Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 22 Ollie's Odyssey by William Joyce vs. Lost Ollie (2022)
Ever wondered how a simple toy can tug at your heartstrings and take you on an unforgettable adventure? Join me, Lluvia, as we explore the magical and poignant world of William Joyce's "Ollie's Odyssey" and its 2022 Netflix adaptation "Lost Ollie." We'll compare the book's heartfelt journey of a toy named Ollie on his mission to reunite with his boy Billy, with the creative twists and narrative shifts in the TV miniseries. Discover how the backstory of Nina, Billy's mom's beloved toy, adds depth to both versions and stirs emotions akin to Toy Story.
We then turn our focus to the compelling characters that bring this tale to life, including Rosie, a patched-up pink teddy bear voiced by the incredible Mary J. Blige, and Zozo, a toy on a haunting quest. Learn about the differences in how Billy and Ollie's separation is portrayed, and how these changes add layers to their emotional journey. We'll also discuss how Billy's age impacts the story line and the pivotal carnival events that drive the plot in each version, highlighting the unique and touching elements that make both the book and the miniseries stand out.
Finally, we'll celebrate the stellar voice acting that elevates the miniseries, featuring talents like Tim Blake Nelson, Gina Rodriguez, Jonathan Groff, and Mary J. Blige. While both the book and the series receive my admiration, the miniseries' appeal to an older audience and its superb voice performances truly shine. We'll also compare the book's beautiful illustrations to the captivating animation of the series, and discuss the strong emotional bond between Billy and Ollie. Stay tuned for a sneak peek of next week's topic: Richard Montañez's "Flaming Hot" and its film adaptation, "Flamin' Hot," directed by Eva Longoria. Don't miss out on these heartfelt stories that bridge childhood memories and adult reflections!
All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/share
Connect with me: Instagram | Threads | Bookshop | Goodreads | Blog
Hello and welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I try to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today we will be discussing Ollie's Odyssey by William Joyce and its 2022 TV miniseries adaptation Lost, ollie, alright, everyone, thank you, welcome back. I have some exciting news. So I was approved to be a bookshop affiliate. Yay, so my bookshop is set up. It's ready to go. I have all the well, almost all the books I've featured on the podcast. You can probably guess which book is not featured on there. If you guess it right, you get a prize, and that prize is the obvious award. I don't even know what that was, but anyway, yes, almost all the books that I have talked about in the podcast are in this bookshop, as well as some of my just personal favorites, highly recommend books and yeah, so I'm very excited. Thank you so much to Bookshop for allowing me to be an affiliate. So, yes, if you want to help me out, you can. There's Voldemort scratching himself. Those are the jingles. But yeah, if you want to help the podcast out a little bit, you can always shop using my Bookshop link which is linked in the show notes. And Voldemort is just smelling my foot. Why are you doing this? That's very distracting. And just help a little. No budget podcast out, please. It would be very much appreciated. All right, so today, as stated, we have another special episode of Books vs Miniseries. Voldemort is very itchy, I'm sorry. I'm going to let him be a dog. So, yes, we are going to be talking about Ollie's Odyssey by William Joyce. So this is the inspiration for the Lost Ollie Netflix series, for the Lost Ollie Netflix series, and Ollie's Odyssey was first published in 2015.
Speaker 1:And this book follows a toy. It is set in the world well, it's set in the real world, but we get a close look at toys and how they live and the code of toys and what it means to be a favorite toy and the responsibility that comes with it and the honor that comes with it as well. Ollie is a special toy who was made by hand by Billy's mother, and Billy absolutely adores Ollie. They are never far apart from each other. However, there are toys out there, specifically a clown named Zozo and his army of creeps who do not like favorite toys, and their mission is to get all the favorite toys and separate them from their humans so that they are forever lost. Ollie is toy-napped by Zozo and his creeps and Billy sets out to rescue him. He goes to an old carnival in the middle of the night to bring his favorite toy back because there's nothing he wouldn't do for his best friend Lost.
