Western Animation / Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure

The Greedy on the far left? He's not as stable and cute as the poster makes him out to be.

"This is really weird."

— Raggedy Andy (summing up the movie in general)

Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure is a 1977 animated film (with a few live-action segments) directed by Richard Williams, based on the doll characters created by Johnny Gruelle, and best known for being really freaking weird.

The plot is based on the book Raggedy Ann & Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees, by Johnny and Marcella Gruelle. Raggedy Ann and her brother, Andy, are dolls who live together in little Marcella's room with other friendly toys. The day of her birthday, Marcella gets a Jumeau doll, Babette, who is quite vain. A pirate captain in a snowglobe is immediately stunned by her and decides to elope with her to make her his bride. Ann and Andy decide to rescue her, and on their journey, they meet a depressed blue camel doll (The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees), a lake of ravenous, self-devouring sentient taffy (The Greedy), an insane knight who plays practical jokes (Sir Leonard Loony), and a diminutive king who inflates when he laughs (King Koo Koo) until a final confrontation on the pirate's ship.

Raggedy Ann is voiced by Didi Conn, known for later playing Frenchie in the Grease films, Denise on Benson, and Stacy Jones on Shining Time Station. Joe Raposo (Sesame Street) wrote the songs (one of which would also end up on Shining Time Station). It was Eric Goldberg's first professional animation gig, as well as Dan Haskett's first work on a feature.

Followed by the TV holiday specials Raggedy Ann & Andy in The Great Santa Claus Caper and Raggedy Ann & Andy in The Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile in 1978 and 1979, both directed by another legendary animation director, Chuck Jones. Compare to Toy Story, which was released 18 years later and follows some of the same basic story beats (toys coming to life when humans not looking; new toy coming in and having to be recovered on their owner's birthday; toy that is sad about being left away from its owner).

A book about the making of the film, The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy by John Canemaker, can be read here as well.

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Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Babette is very much a Damsel in Distress in the earlier parts of the story but by the climax has taken over the pirate ship and is wielding a whip!
• Affably Evil: The Greedy literally wants to eat Ann's heart, but he is polite to the heroes and bears them no ill will - at least at first. He then tries to kill Annie for her heart out of a misguided desire to be whole, but when they get away, he shows no ill will.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Looney Land has a purple knight and a salmon-pink king.
• And I Must Scream: The robotic denizens of Looney Land used to be regular human beings (or perhaps toys) tasked with making King Koo Koo laugh, but when they stopped amusing him, they were reduced to giggling, mindless contraptions that now can do nothing but cackle.
• Animated Musical: It's the main genre of the film, with emphasis on the musical. Every scene has at least one three-minute song.
• Animation Bump:
  • The entire Greedy sequence, which was animated by Golden Age veteran Emery Hawkins (visibly sans the final minute, which was handled by several different animators), is very fluidly animated and loaded with so much detail that your jaw will drop just from taking it all in. Keep in mind, stuff like this was an extreme rarity for animation back then!
  • The animation of the Camel by Art Babbitt, another animation great, is noticeably more solid and restrained than the rest of the movie.
• Anthropomorphic Food: The Greedy. He's a sentient pool of taffy and other assorted desserts that is perpetually eating himself while shapeshifting constantly.
• Anti-Villain: The Captain just wants a female companion. Tellingly, Babette is far more antagonistic toward the heroes than the Captain is—when she takes over the ship and captures Ann and Andy, the Captain is immediate to help them as they'd helped him before.
• Apologizes a Lot: The Greedy intersperses Jabba Table Manners with constant apologizing and saying "excuse me"—even in the middle of his song.
• Balloon-Bursting Bird: Queasy the Pirate Parrot pops King Koo Koo, who has blown himself up to gigantic proportions. The explosion is so powerful it sends everyone back home.
• Banana Peel: Sir Looney uses a banana skin to keep Andy from escaping his prank-loving clutches.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: King Koo Koo finally gets to become the biggest king in the world by inflicting Tickle Torture on the good guys to get the "last laugh", but being inflated to colossal proportions makes him vulnerable to being popped like a balloon, which is how Queasy the Pirate Parrot defeats him.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The Captain immediately rushes to rescue Raggedy Anne and Andy when the now-cruel Babette captures and imprisons them, as Anne was the one who freed him from his snow globe and generally treated him kindly when the other toys in the playroom ignored him.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Captain kickstarts the plot by kidnapping Babette, although she ends up overthrowing him and becoming the new, even more, antagonistic captain. Meanwhile, although he doesn't appear until later, King Koo Koo also provides a major antagonistic force by trying to use Raggedy Ann and Andy as pawns in his goal of becoming the biggest king in the world.
