Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (7/9)

Largely directed by Richard Williams (until the budget very obviously ran out), this is by no means a great film - in fact it's rather a mess - but one I watched often as a kid. Williams of course went on to do do much bigger things (The Thief and the Cobbler, Roger Rabbit).

This is my own restoration from a 35mm print provided by collector KA. Transfer to video was funded by Patrick McCart and the wonderful members of the orangecow.org forum. The film is not on DVD. A few seconds here and there at the beginning of the film were restored from VHS.

The music is by Joe Raposo, best known for doing delightful work on Sesame Street, but Joe had a bit too much control over the product in this case, and there are simply too many songs, and not enough script.

It's also a very strange and surreal film, which is only exacerbated by the fact that beautiful animation, such as Art Babbit's Camel With the Wrinkled Knees, and Williams' animation of Grandpa and "No Girl's Toy", sits alongside animation of often much lesser quality, making it seem a hodgepodge. This film seemed to catch certain fine animators at the end of their careers, and most others at the beginning of their careers- some went on to do amazing things.

This film played frequently on The Disney Channel back in the day and has lodged in the memories of many a child of the 80s.

However, it's never been seen on video in its original widescreen Cinemascope format, which really helps you appreciate the detail in some of the animation (and the lack of detail in other animation). It's certainly one of the major animated films of the 1970s and, I think, worth watching and remembering.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• raggedy
• ann
• and
• andy
• musical
• adventure
• camel
• thief
• the
• cobbler
• recobbled
• cut
• who
• framed
• roger
• rabbit
• richard
• williams
• tissa
• david
• candy
• hearts
• paper
• flowers
• line
• pencil
• test
• animation
• animated
• art
• babbit

[hell5309]

"Woman is FICKLE!"

You kidnapped her out of her bed, you tied her up and tried to marry her against her will. What did you expect, you jackass?!

[KayneArcheron]

hah... I get it now.

King Koo-Koo: a man who makes other people the butt of a joke to make himself grow.

KKK: a group that stalked, harrassed, and killed people different from themselves to make themselves feel superior.

Either I'm looking way too far into this, or this movie is DEEP son.

[katinaanimator]

Boy, that was a stretch to stick a song with the Captain singing to his parrot.

[mew15845]

Did he say the greatest hitler?! e0o

[BelatedCommiseration]

@ideitbawx To be honest...coming to this movie without any nostalgia value attached because I have only seen it recently...I would say it was all of the above! Because there are parts which are really interesting and detailed and then others which just seem thown together, probably because this film infamously went over budget and there were extreme creative differences behind the scenes, so the end product is very uneven.

[ideitbawx]

"it's fantastic!"

"it's creepy!"

"it's deep!"

"it's retarded!"

"it's random!"

"it's charming!"

I've never seen people so divided about a movie in my life!

[formerfreak]

wait wait wait, your telling me the one who got kidnapped, stole the captians ship and crew and is now sailing to paris? What happened to the stero type of the french giving up all the time?

[StevetheEmperor]

Some great improv at 02:09.

[hell5309]

"When my voyage ends, and one last time I sail to sea..."

A metaphor for death, perhaps?

[CaptainGoofysstash]

7:15 lol, reminds me exactly of back around 91 or so when Madonna performed at the MTV Awards dressed as Marie Antoinette. ;D

[OurGangFan]

@KayneArcheron I think that was a metaphorical fantasy

[VanOsdel0123]

Do you know that King Koo-Koo is voiced by Marty Brill and the Looney Knight is voiced by Alan Sues?