is an animation tour de force. And his character isn’t just fantastically fearsome to look upon, but The Greedy also fits well with the themes of this movie. The Greedy’s song, “I Never Get Enough”, expresses his loneliness and his struggle of, no matter how many meaningless treats and treasures he hoards, never truly feeling complete.

"I Never Get Enough" from Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure.

Not only is the animation legendary, but the song itself is very catchy, oozing with atmosphere and charm with some delicious lyrics. But the main course of this song is the thematic exploration. The Greedy is so close to learning the lesson about true happiness, how meaningful connections are more valuable than worthless desserts and other possessions, as he recognizes the potential for friendship with the toys and is as polite as a marzipan monster can be when they land into his taffy pit. The Greedy asks the toys for help in finding a “sweetheart,” someone who can hopefully bring him happiness. But unfortunately, he means this literally and attempts to cut open Raggedy Ann when he learns that she has a candy heart inside. 

The escape sequence with The Greedy is as bizarre as it is intense; the surreal, borderline nightmarish visuals make the sequence a literal treat... but I honestly prefer the sad underlying tone of the sequence. The Greedy is self-aware enough to realize his unhappiness is due to a sense of not being fulfilled in life, but his mistake is attempting to find happiness by doing the same thing over and over again and mistaking the idea of "fullness in life" for literal fullness, thus solves all his problems by drowning himself in sugar. He’ll never feel full because his problem isn’t hunger, but loneliness, and his gluttony and lack of deeper self-reflection ends up dooming him to a life alone; back to eating, doing the same thing over again and expecting it to be different… the definition of insanity.

But the bad guys aren’t done with the dolls yet, as the dolls are met with the unfortunate fate of interacting with the knight, Sir Leonard Looney (The Looney Knight), voiced by the late Alan Sues. (He was another character from 1924's Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees.)

Unlike the themes of the Greedy, where his tale was a cautionary one of gluttony and repetition and filling up deeper needs with shallow trinkets, I think The Looney Knight perfectly if simply represents a toxic relationship. The knight is constantly claiming to be helping the dolls, calling them his friends and whatnot, when all he’s doing is torturing them for his own amusement. Wasting their time, making fools out of them, and even beating them up. He bluntly sums up his character with one response to Ann: "Why are you doing all this to us?" "It’s easy!"

And all of this creepy false affection is also summed up in an inharmonious, downright unsettling song literally called "I Love You".

"I Love You" from Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure.

If this creepy, discordant melody doesn’t summarize the false joy of schadenfreude, I don’t know what else does. Of course, the jester in armor isn’t a true friend at all, and our heroes make a run for it. Unfortunately, the trio end up in the land where all practical jokes are born: Looney Land. And the entirey of Looney Land is just another horrifying yet brilliantly-animated sequence, maybe even more technically impressive than The Greedy. It's a purely voiceless and black-and-white homage to practical illusions, a tribute to the art of animation itself, full of trippy perspective trickery and constantly morphing infinite hallways and staircases. I love all the insane perspective shots, the quick pacing, and the homage to classical animation and their artists, such as the likes of Windsor McKay. In fact, a similar sequence was used in Richard Williams’s later film, The Thief and the Cobbler.

 

The trio find themselves back in color, but also in the crazy court of King Koo Koo, voiced by the late Marty Brill. (Fun fact: Marty was on the Dick van Dyke Show, and Dick van Dyke was actually considered for the part of Raggedy Andy during the time this film was envisioned as a live-action production.) I do like the king’s character design. His droopy mustache and big nose reminds me a lot of how René Goscinny drew his iconic comic book characters. The king, the final of our straight-up villains, represents the most blatantly obvious anti-happiness philosophy in the movie: he’s a bully.

The king is a deeply miserable character forced to rule over braindead and endlessly-giggling citizens who cannot be ruled and who never stop annoying him. That, and his self-awareness over his meager size, lead into a frankly forgettable song about his desire to feel big. The song is called "It's Not Easy Being King" and no video of this song played alongside the movie's original animation seems to exist online. While the song isn’t great, it is important for establishing the king’s motivations. Surface-wise, he wants to be physically tall. But deeper than that, it's more of that he wants to feel powerful. He may be a king, but he has zero power over his subjects and his kingdom is a literal joke, even The Looney Knight seems to think he’s pathetic. That would make King Koo Koo sympathetic, if not for the fact that he himself only can gain a fleeting sense of growth and laughter at the misery of others. The tiny king can grow a part of himself in size as long as he can laugh. And the only way he can laugh is through looking at someone else's misery.

Just like real bullies, The King wants to be bigger than everyone else through domination, intimidation, and wrath. None of which lead to true power or even respect, but only authoritarian control and agony. Not to mention his cruelty to even those polite to him, such as the dolls. In fact, he ends up forcing Andy to be his personal jester. The king laughs so hard at Andy's misery that he keeps inflating and deflating random parts of his body like Sonic the Hedgehog fetish fuel on DeviantArt. I only have one meme to say in response to that... 

The King only wants to keep the trio around to use them, in this case to literally inflate his ego. He can only grow (or feel) big when he laughs at the expense of others misfortunes. But in the end, he always shrinks back down because joy based on misery and bullying never lasts because it’s not genuine joy. As Ann herself says, “Making fun of other people never made anybody bigger than anybody else.” It’s a pretty brilliant if unsubtle and bizarre metaphor. And The King can find a way to stay large permanently if only he obtains the ultimate fit of laughter. And if Ann and Andy don’t get out of there, they’re doomed to turn into the king’s brainless and nonsensical subjects if King Koo Koo declares them unfunny, joining his heckling hivemind. It's an insanely dark and disturbing concept they kind of glance over, blatantly stating that the king's idiot subjects were either sentient toys that came before Ann and Andy or (worse) living creatures drained of all individuality and thought, malformed into demented Jack-in-the-Boxes for all eternity. Who were these people before they got cursed into these disfigured, juvenile creatures?

 

The worst part is the implication that Sir Leonard Looney has been driven insane by seeing all of the citizens and visitors of Looney Land turned into mindless toybox abominations (some of them might've actually been his friends) and is now in constant fear that he'll be next if he doesn't stay constantly funny for The King.

The dolls trick everyone into a cream pie fight, using their fits of laughter and stupidity to their advantage to find an escape route and flee towards the seashore outside. They conveniently see the pirate ship that stole Babette away in the distance. The dolls find the world's most terrifying boat and begin their ocean voyage to follow the pirate ship, but the king, who has now noticed their absence, isn’t done with them yet.

The ending to this looney movie approaches, but will the ending be as wild and weird as the rest of the film? We'll end this musical adventure next week with Your Clairy Godmother.