• Big Eater: The Greedy. He is so gluttonous that he spends all his time literally eating himself — being a sentient pool of taffy that is constently spewing other assorted sweets. It's deconstructed as he does it to fill an emotional void in his heart, which he mistakes for a literal missing heart rather than an emotional companion.
• Big Brother Instinct: While it’s never stated who the older sibling is, Raggedy Andy is quite protective of Raggedy Ann and tells Sir Looney to lay off his sister whenever he pranks her.
• Big Red Button: On the speedboat stolen by the twin dolls is a big lever with a hand at the end and the sign "Don't pull me". Knowing how Looney Land works by this point — its entrance is marked "Exit", "Stop" actually means "Go", etc. — they do pull it, and it causes the speedboat to go berserk and fling its crew all the way to the pirate ship they were headed for.
• Big "SHUT UP!": King Koo Koo is constantly calling for "SILENCE!" when his loony subjects have a laughing fit.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Greedy initially presents himself as an affable Tragic Monster who needs a "sweetheart" to cure his depression. When Raggedy Ann reveals that she has a candy heart, the Greedy gets very clingy and insists that she and her friends "have" to help him. When Raggedy Ann refuses, the Greedy goes into a full-on rage and chases them, seemingly trying to kill/eat them.
• Blackground:
  • Unlike the rest of the film, the scenes taking place in the Taffy Pit and Looney Land have completely black backgrounds. This highlights how unsettling and uncomfortable they are.
  • King Koo Koo, the ruler of Looney Land, gets a black background with only a single spotlight on him during his Villain Song, "It's Not Easy Being King When You're Short."
• Blob Monster: The Greedy. He's a sentient taffy pool that is constantly spewing and eating his contents, all while shapeshifting every second.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: According to Sir Leonard Looney's song, his annoying and creepy pranks on the rag siblings are his way of showing affection.
• Captain Obvious: Looney Knight in spite of his odd behavior, has a brief moment where he states the obvious.
  Looney Knight: "You just kicked a knight!"
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Ann just can't resist trying to help anyone and everyone who's in trouble, whether it's taking direct action (as she does with the Captain, Babette, and the Camel) or simply listening to their troubles (as shown with the Greedy).
• Cloudcuckoolander: Everyone in Looney Land essentially, they're all laughing loons that have no common sense, with only King Koo-Koo having anything close to rational thought. The Looney Knight is the biggest offender.
• Comedic Sociopathy: King Koo Koo almost literally feeds on this, needing to laugh at the humiliation of others to grow in size.
• Comically Missing the Point: The Greedy needs a "sweetheart" to be happy. He thinks it is something to eat. It thus gets worse when he learns that Raggedy Ann literally has a candy heart.
• Covers Always Lie: The film's poster depicts the cast as being in a whimsical and fun story, and the Greedy is shown as a dopey clownish figure. Although it is trying for whimsy, the movie ends up being a roller coaster of surreal imagery and frightening implications, with the Greedy coming off as an Eldritch Abomination whose form is constantly altering itself even in the same scene.
• Creepy Twins: The twin dolls are completely naked and always in sync when they speak, often moving directly at the camera while rolling their eeyes.
• Creator Cameo: Composer Joe Raposo has an uncredited appearance as the bus driver.
• The Day the Music Lied: The introductory fanfare in King Koo Koo's throne room, presents him as a just ruler rather than the despotic sadist who literally thrives on the humiliation of his subjects to grow in size and turns his subjects into crazed lunatics.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: When the trio finds themselves in Looney Land, they meet Sir Leonard Loonie, who acts like your standard (if somewhat exaggerated) Plucky Comic Relief. How do the kids react? By getting annoyed at his pranks, then scared because he won't leave them alone, and finally running away.
• Deranged Animation: While the film starts out with bizarre yet friendly environments, it heads straight to insanity with the constantly shifting Greedy, the insane residents of Looney Land (which by itself qualifies), and the utterly bonkers Gainax Ending
• Disney Acid Sequence: From the Greedy onwards, the film delves into increasingly surreal visuals such as shape-shifting taffy monsters, locations operate on alien logic, a court of deranged clown mutants, and a king that literally expands in size at laughing at the humiliation of others.
