here_inmyhead: Raggedy Ann as animated in "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure." (1977) (Raggedy Ann :: What's This?)
[personal profile] here_inmyhead
Title: I Can Tell Time By the Moon
Fandom: Raggedy Ann & Andy (except Andy's nowhere here. :P)
Prompt: Death
Medium: VID
Music: Michael Crawford - Please Wake Up
Length: 2:40
Format: .avi
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Summary: A fanvid set to two Raggedy Ann cartoons, based on the real-life tragedy of Johnny Gruelle and his daughter Marcella.

One of the things that interested me about Raggedy Ann is the sad story around her creation. Johnny Gruelle had a sickly daughter named Marcella, so to entertain her, he spent a lot of time telling her stories. Noticing the way she played with her dolls and making up adventures with them, Gruelle found an old ragdoll in the attic, drew a smile on its face, and thought, "Hey, this could be a good story." He wrote the first Raggedy Ann book along with patenting the doll, and she became the most beloved ragdoll in the world. Shortly after his success, Marcella was given a smallpox vaccination by her school without her family's permission. Because medicine wasn't as developed in the early 1900s as it is today, the needle turned out to be contaminated, and Marcella contracted diphtheria and passed away at 13.

Every Raggedy Ann book Johnny Gruelle had written since was dedicated to her memory.

The song I'm using for this fanvid is "Please Wake Up" sung by Michael Crawford from an obscure animated kids' film called "Once Upon a Forest." According to an interview, Crawford had a hard time singing this song because he was singing to a girl on the brink of death. He kept crying during recordings.

Suddenly, I imagined how Johnny Gruelle might've felt before Marcella's death, and the idea for the video came to me. That said... grab a tissue box. It's gonna get emotional.



Download: here.

Date: 2011-08-02 01:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dia-aren-marie.livejournal.com
Thank you for the explanation. This makes this fanvid even sadder :( The lyrics ... </3

Date: 2011-08-02 11:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] insanepurin.livejournal.com
That's why I always read descriptions for vids/fanfics/whatnot. You never know when there might be extra context!

The last lines in particular (Starting from "Once I had a morning too...") stab me each time. :( Glad you enjoyed my video~ *snuggles*
Edited Date: 2011-08-02 11:22 pm (UTC)

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here_inmyhead: Raggedy Ann as animated in "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure." (1977) (Default)
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