Speaker 1:Ollie is the 2022 Netflix TV miniseries about a lost toy who is searching all over for the boy who lost him. And this is the story of a boy and his toy and what they lost when they were separated. So, yeah, so this is very reminiscent of like Toy Story. So if Toy Story didn't make you feel bad enough about your toys growing up, this will add on to that. Well, if you didn't feel it, this will probably not affect you, but if you felt that guilt like me growing up, like I was very aware that I needed to treat my toys with respect. Now, like, looking back, as an adult, I did treat my toys with respect, but I look back and I'm just like, wow, those were good times and I miss having my toys and I feel bad for the day that I left my toys behind Because, yeah, toy Story 3, well, toy Story 2 and 3 specifically and this book do make you feel bad for just reaching a point in which you left your toys behind. But what can I say? It happens, we grow up, all right, so let's get into it. So, okay, maybe this is something that's obvious and it never clicked before until I started doing this podcast, and I'm noticing a pattern, and that pattern is that if the book and its adaptation share the exact same title, it's a faithful adaptation.
Speaker 1:If the adaptation has a different name from the book, that's usually when we go in a whole other, different direction and I just I struggle with how to talk about them Only because they're so different from each other. It's kind of like I'm talking about two separate things. Instead of being called based on the book, like in this case, instead of being called based on Ollie's Odyssey, this should say like inspired by Ollie's Odyssey. So it's just something I've noticed and, like I said, maybe this is super, super obvious and I just never noticed it before doing the podcast. But yeah, the adaptation is goes in such a completely different direction than the book that I don't even really know where to start. But start we shall, and I think I'll start with Nina. So, nina, spoiler alert.
Speaker 1:We end up finding out was Billy's mom's favorite toy. So we find this out pretty early on in the book and this is one of the twists we find out in the adaptation. So in the book it's not really a secret. We find out that Ollie's heart is made out of a little bell and that little bell was inside of Nina and in the adaptation that twist is revealed in the last episode. So it's definitely a twist in the adaptation, not so much in the book, but Nina is a carnival prize in the book. So Zozo the clown is actually part of. He's a bonk-a-zozo, so you know he's one of the carnival games, so you throw a ball at Zozo. If Zozo gets knocked down you get a prize. So Zozo is actually like the carnival game. He's not technically a toy but Nina is one of the toys you can win in the carnival games or is a toy you can win at his carnival game specifically. So this is kind of where in the twist ends up coming out in the book. But I guess it's not really a twist.
Speaker 1:It's the revelation of Zozo's backstory and we end up finding out that Zozo becomes very, very fond of Nina and they end up falling in love and she dances with him at night when the carnival is closed and one day Billy's mom, as a little girl, comes in. She knocks Zozo down. Billy's mom, as a little girl, comes in, she knocks Zozo down and she chooses Nina as her prize. And as she walks away very, very happily with Nina in her arms, she says you are going to be my favorite. And that's kind of where Zozo's vendetta comes from against favorite toys. Becoming a child's favorite toy is what caused him to be separated from Nina. Once the carnival shuts down and he realizes he's never gonna have Nina again, he goes on like this rampage trying to find her, and so he kidnaps all the favorite toys to see who has information on Nina. And obviously favorite toys don't have anything to do with one another, so no one can help him. But of course Zozo's heart is so filled with rage that he doesn't realize this.
Speaker 1:Nina in the adaptation is actually she's part of a puppet show, that. So it's like the Banca Zozo game. And then across the carnival aisle I'm gonna call it an aisle across the carnival aisle is a like an Indonesian. I don't know if it's exactly Indonesian, it's definitely Asian, but I'm leaning towards it's like Indonesian, inspired based on the alphabet that was shown on the carnival. But it's this Asian inspired puppet show, and Nina is actually one of the puppets that performs, or that is brought to life in this puppet show, you could say. And since they're right across from each other, that's kind of where Zozo and Nina's love story begins. They see each other.