• The Dividual:
  • The Twin Penny Dolls are pretty much a single character divided into two bodies—every single line they speak or sing is said simultaneously.
  • Barney Beanbag and Socko the Sockworm are also extremely similar in personality—they're both dour and gloomy, and the majority of their lines are entirely interchangeable.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Some of the lyrics (and hell, even the title itself) of "No Girl's Toy" makes it sound less like Andy's talking about being treated as a literal "girl's toy" and more like a toy in a romantic relationship.
  "You can squeeze me, tease me, say I'm your own, but I'm no girl's toy!"
  ...
  "I won't beg 'round tomorrow for the kind of affection that was free today!"
  ...
  "No rag, no bow, no hank-a hair is gonna make me do what I don't wanna do at all!"
• The Eeyore: The Camel With Wrinkled Knees. He is not only gloomy but is heavily implied to be suicidally depressed to the point of halucinating a caravan in the sky to join them in death while entering a mental trance, which is visualized with his eyes taking on technicolor expanding rings.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Greedy is a shapeshifting mass of sentient taffy lacking the ability to stay in shape for longer than a few seconds while eating candy that it constantly regurgitates. It is a perfect example of Deranged Animation. Some might say the Greedy is really just a kid-friendly interpretation of Yog-Sothoth◊. He's more like Abhoth from "The Seven Geases" — a pool of sludge that constantly devours itself. Except Abhoth is made of primordial ooze and devours its own floundering malformed offspring, and the Greedy is made of taffy and devours the candy inexplicably bubbling out of itself.
• Eldritch Location: Looney Land, the entrance is a crazed laughing clown with a tongue that eats its guests, a pink room covered in numbers with a rising platform with a laughing mouth, a monochrome room that turns the people inside black and white- causing them to only make sound effects when talking, a black room with a rainbow floor leading to a completely black void surrounded by deranged mutant clowns where they surround a king. Even by the movie's standards, it is bizarre.
• Emotion Eater: King Koo Koo feeds on the pain and suffering of others, as it makes him laugh (and thus inflate). It's specifically stated that the laughter has to come from other people being humiliated and embarrassed, or it won't work.
• Eyepiece Prank: Sir Looney offers Ann a peek through his "super optiscope" that leaves her with a fake black eye.
• Fan Disservice: The Greedy takes the form of a belly dancer a few times in his song - and he's obese, constantly melting Blob Monster with a grotesque face.
• Fat Slob: The Greedy, a very messy eater who consumes every food item he sees, He is Perpetually Protean, but he often takes a form resembling an obese humanoid.
• Fatal Flaw: The Greedy may be named after Greed, but he actually suffers from a combination of greed, gluttony, and sloth that prevents him from achieving any of his goals. The Greedy says he is depressed because he can do nothing but eat, but makes little to no attempt to stop eating. When Raggedy Ann says she has a candy heart, the Greedy tries to take it from her by force, which causes Ann and her friends to fight back. The Greedy chases after them until they roll a giant taffy ball onto him. The Greedy eats that and just gives up on chasing them.
• Food Porn: The moment with the Greedy, which is filled with immensely satisfying images of sweets, cakes, candies, and other such confections. Given the way he acts around the food, it's a borderline literal example.
• Freudian Excuse: Babette may be melodramatic and even downright mean at times (see French Jerk below), but she's desperately sad about being taken against her will from France and absolutely miserable at the prospective of never seeing her home again—especially because all of the other toys seemingly expect her to be happy about her situation.
• French Jerk: Babette. She is saddened by being forced out of her homeland and desiring to return to a home she was taken away from without her consent, which is understandable. However, she is very melodramatic while dismissive of the other toys in spite of them welcoming her with open arms aside from Andy who sees her for the drama queen she is. She then takes over a pirate ship and proves to be an abusive boss for her brief stint.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The toys in the playroom are a perfect balance of male and female, with certain characters even matching each other in personalities. To wit: there's Raggedy Anne and Raggedy Andy, Susie Pincushion and Maxi Fix-It, the Twin Penny Dolls and Barney Beanbag and Socko the Sockworm, and Captain Contagious and Babette. Turvy-Topsy (the harlequin doll) and Grampa (a wooden farmer doll) round out both sides, but they have little in common. The Camel joining the playroom at the end of the movie finally tilts the balance toward more male toys than female toys.
• Germanic Depressives: King Koo Koo is angry and bitter because he thinks his small size makes him unimportant. He can make his body grow, but only by laughing at the misfortune of others. He's also the only main character with a German accent.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: In "No Girl's Toy," Andy sings about how annoying it is being a boy in Marcella's feminine playroom. The other male toys back him up, while the female toys get together and mock him.
