'Wee Sing in Sillyville!' : The 1989 Children’s Movie that Still Teaches Me

by Adrianna Simmons, Guest Editorial

Today I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite movies from my childhood, and perhaps yours too: Wee Sing in Sillyville!

One of several installations in the Wee Sing movie family (whose website also informed me that they’re celebrating their 40th anniversary), this 1989 gem recently found its way onto my YouTube feed and brought back a rush of memories from the days of VHS.

The plot is simple – two kids, Lori and Scott, along with their adorable basset hound named Barney, get magically sucked into their coloring book where they find themselves in the land of Sillyville, a magical place where plant and animals talk and sing, and the citizens are divided into groups of the colors of the rainbow. They meet Sillywhim, played by the incomparable Renee Margolin, who informs them that none of the different color families talk to each other anymore, before embarking on a quest with the children to bring friendship and community back to Sillyville. Oh, and everyone sings!

Let me start off by saying that this movie is absurdist GOLD. From the names of the families - The Yellow Spurdurgurgles, Blue Twirlypops, Green Jingleheimers, and Red Bittybooties – to the bizarre happy dance Sillywhim keeps breaking out in, this movie doesn’t take itself seriously for a single second.

Perhaps on a more serious note, though, this movie still carries a valuable lesson about community and respecting people’s differences. The reason the color families are all fighting is because they don’t want to wear each other’s colors, even though no one is making them. They’re all so worried about another group telling them what to do that they’ve cut off all relations with each other. Sound familiar to anyone?

At the end of the movie, when hope seems all but lost, Sillywhim trips and twists her ankle. All of her friends from every group come together to give her a scarf to tie it up, and suddenly realize that all of their own individual colors look beautiful together when they make a rainbow. It’s cheesy, I know, but something about a community coming together to put aside their differences and care for their most vulnerable still warms my heart.

I know the problems we’re facing today can’t be boiled down to a simple analogy about colors of the rainbow, nor be captured in a children’s movie from over 30 years ago, but I do think there is something to be gained by reconnecting with our inner child and remembering that at the end of the day there are people who need help, and we need to put aside our own egos and lend a hand to our neighbor. Just like Sillyville shows us, a society cannot function if everyone turns away from each other and only watches out for themselves.

Whether you need a little heart-warming or you just love puppets, I encourage you to watch Wee Sing in Sillyville. Oh yeah, there’s a ton of puppets. Enjoy!