Speaker 1:Zozo is in the book. He does have legs that he can use to walk around, but in the adaptation he's just like a spring attached to the mechanism of the carnival game, so he doesn't have any legs. So Nina comes over every night to be with him and they dance and they love each other very, very much. But the carnival shuts down for many, many years and one day there's an auction and everything is being auctioned off, or almost everything is being auctioned off. Nina is one of the auction prizes and this little girl wins her, and again this is a twist, so we don't find out who that little girl is until much later. But obviously I've already spoiled it for you. So you know that Billy's mom is the one that buys Nina at this auction and Zozo sees Billy's mom and Nina drive away, and so he sets out to find Nina. But he doesn't have a personal vendetta against favorite toys. His mission is purely to be reunited with Nina.
Speaker 1:So I briefly mentioned this in the description of the book that Zozo and his army of creeps so creeps are kind of just like toys that he I'm just going to keep referring to Toy Story because that's the easiest pop culture reference and everyone will understand what I'm talking about. But the creeps, creeps, wow. Not the creeps, no creeps. In this child-friendly book the creeps are like think of the toys that Sid in Toy Story has does how he like, breaks them apart and mashes them into, like you know, the duck on a spring with, like the body of a wrestler and the doll head on, like that mechanical spider body. Like he makes these creeps out of, not other toys, but just like, gets random bits and bobs that he finds and he creates the creeps. So that's what the creeps are and he has a whole army of them that do his bidding. But he does not have any an army of creeps.
Speaker 1:In the TV miniseries the only toy who's kind of a creep but she's not is Rosie. So Zozo, one day, while on his journey looking for Nina, he comes across Rosie. She is a pink teddy bear, very, very cute. But she's missing an eye, she's missing a leg, she's missing an arm. So Zozo puts her back, together with other bits of toy that we don't know what happened to those other toys, but he finds other broken pieces of toys and he sews them onto Rosie. So Rosie is very, very grateful to him for having rescued her and brought her back to life. So she feels a lot of loyalty to Zozo and like she follows Zozo for a while. But as he starts becoming more and more hopeless that he'll ever be reunited with Nina and this like darkness starts overpowering him, he tells Rosie to like stop following him and go her own way. But she doesn't. So she has followed him to where we meet him at the top of the series, which is a thrift shop. But Zozo lives inside the thrift shop, she lives outside. So she keeps an eye on him, she guards him, but he doesn't know that she's still hanging around. But yeah, so he doesn't have a whole army, it's just Rosie who, oddly enough, is voiced by Mary J Blige. She was great, that's the one casting choice that I was like, wow, I would never in a million years have guessed Mary J Blige would have voiced a pink little teddy bear on a miniseries. But all right, I'm here for it.
Speaker 1:So, as I said, in the book the mission of the creeps is to find favorite toys and bring them to Zozo, and Zozo interrogates them, them, and if they don't have the answer he's looking for, he keeps them locked up in his lair, which is somewhere in the carnival, until they're separated from their child long enough that they lose their memory. So that's the consequence of being separated from your child for too long is that they don't remember you and you don't remember them. So these favorite toys, once they've, like, completely forgotten who they belong to, they have really nowhere else to go because they don't know who they are. So the creeps toy nap Ollie and bring him to his lair. And that's how Billy and Ollie get separated in the book but in the TV series. So I do want to say that in the book Billy is six years old. We do get his age. He's six.
Speaker 1:In the adaptation we don't have an official age, but I'd say he's between 10 to 12 years old. He's around that age range. I want to say he'd be like in fifth grade. Sixth grade is probably the oldest he would be. So he's like in that age range, so he's quite a bit older in the adaptation and the way they end up getting separated is that Billy is getting bullied and the bully takes Ollie from him and is making fun of him for still carrying Ollie around at their age. And so he like tosses Ollie out of the school door and, as Billy like, runs to go get him but then, like, the words of his dad start ringing in his head like you need to grow up and stop carrying Ollie around everywhere. So Billy's like I need to grow up, and he closes the door and decides to leave Ollie behind. He ends up regretting it later, like a few hours later, and he ends up going to look for Ollie, but initially he willingly leaves Ollie behind. He ends up regretting it later, like a few hours later, and he ends up going to look for Ollie, but initially he willingly leaves Ollie behind and then they end up getting separated. Obviously Ollie is very upset by this and so he doesn't make an effort to be reunited with Billy because he's like well, billy doesn't want to be with me, why should I go be with him? So that's what causes the separation in the adaptation.