• Graceful Loser: The Greedy when Ann, Andy, and the Camel throw taffy on him, burying him in the process. He just eats the stuff and goes back to gorging himself.
  The Greedy: You throw good stuff!
• Happy Harlequin Hat: Topsy, the long-limbed harlequin doll, wears one, but she's very sweet-natured and a dear friend of Ann. On the other hand, there are several of King Koo-Koo's court that have this hat— they're all legitimately insane and frightening to look at, invoking the traditional fears of clowns.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Babette has a song that includes the line, "Hooray for me, Babette of gay Paris!" She sings it while dancing the can-can.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Andy is adamant that, in spite of being about as butch and durable as his sister, he's a super-macho, rough-and-tumble action-hero toy who will brook no dress-ups or tea parties, and also will fight you. And, since this is a musical, he expresses these sentiments with flamboyant song-and-dance numbers.
• The Hyena: The aptly named Sir Leonard Looney can't go a few seconds without laughing his head off.
• Hypocrite: King Koo Koo whines about how he's surrounded by morons who don't respect him, apparently forgetting that he was the one who transformed the population of Looney Land into those morons in the first place.
• "I Am" Song: Raggedy Andy sings "No Girl's Toy" (a ditty about being above the 'girl dolls'), while Raggedy Ann sings "Rag Dolly" (her introduction song to Babette). "Poor Babette" also leans into this, as it establishes Babette as longing for her native France and generally being uninterested in spending time with the other toys.
• Inflating Body Gag: Random parts of King Koo Koo's body inflate when he laughs; when he inflicts the Tickle Torture on the good guys, the "last laugh" this gets from him causes him to expand to monstrous proportions. When Raggedy Andy realizes that the King is just "full of hot air", he tells the Pirate Parrot to pop him. The resultant explosion sends Marcella's toys, plus the Camel, back to her backyard.
• "I Want" Song: Several to the point it's the Central Theme of the movie. The Greedy wants a literal sweetheart to fill the empty void his perpetual eating habits, the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees wants to be happy, Captain Contagious wants the love of his life, and Babette wants to return home.
• I Taste Delicious: The Greedy keeps eating himself. Well, he is made of taffy and miscellaneous candies.
• It's All About Me: Babette's major flaw is that she only cares about getting back to Paris (despite the fact that she is now Marcella's toy), and will shun, abuse, or ignore anyone who refuses to help her with that goal. She even takes over Captain Contagious's ship and locks him up to do it.
• It's All My Fault: Ann acknowledges that Babette would not have been kidnapped if she hadn't allowed The Captain to escape.
• Jabba Table Manners: The Greedy. He eats several desserts in gross manners whenever he doesn't speak and spews them out constantly. Made all the more freaky in that he's a sentient taffy monster and the desserts are an extension of himself, so he's essentially eating himself. He's at least decent enough to apologize at several points for this habit.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Andy is rude, sarcastic, and confrontational, even toward women. He is also very brave and will never let any harm come to his sister.
• Last of His Kind: Implied. Sir Leonard Loony is the only member of King Koo Koo's court who isn't a mindless robot. Koo Koo implies that the robots all used to be living beings until they could no longer make him laugh. This implies that Sir Leonard is the only one who Koo Koo still finds funny enough to spare... for now.
• Laughing Mad: The robots of Looney Land chuckle and cackle endlessly. We later find out that they used to be living things (most likely humans or other toys) that King Koo Koo grew sick of, prompting him to warp them into their current shapes. They've thus lost their minds and can do nothing but laugh.
• Knight of Cerebus: The movie is light-hearted and whimsical until the Greedy, a creepy constantly shapeshifting monster that physically threatens to kill the heroes, and from there, the film becomes an escalation of surreal imagery and deranged characters that endanger the heroes for several reasons.
• The Medic: Susie Pincushion and Maxi Fix-It play this role among the toys—their main job is repairing damage that the others take, with Susie using her needles and thread to sew up any tears and Maxi handling the rest with his tools.
• Metaphorgotten: "Fire one!...Fire two!...Fire three!...Fire four!...Fire five!...Fire six!...Fire seven!...Fire eight!...And fire him!"
• Minsky Pickup: "No Girl's Toy" features a Minsky Pickup just before the big finish.
