BOOTLEG FILES 951: “The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile” (1979 Raggedy Ann and Andy animated television special created by Chuck Jones).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: There was a VHS video release.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: There may be a rights issue holding it up.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It doesn’t seem likely.
I don’t have the authority or the nerve to say that the 1979 production “The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile” is the worst animated television special ever made. However, I can say that it is one of the worst that I’ve ever seen. And I don’t say this with pleasure, since this horrible little work is the creation of Chuck Jones, who was responsible for some of the greatest animated films ever made.
“The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile” was a Halloween presentation featuring the characters of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. Jones didn’t create those characters, nor was he the first animator to put them on film. The Fleischer Studio did a one-shot two-reel cartoon in 1941 featuring these living dolls, while Richard Williams was responsible for a 1977 feature-length animated musical with the characters.
But not unlike his Tom and Jerry cartoons from the 1960s, Jones inherited characters that he didn’t invent and had no idea what to do with them. He first brought them to the small screen in a 1978 Christmas special before he went ahead with this Halloween endeavor on year later.
“The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile” feels like a half-assed Halloween ripoff of “A Christmas Carol,” with nasty old Aunt Agatha as the aged villain who hates the holiday and insults its celebrants. The Dickensian vibe is expanded by Ralph, a blonde boy who is Agatha’s nephew – the whereabouts of his parents is not explained. Ralph is sad because Agatha won’t let him join in with the neighborhood kids who are doing the Trick-or-Treat routine around the neighborhood. Why, that old rhymes-with-runt won’t even let him have a pumpkin. As she sourly explains, “Pumpkins cause fires and they attract fruit flies.”
However, this borderline child abuse is observed by Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, who live in a neighboring house. Raggedy Ann surmises that there must a lonely pumpkin in need of the companionship of a lonely boy. And that brings us to the title character, a pumpkin who remained unsold as Halloween night falls.
The pumpkin in question spends his time crying pumpkin seed tears and whining about how no one wants a pumpkin after Halloween. He wishes that he could have been made into a pie – yes, a suicidal talking pumpkin. A mute mouse hears this and, in typical Chuck Jones fashion, puts on a hat and takes a suitcase to exit from this self-pitying pumpkin.
Raggedy Ann and Andy, along with their skateboard-riding dog Raggedy Arthur, locate the pumpkin and transport it to Ralph. But things go awry as the pumpkin lands on the dog’s skateboard and goes barreling down a hill with a scared cat perched atop its head. This leads to one of the dullest chases ever captured in an animated film, with Raggedy Ann and Andy following in a wagon and on a unicycle, respectively, before getting wrapped in white sheets hanging on a laundry line. That makes them look like ghosts, which confuses the dull cops on patrol.
With those shenanigans out of the way, Raggedy Ann and Andy manage to get the pumpkin to Ralph and the two bond immediately. Indeed, the pumpkin is all smiles in his new home. As for nasty old Aunt Agatha (remember her?), the Raggedy duo whisper messages into her ear while she is sleeping to remind her that she loved Halloween as a kid and should love it as an adult. That subliminal trick works and she wakes up, dresses as a witch and dresses Ralph as a pirate to engage in last-minute Trick-or-Treat fun across the neighborhood. Where the costumes came from is also unexplained, but by this point who cares?
Everything about “The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile” is a misfire. This production is typical of the late career output from Jones, with soft and cheap-looking animation, endless verbosity, poorly paced slapstick, syrupy sweet cuteness, and unnecessary breaking of the fourth wall. Even the voice acting is off – June Foray’s Raggedy Ann and Daws Butler’s Raggedy Andy don’t seem to fit the characters, while Les Treymane’s crying pumpkin quickly becomes obnoxious. (Foray also voiced Agatha but chose to pay tribute to her husband by being billed as “Mrs. Hobart Donavan” for that character.)
“The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile” debuted on CBS on Halloween night in 1979. It bombed in the ratings and did not become a new holiday perennial. There was a VHS video release but it has yet to return to the home entertainment channels on DVD or Blu-ray. There might be a rights issue holding up its return, and we should be grateful for that.
However, unauthorized uploads to YouTube are keeping this awful obscurity front-and-center. For those who care, you can watch it here:
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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