The Adventures Of Raggedy Ann & Andy – The Pixling Adventure + The Mabbit Adventure… and other exciting tales

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Episodes: C+

 

 

The characters of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy were first established in print in 1901 and became popular dolls into the 1970s that taught children how to dress themselves.  Just as it seemed they would disappear from the mainstream pop culture, CBS-TV decided to launch an animated series with the characters and The Adventures Of Raggedy Ann & Andy arrived in 1988.  The network hoped this would boost their Saturday Morning TV schedule.  It did not work out.

 

Each half-hour show tells an entire story and A&E has issued two volumes featuring three shows each.  The Pixling Adventure also includes The Beasty Ghost Adventure and The Ransom Of The Sunny Bunny Adventure, while The Mabbit Adventure also offers The Perriwonk Adventure and The Pirate Adventure.  Though aimed at young children, I never thought the stories were that great.  The animation was lacking, but I figured since they had been on analog TV broadcasts only that maybe they would improve and look better on DVD.  Sadly, that was not to be.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is soft and the color is not consistent, though it never really was.  Besides artwork issues, the designs did not represent the characters at their best.  I hope a revival surfaces sometime soon because it would do better.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is from what sounds like early broadcast stereo and is the one surprise here, though I never did like the voice-overs.  The only extra on each DVD is a one-frame text piece on the author and characters, which is very underwhelming.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo