a breif review of Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure.

Let me start off with one sentiment... god motherfuckin damn. This movie is bizarre asf. Like already before the real weird stuff happens, these two dancing toys in Marcella's room are enough nightmare fuel to keep me awake for days.

Seriously, look at these things.

Anyway, the actual movie. We start off with a live-action sequence of a litter girl named Marcella (as in Marcella Gruelle, the daughter of Johnny Gruelle, the author of the original Raggedy Ann books) coming home from school, carrying her Raggedy Ann doll alongside her. She walks into her playroom, and puts little Raggedy Ann on the chair, telling her to watch over the playroom while she's gone. When Marcella closes the door, the scene crossfades from live-action to animation and Ann (as well as the other toys) come to life and socialize. They ask Ann how her day was, this leads to the first song of the film (and trust me when I say this, it is far far far from the last.)

As the toys fantasize about seeing the outside world, they remember that its Marcella's 7th birthday and find a large box containing her present. One of the toys (I forget his name so I'm just gonna call him Luigi) points out that there's a set of feet coming out from underneath it. Ann notices how similar the feet are to her own and realizes it must be someone... And this my friends, is when the best character in the film is introduced... Raggedy Andy.

Andy is rather upset about being crushed by a large heavy box (I mean who wouldn't be) and was apparently doing push-ups when it happened (because of course he was.) But we don't see much of him for now because it then cuts to those disgusting, vile, ungodly singing twins asking what's in the box, which Andy claims is probably something dumb. The toys stack on top of eachother in a "human ladder" type situation so that Ann can read what the label says, a French doll. This fact angers Andy so much that he breaks into song about how much he hates girls.

Marcella returns to the room, causing all the toys to go limp again, and unboxes her new doll (named Babette) and puts her in bed and leaves the room again. The toys introduce themselves to Babette, though she seems rather displeased about the whole situation (then again, if I was packaged up and sent overseas to some random little girl, I'd be a lil off-my-rocker too.) When she asks Ann to introduce herself, Ann does what any sane person would do and obviously starts a jazzy ragtime song that never introduces a thing about her. This is back-to-back followed by Babette singing about how much her life sucks. While this is happening, a pirate captain in a snow globe is watching the toys, envious of their freedom. When he lays eyes on Babette, however, he just gets rather... erm... excited about her arrival, believing that his day has finally come. He asks the coocoo-clock bird (which I didn't think counted as a "toy" per se but whatevs) to get the other's attention. The bird grabs Ann and carries her up to the shelf where Captain's snow globe is being held (he doesn't have an actual name btw). He uses his beard to spell out S.O.S., which gets Ann to rally all the toys together to help him. Eventually Luigi from earlier agrees and uses a glass cutter and hammer to cut a hole in the glass, freeing the captain and his ship.

Babette is kidnapped by the Captain and, with Ann feeling like its all her fault and Andy wanting to protect his sister, the main duo set off on their quest. This is when shit takes a full 180. While the playroom had its fair share of oddities, the woods feel like an acid trip incarnated. not that i would know what an acid trip is like...

We start off with a sweet enough scene, Ann and Andy being there for each other in an admittedly cute song number. But then they meet the camel with wrinkled knees (yes, thats his name.) He introduces himself by saying he was "following his caravan" which he says is a bunch of camels in the sky, which Andy immediately calls out as crazy. It doesn't help that the camel's "I am" song is about how hopeless he is in life (he says hes nothing but "low-down, saggy, and blue), the caravan is always paired by an hauntingly heavenly choir, and the camel literally runs off a cliff trying to follow them... yeah, the implications are pretty clear. The reason he is so depressed is because he used to have a nice family, with a good owner, but at some point he was thrown out and has been all alone ever since. But where they go after he swan-dives off the cliff (with the ragdolls on his back btw) is where the true insanity of this movie comes into play.

The trio find themselves in a sticky yet apparently very delicious goo (I adore Ann and Andy's reactions and they give me life and I don't question how the hell they can eat despite being toys), but this goo is actually a living creature named "the Greedy," I bet you can guess what his main trait is.