• Ms. Fanservice: Babette has more normal proportions than the other dolls and has a curvy figure. It goes further when she becomes a pirate and wears more-form fitting clothing that exposes her cleavage.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Two characters realize how badly they messed up through their naivete or selfishness.
  • Raggedy Ann comes to this revelation, after realizing that her decision to free the pirates has led to Babette's kidnapping. She resolves to fix it by rescuing her.
  • Babette, after it becomes clear to her that her obsession with going to Paris has gotten everyone into terrible trouble. She decides to settle being an American-owned doll to resolve the problems she's caused.
• The Napoleon: King Koo Koo even mentions Napoleon in his song, lamenting that Napoleon would look tall next to him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Raggedy Ann, with help from Maxi-Fixit, breaks open the snow globe to let Captain Contagious and his crew out after the captain gives her an SOS message. Once freed, the Captain immediately seizes Babette and escapes the nursery.
• Obsessed with Food: The Greedy, once again. He gathers so much food from across the world that they become an extension of himself that constantly spews out. It's deconstructed that he partially realizes his selfish hoarding has left him with an emotional void and tries to resolve it literally with a candy "sweetheart" rather than emotional support.
• Oh, Crap!: King Koo Koo stops short in his mocking laughter when he realizes he is being popped.
• Overly Long Gag: The Captain is so out of shape that it takes him what seems like several minutes to climb over the railing of the balcony on Babette's dollhouse. It's worth noting that Richard Williams has a tendency to do this a lot just to have more animation for its own sake.
• Perpetually Protean: Always hungry, the Greedy is constantly shaping his mass into new desserts and eating himself, or sculpting himself into an almost-human body before melting back into the ooze - usually while eating something.
• Pie in the Face: Raggedy Anne and Andy start a huge pie fight in order to distract the Looneylanders and make their escape.
• Pirate Girl: Babette after she takes over the Captain's ship. She proves to be an effective and strict captain who becomes quickly adjusted to her new way of life. She then averts it in the end when King Koo Koo's explosive death leads her to be back in the room and resolve to be just a doll.
• Pirate Parrot: The Captain has one, being his most trusted and loyal companion and it proves important to fight King Koo Koo at the end by exploding the expanding king. It does the usual parrot while having its own sapience.
• Prehensile Hair: The Captain's mustache is able to grab things and spell out the S's in his S.O.S. message.
• Pun: Sir Leonard Looney claims that he's "the looniest (k)night of the year". He lampshades how terrible the pun is immediately after making it.
• Retro Universe: With the exception of some contemporary clothes worn by Marcella in the film's opening sequence (and she quickly changes into a more "girly" outfit for her birthday party), the film does not appear to be taking place in 1977. In fact, judging by the characters' sensibilities and the music and so on, this would most likely be taking place in the mid-1950s at the latest (and, in fact, these characters were created in 1914). Not only that, but Babette, King Koo Koo, and several other characters—including Topsy the Harlequin Doll and Grandpa, an elderly-looking wooden doll—look as if they were Born in the Wrong Century.
• Say My Name: Babette has a mechanism that makes her say her name when tilted up.
• Seeking the Intangible: The Greedy seeks a sweetheart in order to cure his insatiable hunger and loneliness, but doesn't grasp that "sweetheart" is a figure of speech, so when Raggedy Ann accidentally volunteers that she has a candy heart, he tries to cut it out of her.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Captain Contagious falls in lust with Babette at first sight and promptly kidnaps her. The Greedy physically embodies both greed and gluttony. King Koo Koo envies taller kings, so to compensate he literally puffs himself up with pride by laughing at others. Gazooks the sea monster is full of sloth when first introduced and has to be extorted to do anything. And when Babette realizes she may have to go back to Marcella, she becomes full of wrath.
• Shout-Out:
  • Andy gets stuck under a box with just his feet sticking out, like the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz. And he runs up a wall like Cosmo in Singin' in the Rain during his "Make 'Em Laugh" song.
  • The funhouse into which Sir Looney lures the heroes, with its exclusively black-and-white palette, rinky-tinky ragtime music, zany architecture, and ability to render anyone who enters it The Speechless, obviously amounts to a tribute to the silent-film comedies of the 1920s. The architecture is based on Little Nemo, which was itself evoked in Tom Petty's music video for "Runnin' Down a Dream."
  • In her first appearance, Andy cat-calls Babette by going "Hey, Ba-BEE-ETTE!".
• Something Else Also Rises: The Captain's beard goes erect when he sees Babette.