Speaker 1:So Ollie gets toy-napped while Billy and his family are at a wedding. Like his family says don't bring Ollie, you're gonna lose him. And Billy's like I'm not gonna lose him and he probably wouldn't have lost him if the creeps hadn't come in to toy-nap Ollie. But they did. So obviously Billy's like I can't find Ollie and his parents are like we told you not to bring him, now you lost him. And he's like well, we have to go back to the venue and see if we can find him. And his parents are like well, we have to wait until tomorrow because venue's closed by now. And yeah, so you just need to wait until first thing tomorrow when they open back up and we can go look for him. But Billy's like I'm not waiting until tomorrow. So once his parents are asleep he sneaks out to go look for Ollie.
Speaker 1:In the adaptation Billy again, he has willingly left Ollie outside and a few hours later, a few days later it's not really clear he regrets that decision and he like draws up lost Ollie, signs and all his dad is asleep. No, his dad isn't asleep, his dad is just busy. And so Billy slips out without his dad noticing him and he starts posting all the posters and looking for Ollie. But his dad doesn't notice him leave, and in the book Billy sneaks out. So now let's flash forward a little bit. We're in the carnival and we got there by two different means. So in the book Ollie is taken to the carnival by the creeps, to Zozo.
Speaker 1:In the adaptation so, as I said, nina's bell is what makes up Ollie's heart, and so when Ollie, he doesn't mean to ring the jingle, it's just kind of like Voldemort, it kind of just happens. So the bell starts jingling and Zozo recognizes the sound of the bell. So he's like oh, you know what happened to Nina. But obviously, like he doesn't reveal this, we don't know that Zozo is not the nice clown he seems to be until the twist. So during like the first episodes we're all gung-ho about Zozo. And then Zozo is like I'm actually evil and I want you to tell me what you did with Nina. And Ollie's like I don't know who Nina is.
Speaker 1:So Zozo kind of tricks Ollie into the carnival. So Ollie's like I recognize that sign. That's the sign by the school where Warpilly goes to school. So if we head that way we're going to hit the school and we'll be really close to home. And Zozo kind of makes him doubt. He's like are you sure you remember that? Are you sure Like we can head this way where we know there's for sure something? Or we can, like, go on a wild goose chase and see if you're right about the sign. So Ollie's like you know what? I'm not too sure about the sign, so let's go your way. And then they go Zozo's way and Zozo leads him back to the carnival and he shows him this sign of Nina's puppet theater and he's like where's Nina? So they get to the carnival by two different circumstances.
Speaker 1:So as Ollie is getting interrogated by Zozo and Billy shows up, zozo ends up kidnapping Billy. He has another Nina it's not the Nina, but it's a Nina doll that he found along the way, or that he made himself, I think. And he's like if you name this Nina as your favorite, she will come to life and be my Nina again. And Billy's like okay, I'll say she's my favorite, but he's just stalling for time. So while Billy's doing this, ollie is being held by the creeps in another area and all the other favorite toys that have been kidnapped over the years unite and start fighting the creeps and that's how Ollie is able to escape and save Billy from Zozo's clutches.
Speaker 1:In the adaptation. Again, there's no army of creeps, so there's no army of favorite toys, as you know. Ollie says I don't know who this Nina is, I'm sorry, I can't help you and Zozo just starts like going mad with rage and like almost beats Ollie up. And Rosie shows up and is like I'll do the beating up for you, like why don't you go cool off? And Zozo's like okay. So Zozo walks away and Rosie obviously is like there's some good in there in Zozo, but obviously this is not the Zozo that rescued me. Go be reunited with Billy. So she like she's the one that lets Ollie go. And then there's like another epic battle. After she lets him go, she has to keep like fighting Zozo to help Ollie escape. So our girl Rosie just coming in and saving the day every time. So that's great and yeah.
