Saturday, August 16, 2008

"what's in the box? what's in the box? woah, woah!"

while googling for some background entertainment, to my extreme surprise & delight, i came across the full version of one of my childhood favorite movies: raggedy ann & andy: a musical adventure.

this movie played frequently on the disney channel or nickelodeon (i don't remember which, but as kids, we only watched those two channels), & i'm fairly certain that my brother & i watched every showing. evidence of our enthusasim is captured in footage somewhere in my parents' home-video collection: an embarrassing/cute clip of my brother & me doing the wo-wo twins' song-&-dance number.


it being 19-20 years since last viewed, i couldn't recall the storyline, only fuzzy images of characters & scenes. as i watched it though, i realized that the makers of toy story seemed to have borrowed quite a bit from the rag-doll twins...a new doll on the owner-child's birthday; toys escaping to the outside world via window; the despair of being a toy w/out an owner to love him/her...and catchy tunes.

i was worried that, being older, i wouldn't enjoy the movie as much as i did as a child. thankfully, unlike the adventures of
milo & otis (have you tried watching this again!?! the animals are absolutely adorable, but you can only take about 5 minutes 'til you're done ooo-ing & aww-ing over the animals), the escapades of ann & andy didn't bore me now that i'm all "growed up".

the entertainment is due to richard williams (
who framed roger rabbit) & joe raposo (sesame street, electric company). animation, directed & overseen by williams, is well done. the music & lyrics, by raposo, are smart, catchy, and appropriately adorable (no ear bleeding).

there are several scenes which the audio-visual combination creates a creepy, trippy vibe that the stoner set would enjoy in their own way. for instance, when the twins meet the greedy:

if you'd like to watch the movie in it's entirety, you can view it here.

who would have thought this much amusement would come from a hand-made rag doll?

1 comment:

momo said...

i found a new milo & otis dvd at half price books in cap hill and bought it for my nephew, remembering the many times i watched it & how awesome it was. it's totally a different experience watching it now. not only was it pretty boring (especially the english narration dude) but they put the animals in all these precarious situations. this was before CG. pugs fighting live bear cubs. kittens in a wooden box going through whitewater and over a waterfall (for real??). at that point i stopped watching because i couldn't stop thinking about how many orange cats & baby pugs they must have gone through to film it...