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The narrative stakes in these Raggedy Ann and Andy specials are just bizarre. Strange things in which they are impossibly low, but lacking in a certain sparkle of interest that you begin to pay closer attention to the fact that none of it makes sense. And that’s taking into account that you’ve agreed to watch a cartoon about two sentient rag dolls with a rag doll dog that does extreme sports.
Frankly, I’d rather spend thirty minutes watching Raggedy Arthur skateboard across the time warped village while interacting with the emotionally hysteric pumpkin of the title. At least the pumpkin has a personality more interesting and prone to dramatic overreactions that put the anemic characteristics of the leads in a harsher light. Look, the pumpkin crying seeds and acting like his fate is worse than death amused me. That’s really all I ask for in these things.
So The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile is a step up from The Great Santa Claus Caper, but only a minor one. There’s still the problem of the narrative just not being terribly interesting enough to handle a full thirty minutes (ok, so it’s actually about twenty-two when you remove the commercials). The rag doll siblings notice an unhappy little boy who lives with his cold spinster aunt, so they decide that he needs a pumpkin to restore the spirit of the Halloween season. I don’t get it either, but we get a melodramatic pumpkin riding across town on a skateboard to the complete bewilderment of the townspeople.
If The Great Santa Claus Caper looked more Chuck Jones than Johnny Gruelle, then The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile jettisons the final vestiges of Gruelle’s work for more of Jones. Aunt Agatha looks like any of the older granny characters in a Tweety Bird cartoon, and the pumpkin is all Jones’ trademark angularity and rubbery movements. And I would be lying if I said Jones didn’t manage to wring the slightest bit of empathy for me during the emotional uplift ending. It was minor, but it was there. Or I’m just a big softie at heart, either way it worked.
