In 1985, due to a clerical error, a young Johnny Depp accidentally sold his soul to Teddy Ruxpin. This wasn’t a major issue until Hasbro bought out the original Ruxpin-making company and set about putting a portion of his soul into every Ruxpin produced. Later, J.K. Rowling cited the Johnny Depp-Ruxpin soul dilemma as a major influence for her Voldemort horcrux plotline. “It seemed to me,” she said in an interview with Stonewall Magazine*1 (Nov ’21), “that his tragic tale of the mighty falling to nought as his soul is systematically destroyed would be perfect for a conkless lizard-wizard villain. Depp is the archetypal tragic hero. He is Generation X’s Macbeth. He is Faust sponsored by Dior. He is the shizzle to my nizzle.”
The curious decisions made in his later career have therefore been put down to the number of Ruxpins destroyed and consequently the portion of Depp’s soul lost.
Dr. Portly-Smith, an expert in Theology and Contract Law from the University of Wyoming, stated in a 2007 paper (Selling your Soul to Santa – The Art of Misprints in Mephistophelean Deals)*2 that Depp’s Ruxpin-related deterioration had echoes in Renaissance Italy with Caravaggio whose demonic contract got muddled with his grocery list, and as a result his last few paintings were rubbish once he’d eaten all the satsumas. Depp’s predicament is seen by Portly-Smith as being very similar: “As Caravaggio’s last two paintings ‘A Lovely Horse’ and ‘That Fellow who has a Fancy Hat, you know, thingy’, both lacked in artistic worth and were labelled by contemporaries as ‘soulless’, so Depp’s diminishing filmic performances reflects someone who isn’t fully there soul-wise. As the Ruxpins rust, get crushed, or are simply lost and baked in breadcrumbs at a Chuck-E-Cheese in Idaho, so Depp’s condition will only get worse.”
The fate of the Teddy Ruxpins is therefore of paramount importance for both Depp devotees and theologians alike. Inevitably, as toys coming towards the end of their fourth decade, their condition is becoming increasingly precarious, as is Depp’s eternal safety.
A Mrs Cynthia Dubois of Otterswang, North Dakota, has the largest collection of Teddy Ruxpins in the world, some four hundred and eighty seven that occupy most of her two bedroomed flat, and a couple of lock-ups in nearby Honkersville. “The way I see it,” Mrs Dubois told local reporter, Hank Spleenstein, in a 2020 interview*3 (‘Honkersville Herald’) “is that I’m saving the soul of Mr Johnny Depp. So in purchasing these Ruxpins I am doing God’s work. And if I get 51% of the Ruxpins, I will then technically have a controlling stake in the immortal soul of Johnny Depp.”
Since then, Depp’s lawyers have issued a cease and desist order on Mrs Dubois.
Depp’s first film appearance was of course in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ (’84) which should have been a clue to his quasi-demonic commitments that were all to begin the following year when Ruxpin emerged and Depp’s contract was signed. The first result of his automated-ursine pact was his role in ‘Platoon’ (’86). Clint Posthumously, a catering assistant on the production later wrote in his autobiography ‘Serving Souvlaki to the Stars – The Life of a Film Caterer’*4 that “. . .the kid sparkled. There was something unnatural about the glint in his eye, like cosmic grit you know, and if you kicked him in the shins his eyes would roll back into his head and he’d say ‘can you and I be friends? I really enjoy talking to people.’ Willem Dafoe couldn’t stop kicking him; he found it hysterical. Depp wouldn’t recall a thing but would wonder why his leg was bruised and Dafoe was weeping.”
‘Edward Scissorhands’ (’90) has soul. And so did Depp by this point. It was in the possession of Teddy Ruxpin but was still in its entirety and therefore the deal was at its most potent. It was of course Vincent Price’s last film role and the veteran actor recognised the signs of soul-selling in his young co-star, writing in a letter to his proctologist*5: “Jim, you know how you sold a share in your immortal soul to the Hornéd One for softer digits? Well I reckon this Depp kid has gone the full kablooey and thrown it all in for a big slice of the silverscreen cake. My love to Majorie and the kids. That ointment you sent me has done bupkis for the ol’ bumgrapes but the dog’s boil has shrivelled to nothing. Yours, Vinnie.”
‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ (’93) went through quite a few iterations before leading to the award-tempting performances of Messrs Depp and Dicaprio. Depp was excited when he first signed up to the project, thinking that it was being directed by a dog. When Lasse Hallström turned out to be a Swedish human film director who had captured most be Abba’s oeuvre, he was initially disappointed but remained on the project under the condition that a dog be hired as a 2nd unit director. A four year old schnauzer called Herr Woofstein directed most of the shots around the water tower, and went on to have a successful career in advertising. His work changed a whole generation’s attitude towards vinyl flooring.
