Now here's a film straight out of my childhood, my family used to taped; but it kind of got tapped over and losted over the years. Now I was fortunate to watch the whole film on youtube.com; I had love this wonderful film when I watched it as kid, and after watching again (online), I still do today. My favorite song from the movie is "Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers" (I will always remember that sweet song forever).

I was surprised when I looked at the opening credits (on who animated who),that some of the animators date back to 1930s (WOW! that's like 47 years).

Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy have more of a history in animation than one may give them credit for. First appearing in a Fleischer two-reel short by the name of “Raggedy Ann & Andy” before remerging in a bunch of shorts from Famous studios. Some have suggested that Fleischer may have had more long-term success in features if they had, instead of adapting Gulliver’s Travels, they had made a film with the rag-dolls. That was then, Ann and Andy would have to wait till the Seventies to star in their own feature film.

To all intents and purposes, this film was meant to make money quickly. Richard Williams wasn’t apologetic towards this goal, nor did he take much care over the project, outside of getting animators like Art Babbit to work on it. The reasons behind the need to make money was funding towards William’s ill-fated The Thief and the Cobbler: the reality is that this film was badly done and quickly vanished from theatres.

Why did it die at the box office? Because I think that it is a pretty terrible film in the overall, if not any specific, sense. In terms of animation quality, there is plenty that could be recommended; most of it on the main protagonists, who are beauifully handled. Ultimately, were it fails is in the insipid storytelling and the incessant singing.

The songs, of which there are sixteen (so many that they blend into one another), were written by Sesame Street song written veteran Joe Raposo; but whilst the music on that show was cute and more importantly fitted and worked within the expectations, here it seems that he simply couldn’t work out how to insert music into a full-length feature. The result: musical overkill, if you can get through the tunes good for you, though try to remember any of them after the end credits roll.

This film was written for children… Let me rephrase that, this film was written by adults in a way that suggests they can’t remember what childhood was like when they were children (or have never read a decent children’s book). In so far as the storytelling is dumb and sometimes patronising; basically has no substance and meanders to the point where one starts to wonder, how they are going to be able to end the film in any satisfactory way?

Fact is they don’t, because they failed to realise that in order to write for children, you have to work just as hard on your story as you would if you were writing for adults (harder sometimes). It’s a different audience, but you should never think that you (the writer) are more intelligent than they (your intended audience) are. Because the writers of this film fell for this fallacy, the finish product is a mess that could never be saved, only treated.

The mostly great animation cannot ultimately solve the unsolvable problem of bad writing, although it does help generate most of the extra half star. Yet this compared to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the film that William’s is most associated with, is a travesty of ineptness that frankly, deserved to fail; lest anyone have tried to emulate it.