Speaker 1:So, as you can see, two very, very different stories. So the book is definitely aimed for younger children, children, billy's age in the book. So like five, six, seven. The artwork oh my gosh, the illustrations in the book are absolutely beautiful. They are gorgeous. But the story itself, it's full of adventure and wonder and like, even though I'm describing imagery wise might sound a little scary, it's actually very, very tame and it's definitely aimed for a younger demographic. The adaptation is definitely aimed more for older kids, the middle grade crowd. So, yeah, so the mediums are definitely geared towards whatever Billie's age is. So although this obviously, like younger kids can still enjoy Billie and Ollie's dirty in the miniseries, it's definitely geared towards older kids and, perhaps the biggest change it's definitely meant for older kids to help them understand grief.
Speaker 1:Billy goes on this adventure. He gets home and his parents are just so happy, you know, as his parents are like where were you? We were so worried. Ollie ends up falling out of Billy's backpack just right on like the entryway. So Ollie's not getting lost again. But it's kind of left with this sense of unknown but also realization of like Billy is not gonna love me forever. There is gonna be a day in which he grows up and he's gonna forget about me and I'm okay with that. For now I'm just gonna enjoy Billy and all the adventures we're gonna have from now until he's too old for me. And so it ends with him looking into the dark, the inside of the house. He just sees darkness and he hears footsteps approaching him and, like, the last line of the book is along the lines of like he hoped it was Billy coming back for him for the next great adventure. So it's kind of like an ambiguous ending where you're not really sure what happens to Ollie after Billy returns home. But it's a good message for kids of just like, enjoy your toys, like, embrace the adventures that you are going to go on. Of course they might not get like the other implications of like one day your favorite toy is not going to be a favorite toy anymore, but you know it happens. But it overall, like it's, even though it's kind of ambiguous, like, it's still a happy ending because Ollie is content with his role in Billy's life.
Speaker 1:At this point in time the miniseries actually has a parent that dies. So, as you may have caught on earlier I said, the dad doesn't notice that Billy leaves to go look for Ollie and that is because he is so stricken with grief of his wife's death. His wife has cancer, she ends up dying of cancer and because Billy is older, that's kind of why he's dropping hints, even before the wife dies, of like maybe you should leave Ollie behind, maybe you shouldn't take Ollie to this and then, once his wife officially dies, you know he says Billy, you need to grow up and leave Ollie behind, which I'm just like man, I know. I know this is like, unfortunately, a very common thing for boys, that they have to grow up emotionally a lot faster. I don't even know how to phrase it, because women, boys and girls are expected to grow up faster than the other gender, in different ways. But yeah, for boys it's definitely like you're too old to be carrying that toy around like leave that toy behind. But it's also like he's still a 10, 11, 12 year old little boy who just lost his mother. Like let him hold on to his favorite toy that his mother made him, might I add, and let him like be comforted by it. So it doesn't say where it takes place in the book, but the TV show takes place in Kentucky, so it's like the South. So, yeah, obviously Billy's expected to just grow up and be a man after his mom's death, you know. So, yeah, that's a major, major, major difference between the two. But yeah, like the book is definitely aimed more for children, like little children, and the adaptation is definitely meant for older kids and it deals a lot with grief and so it's completely different messaging for a completely different age group. So I thought that was really interesting that they decided to take that route as opposed to like a more kid-friendly adaptation and make it, make it a lot more kid-friendly like it is in the book. So, yeah, that is Ollie's Odyssey versus Lost Ollie, and yeah, so I'm gonna talk a little bit more about the adaptation.
