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the last of the really great whangdoodles
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Well it’s all right to cry. It helps a great deal sometimes …
—  Auri
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Alright well here’s my official Whangdoodle reference sheet!
Since he’s by definition based off a character from a book written by Mary Poppins, I can’t really say he’s an original character, but since he’s the only interpretation I’ve seen, I will keep him under the OC tag for everyone’s sake
If I remember correctly, the slippers rarely come off, his tail is tied into a knot, and being the king of the land, he is a magical and wonderful creature who can change into any color, so don’t worry about straying from the reference’s color scheme; it’s just based off his initial description from the book
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I remember having my teacher read this book to me in fourth grade and I absolutely loved it, I just found out it was written by Julie Andrews and now I am totally in love with it
folk, elder, home
folk: who is the most fantastical being u have known?
A Whangdoodle!! I can’t find the description but it is a creature of higher knowledge that is elegant (like a unicorn), it has antlers, and it changes color by choice or two reflect its mood. (Read The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles!!!)
elder: what do u expect to be like in your elder years?
Grouchy and with a house filled with cats and books.
home: in what type of environment do you feel most safe?
Any place that has many books. (I also like bright rooms as well)
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here’s another quick animation that cutie pie Whangdoodle
this guy’s an absolute peach to draw, I might have to make him a regular
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Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up? Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn’t notice.
—  The Last of the Really Great Whangdooles, Julie Edwards Andrews
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Miracles, contrary to popular belief, do not just happen. A miracle is the achievement of the impossible. It is only when we put aside our greed, anger, pride and prejudice, so that our minds are open and ready to accept it, that a miracle can occur.
—  Julie Andrews (The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles)
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The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards
There were a lot of great fantasy worlds out there when I was a kid, and like any discerning bookworm, I shopped around. I dabbled in Narnia, Platform 13, Ender Wiggin’s Battle School, Lyra’s atheist Oxford. I even dreamed up my own third-rate knock-off, called Celcia, which featured mouse-people with ponytails and a sort of lo-fi Justice League called the Magic Bicycle Girls. Someday I’ll turn it into a thinly veiled religious allegory and make millions. (Lewis, L’Engle, Pullman ― I’m looking at you.) In any case, that DIY impulse must have something to do with why, despite a surplus of capital-l Literature at my fingertips, I had to go and fall in love with a ramshackle joint like Whangdoodleland. 
Does The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles belong in the kid-lit Criterion? Has anyone even read it besides me (and the select family members willing to humor me when I was eight)? Your guess is as good as mine, friends. But Whangdoodleland ― brought to us by the woman formerly known as Poppins, von Trapp, and the queen of Genovia ― was the uncontested travel destination of my youth.
The place had everything: five-legged anteaters, bread-scented flowers, a shrill little thing called a Whiffle Bird that might be the mockingjay’s nutty ancestor. Again and again I donned my metaphorical scrappy cap, joining Ben, Tom, and Lindy Potter on their mission to find the last of that very endangered species called the Whangdoodle. 
Even today, a surprising amount of the mythology sticks with me. Mention the Nobel Prize and I think of Professor Savant, esteemed Whangdoodle academic and imagination theorist. Ask me to define ecstasy and I’ll point you towards the High-Behind Splintercat, eternally tumbling through a field of catnip in “an absolute dither of delight.” I know the best butterflies are Flutterbyes and that they are truly papilionaceous. I tend to picture Otto von Bismarck with a diabolical Yo-Yo just like oily prime minister Prock’s. (I’m a European history major, so this kinda comes up a lot.)
And, okay, maybe the fun is dampened by the it’s-all-in-your-head disclaimer, which feels no more satisfying here than it does when Dorothy wakes up back in black-and-white Kansas. Whangdoodleland, like Oz, has one foot perennially stuck in what today’s kids might call Muggledom. And, yes, okay, the deus ex professor that sets this imaginary round trip in motion feels, like, totally creepy in today’s world. Recap: local eccentric approaches three unchaperoned children, invites them back to his cavernous bachelor pad, enlists them in secret psychoactive “experiments” that Mummy just wouldn’t understand. 
Wait, what?  
But that’s the thing ― the book is super, super uncynical. This is a world where chummy old men always have honest intentions; where the word “whangdoodle” isn’t the dorkiest thing you’ve ever heard; where make-believe adventures are no less badass than the real kind. And in a way, that’s kind of empowering ― because if a trio of bookish, thoroughly scar-free Potter children can conjure up this kind of trouble, then why the hell can’t you? For me, at least, the cotton-candy acid trip that is The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles has inspired countless Fanciful Creature-lands. While quite possibly a harbinger of deeper psychological problems, these little worlds also helped fuel my early forays into writing. The results may have been mixed (film rights to Celcia, anyone?), but my imagination got a wacky dose of color that it certainly didn’t have before.
What’s more magical than that?
– Hannah White  is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. She does some of her best reading while she’s blow-drying her hair.
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I just cried reading an article about Julie Andrews. They’re making The Last Of The Really Great Whangdoodles into a movie! That book taught me that it was okay to be different at a time when my “friends” persecuted me for treating others with respect. I felt so alone until I read that book; it help me realize that things would all work out in the end and I would be able to find true happiness again. That’s a longwinded way of me saying that I’ll be first in line to see that film.