When Terry Scott turned down the chance to reprise his role of ‘Terry’ in the big budget film adaptation of the gentle 1980’s sitcom, ‘Terry and June’, wanting to focus on reworking his adverts for curly-wurly bars into a light opera, Depp jumped at the chance to play him. Depp had been a massive ‘T&J-head’ since catching it as a late teenager on cable and so his desire to take part in the film version very much fell into the remit of his soul-selling deal. He felt inadequate to fully follow in Terry Scott’s footsteps, and when June Whitfield pulled out due to a clash of commitments with filming ‘Ab-Fab’, Depp insisted that the entire project be renamed ‘Benny & Joon’ (’93), and instead of Purley, it be set in Spokane. Despite early resistance, the changes proved popular and Depp was lauded for his quirky interpretation of the role originated by Scott.
For ‘Donnie Brasco’ (’97) – a true story based on former mediocre British tennis star and Anneka Rice replacement, Annabel Croft’s autobiographical work ‘I should have listened to Kenneth’*6 – a harrowing account of a protracted misunderstanding of a clue in north Bedfordshire that led to time embroiled in the Neapolitan mafia, Depp was still very much in charge of his spiritual faculties and reaping the rewards of his automated ursine soul deal. The fact that Ruxpin seemed to exert a similar control over the fortunes of this mortal realm to the Devil has puzzled theologians. Writing in ‘Faustian Times’, the Reverend Josiah Poldark*7 stated “This causes enormous problems for the Church in Latin America. For them, only the Spectacled Bear, anointed as it was by the blessed tears of Saint Barbara when she got her foot stuck in that font, has the ability to manipulate the affairs of humankind. In fact, the faithful in La Paz hold a special festival each year called ‘Festival del Oso Magico’ in which they burn effigies of Paddington and remember when a spectacled bear changed the result of the state lottery so that it was won by a nunnery.” He goes on: “Father Velaquez tried to get Ruxpin reclassified as a spectacled bear in a vain attempt to circumnavigate the thorny issue, but to no avail.”
In ‘Donnie Brasco’ Depp’s character goes undercover in the mafia. Being committed to the role, and somewhat of a method actor, Depp himself spent six months living undercover. Unfortunately, due to insurance issues, he couldn’t do his undercover work in the mafia, and instead spent six months in an Argos in Coventry.
The impact of his diminishing soul was first really seen in 2000’s ‘Chocolat’, where a spiritually confused Depp spent a lot of the film not remembering how to do his shirt up properly. Despite the positive reviews, this was an aspect that contemporary film critics seemed obsessed by: “Perhaps some form of Velcro would be easier?” suggested Empire Magazine (Jan’ 2000)*8; “I spent the whole film wanting to give him a safety pin” Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun*9); Variety’s film critic, Lael Loewenstein said “it made me long for the days of restrictive tailoring under the Weimar Republic. They may have had hyperinflation but at least everyone wore a tie when pushing those wheelbarrows.”*10
There was clear evidence by the time the year 2010 came round that there was only enough of Depp left to cover playing two roles: ‘Keith Richards’ (see ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) or quirky lunatic differentiated by different hats (see ‘Charlie and Chocolate Factory ’05, and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ ’10). If you watch ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ frame by frame, during the scene when Willy Wonka greets the children arriving at the factory, you can see the precise moment that two Teddy Ruxpins exploded in a gas leak in Des Moines and the lights briefly go out in Depp’s eyes at his soul diminishing.
Depp was, for several months, extremely excited to be involved with what he believed was a Beatles biopic. He even learnt to play the drums in an intensive four week course with Desi Arnaz’s tailor. The animated film ‘Rango’ (2011) made well over $200 million at the box office. This did little to compensate for Depp’s disappointment. When, two years later, he found himself playing a native American companion of the ‘Lone Ranger’ (2013), instead of, as he thought, the canine lead in a daring re-imagining of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, he made a vow to never play anyone ending with ‘o’ again. The sliding quality of the roles and his dream jobs becoming as substantial as mist, seemed entirely due to the severe decline in functioning Ruxpins and therefore diminishing strength of the original contract.
2015’s ‘Mortdecai’ – which is of course French for ‘the death of Cai’ was described by the film critic, Quentin Moss, as “the filmic equivalent of watching frogs spawning – one is left with a deep-seated disgust of nature and fearful of the potential consequences of reincarnation”*11. CAI here stands for ‘Club Alpino Italiano’ – the Italian Alpine Club, which was famously disbanded in 2010 when Silvio Berlusconi had the Alps reclassified as a soft cheese for tax purposes.