Speaker 1:So the adaptation we have Gina Rodriguez who plays the mom, jonathan Groff is the voice of Ollie, as I said. Mary J Blige is the voice of Rosie and Tim Blake Nelson is the voice of Zozo. Now, everyone is great, but I'm like such a Tim Blake Nelson fan girl. I think he's fantastic. Like I don't think there's a role that I've seen him do that I'm just like you totally bombed that. That was awful. Like even like just voicing Zozo, he was incredible. Like, oh my gosh, I really really liked it. I thought all the actors were fantastic, but I really needed to give a shout out to Tim Blake Nelson because he's just like, wow, he's incredible. All right, so I think that's all I had to say.
Speaker 1:The animation for the TV miniseries is still a little bit. It's still beautiful, but I definitely feel like the book illustrations are so gorgeous. I'm not condoning this. Please do not do this, but you can definitely rip out the pages of the book and put it in a picture frame and it would just look like a beautiful piece of art. So Ollie in the adaptation is definitely like a bunny and in the book he's described as having like bunny ears. But he wouldn't fall into the category of like a bunny and he wears a little hood. He looks so cute that Ollie in the adaptation does not wear. So yeah, I think that's everything I have to say.
Speaker 1:I rated the book four stars and I rated the miniseries four stars. Now, despite my ratings my book being rated four stars and the miniseries being rated four stars I do have a winner. I rated them four stars based on because they're just so different from each other that there really is no way to compare one to the other. So I do think the if you have a younger reader, I think Ollie's Odyssey is great to read to them. That can be like your bedtime book. It's relatively short, so if you read like one or two chapters a night, you'll probably finish it in a week about about a week, probably a little bit more, but anyway. So I do recommend the book to share with a young reader. I think they'll really really enjoy it. I think they'll really really enjoy the illustrations. However, in my opinion, I think the miniseries is the winner. Yes, I really really enjoyed both.
Speaker 1:But just for me where I am in my life, I found it a lot easier to relate to the miniseries because it is aimed at a little bit older of an audience than the book is. So I think, and to Blake Nelson as Zozo, it's worth checking out that voice acting Like he just blows Jonathan Groff and Mary J Blige out of the water in terms of the voice acting. But anyway. So yeah, I pick the miniseries because they are very, very different from each other, but the miniseries is just. Since I'm like maturity level wise, I relate more to the middle grade than I do like the younger reader adaptation. So I do choose the adaptation and I really enjoyed seeing Billy how he learns to cope with the difficulties and how Ollie tries really hard to get back to him.
Speaker 1:I thought of one thing my only complaint with the adaptation is the timeline wasn't as clear to me. So Ollie and Billy get separated in the school parking lot and then the opening shot of the miniseries is Ollie lost in the woods. We don't know how much time has passed how Ollie got to the woods, how long he's been laying in the woods. So that's my only complaint with the adaptation is just the timeline of everything, and that was just not clear to me. So one of the other twists that's that ends up getting revealed.
Speaker 1:I found it. It just wasn't like the twist itself is clear to me and I kind of guessed it before it was revealed. But, that being said, just like the timeline of how we got from point A to point B, and maybe it's because it's not really explained, because toys don't have a concept of time, I don't know, but humans have a concept of time and so I wasn't. It wasn't clear to me and so, yeah, that that was kind of just what bugged me, because I was like, well, how much time has passed, how? How did we get here? Like we got lost here. But how did we end up here and how did? How long have we been here before the start of this adventure? So yeah, that was that's my only issue, but otherwise I really enjoyed the relationship between Billy and Ollie. I really enjoyed the relationship between Billy and Mama, and again, it's Gina Rodriguez really really fantastic in that role and yeah, so I highly, highly, highly recommend the miniseries Everyone to check that out, and if the story sounds like something your kid would enjoy, I honestly think they'll enjoy it, and they'll enjoy the beautiful illustrations as well.
Speaker 1:So that's it. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Books vs Movies. Next week, we will be talking about Flaming Hot La Increíble Historia Real del Ascenso de un Hombre de Conserje Ejecutivo, by Richard Montañez, and its 2023 adaptation, flamin' Hot, directed by Eva Longoria and starring Jesse Garcia and Annie Gonzalez. See you next time.