• Standard Snippet: "Entry of the Gladiators" is briefly heard when our heroes get sucked into the funhouse.
• Surreal Horror: While it starts off as a tame and whimsical story, it then goes to frightening and often surreal imagery such as a constantly shape-shifting taffy monsters who take on increasingly frightening forms, a lunatic knight with dialogue with pedophilic undertones, and a court of mutated lunatics centered around a sadistic king that grows in size due to the humiliation of others.
• Surrounded by Idiots: The King is surrounded by Loonies who think nearly everything is funny.
• Tentacled Terror: Gazooks the sea monster is a floppy, octopus-like monster who works for the evil King Koo Koo.
• Tickle Torture: The climax has King Koo Koo tickling Raggedy Ann and Andy and their friends via a sea monster and feeding off their tickle-induced misery.
• That Reminds Me of a Song: Anything and everything will set off a musical number, but after the journey starts, they start to get more spaced out to allow for more weirdness and exposition. The worst offender is when after Ann's introductory song, it jumps right into Andy's song. And when Marcella leaves after opening the box for Babette, Ann proceeds to sing two songs back to back.
• Too Dumb to Live: After the Greedy sings an entire song about his desperate desire for a "sweetheart," Ann feels the need to say "I'm only a rag doll with a little candy heart"—something she's never mentioned before. She then acts surprised when the Greedy decides he wants it, despite him expressly wishing for one about ten times in the last four minutes.
• Toy Transmutation: Downplayed. King Koo Koo turns his subjects into "idiots" - mindless, mechanical toys - when they can't make him laugh anymore, and threatens to do the same to Raggedy Ann and Andy. However, the characters are already sentient toys, to begin with (although with some characters, it's hard to tell what they are.)
• Unwanted Rescue: By the time the heroes have reached the pirate ship, Babette has overthrown the captain and has no interest in returning to Marcella's room. The outcome of the battle with King Koo Koo takes the decision out of her hands.
• Villain Song: There are several of these, one or two each for the villains. "A Miracle/The Pirate Song" sung by Captain Contagious about his love for Babette and his pride as a pirate, "I Never Get Enough" sung by the Greedy about the emotional void he futilely tries to fulfill overeating, "Because I Love I Love You" sung by Sir Looney about his very misguided desire to be friends with Ann and Andy, and "It's Not Easy Being King When You're Short" sung by King Koo Koo about his inferiority complex and desire to become larger to gain respect.
• Villainous Glutton: The Greedy, a giant, terrifying Blob Monster, does nothing but eat the candy and other food constantly bubbling out of its own body. Which would be icky, but not villainous... until he decides his next snack will be the heroine's heart.
• Villains Out Shopping: The scene where King Koo Koo contacts his minion Gazooks starts out as a surprisingly casual phone call, complete with Koo Koo having trouble working the phone, and Gazooks saying he was hoping Koo Koo would call.
• Visual Pun:
  • The Camel With the Wrinkled Knees is literally "blue" because he's often sad.
  • The Greedy, though constantly shape-shifting, is often given a nose that looks like a pig snout because his manners and appetite are piggish.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The entire middle third of the movie (starting with the Greedy and ending when they finally get back to the business with the pirates) feels like an enormous side-quest, even though King Koo Koo shows up again for the climax to be the final villain.
• Was Once a Man: King Koo Koo has an entire court of robotic toys that serve him mindlessly. Koo Koo tells Raggedy Ann and Andy that when they can no longer make him laugh, he'll turn them into robots too, implying that all of them were once sentient toys or other creatures who met the same fate.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Babette's desire to return to Paris, where she was born, is viewed as selfish because she was given to Marcella and is now her doll. However, all of the toys are shown to be fully sentient (they just can't act like it when humans are around), and while most of them are happy to be played with, Babette isn't, although it isn't clear if she genuinely doesn't realize she's a toy. In any event, though, keeping a fully sentient living thing against their will is imprisonment at best, but Babette is still a bad guy because she isn't "fulfilling her purpose."
• Whip of Dominance: Babette seems like a Damsel in Distress in the earlier parts of the story but when she takes over the pirate ship in the climax, she also gets a whip to illustrate her Xenafication and newfound dominance over the crew as their new captain.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: King Koo Koo threatens to turn Raggedy Ann and Andy into robotic "idiots" like the rest of his court once they can no longer make him laugh anymore. This implies that all of the "idiots" used to be sentient too, and were transformed when they couldn't make Koo Koo laugh anymore either.

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