When not filming, Depp has spent a lot of his free-time playing guitar and hanging out with aged rock stars, partly to make him feel slightly less leathery (a review of the latest ‘Rolling Stones’ tour was accidently mixed up in NME with an advert for a sale on ‘World of Leather’ sofas), but mainly because of his mistaken belief that they too had sold their souls to some form of higher power (or animated bear). It is of course a fallacy that rock stars worship the Devil and enter into Satanic pacts, though Mick Jagger did offer Beelzebub a writing credit on the latest Rolling Stones album in exchange for a packet of Dairylea Lunchables.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, “Sherlock Gnomes” was not a mistake. According to Judge Rinder’s biography of Depp ‘In at the Depp End – Journeys with Johnny’ (‘20), Depp claims that “Gnomes was the culmination of fifteen years of committed research, character study and development in which Depp squatted in Mia Farrow’s garden and dangled his rod in her pond every fourth Wednesday.”*12.
Symptomatic of his evaporating soul and the consequential weakening of his original contract is, having taken up the role of evil super wizard Grindelwald in the Potter’s Flashy Beasts series in 2018, by 2022 he had accidentally become Danish much to the embarrassment of his PA. “I left Mr. Depp on the Tuesday morning to go buy some yoghurt and a copy of ‘Bunty’,” the mortified PA, Elrond Whimsey, confessed to the Daily Mirror in October, “and when I got back shortly after brunch, he had become distinctly Danish and there was nothing that I or Mr. Depp could do. We tried everything, even goose fat.”*13 At this point the PA broke down in tears and the Mirror journalist, Gladstone Krappart, had to fill the rest of the article with the vapid opinions of celebrities such as Holly Willoughby (“It’s the most tragic thing what I ever did heard”), and TV Historian David Starkey (“I hate the Danes”).
The mere wisps left of his soul, has led to Depp resorting to surreal adverts in which he plays a guitar then buries a wolf in the desert, all in delicious monochrome, in the vain hope that people would want to smell like someone who indulges in midnight canine interment. And for Portly-Smith the end is seemingly nigh: “Depp’s only hope, as I see it,” she said in a recent interview with Armageddon Weekly (May ’20)*14 “is some form of Ruxpin reboot with tie-in merchandise, and I know for a fact Disney won’t touch it with a barge pole ever since ‘The Gummi Bears’ went toxic #MeTooGrammi.”
Sources:
*1 Duberry, C. (2022) ‘JK and the Depp Stone’ Stonewall Magazine Vol. 50 (Nov’ 22)
*2 Portly-Smith, Dr. E. (2007) ‘Selling your Soul to Santa – The Art of Misprints in Mephistophelean Deals’ Journal of Contract Law Vol. 87 (11)
*3 Spleenstein, H (2020) ‘North Dakotan Woman says God wants her to Save Depp’s Soul’ Honkersville Herald (4/6/20)
*4 Posthumously, C. (2017) ‘Serving Souvlaki to the Stars – The Life of a Film Caterer.’ Los Angeles. Penguin.
*5 Price, V. (1992) ‘The Price is Right – The Collected Correspondences of Vincent Price’ Los Angeles. Faber & Faber.
*6 Croft, A. (1996) ‘I Should Have Listened to Kenneth’ London. Fisher-Price.
*7 Poldark, Rev. J. (2005) ‘The Ruxpin Issue for Latin America’ Faustian Times Vol. 7 (9) pgs. 6-10.
*8 Newman, K (2000) ‘Chocolat Review’ Empire Magazine Issue 127 pgs. 72-73
*9 Ebert, R. (2000) ‘More Willy, Less Wonka – A Chocolat Review’ Chicago Sun. (4/1/2000)
*10 Lowenstein, L. (2000) ‘For God’s Sake, Wear a Tie – Chocolat Review’ Variety Vol. 90 (1)
*11 Moss, Q. (2015) ‘How I learnt to Despair – A Review of Mortdecai’ Portsmouth Gazette (7/9/15)
*12 Rinder, R. (2020) ‘In at the Depp End – Journeys with Johnny’ London. Ladybird.
*13 Krappart, G. (2023) ‘Depp’s Danish Disaster’ Daily Mirror (5/1/23)
*14 Tumeric, R. (2023) ‘The Doom of Depp – An Interview with Dr. Evadne Portly-Smith’ Armageddon WeeklyVol. 16 (5)
Treatises of Gloria 