The Wacky World of Mother Goose

Please please please release these for purchase so wonderful every child will love them so simple the best stories ever

I'm actually rating this while seeing it on TCM. I'd thought that this would be fun; after all, it IS Rankin-Bass. I grew up watching their Christmas specials in the Eighties, and I'm a huge fan of The Last Unicorn. So it was natural that I'd expect good things of this.

Honestly, the only thing good about this is what an excellent job the animators did of making Mother Goose actually resemble Margaret Rutherford; but this is a severe waste of her talent, and it's a shame that this, of all features, was her last film.

I don't want to fault the animation TOO much. One must consider that this was in the early days of Japanese animation (as Rankin-Bass worked with a Japanese animation company), and that the animation is therefore going to be primitive. The flaws are in the voice acting (apart from Ms. Rutherford). For example, the villain's voice actor seems to be doing his best imitation of Christopher Lee--and his best imitation is HORRIBLE.

I'm sad to say it, but watching this is a wasted effort. I currently have it on Mute, because I can't handle it, and I plan to change the channel.

This was made in 1967 and therefore seems dated to adults, but small children should love it. It even teaches boys that girls are just as ready for "rough" adventures as boys are. Good ultimately triumphs over evil in the traditional Mother Goose fantasy world that Frenchman Charles Perrault originally created.

Do not look for the racial and ethnic diversity that we see added to later revisions of such traditional European fantasy tales. Mother Goose lived in an all-Caucasian world, but we don't see much racial diversity in any of the ancient Old World cultural traditions in Asia or Africa either.

This movie may be remembered fondly by people who saw it as children and have never seen it since. Looking at it as an adult, it's all that's wrong with animation from the 1960s: cobbled-together script, ugly character design, looped quarter-animation, songs that teach children Something Important and garish, almost psychedelic colors to garner the approval of children, with nothing at all for an adult who hopes for something magical, or at least funny. It makes one wish for the relative dignity of THE PERILS OF PENELOPE PITSTOP, let alone the adventurous fun of JOHNNY QUEST.

You may, if you wish, assert that this was the best that the animation could afford at this time, but it requires more than putting one in the frame of mind of its intended audience of small children to make it work. Whatever it requires, I don't have it in me, nor do I have any regrets for that lack, just for ninety wasted minutes.

I haven't seen this animated film since I was a child in the early seventies. It used to come out on television and I would watch it every time the few times it did air. The songs were catchy which kept my interest going for the almost 90 minute film.

Watching it as an adult so many years later is a bit of challenge since it it's a movie aimed at children. Kids, of course, will enjoy this and I would definitely recommend it.