Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (5/9)

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.