Check out three clips from Higglety Pigglety Pop!

Nothing was pure: each character required a different kind of puppet. All images courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada and Warner Home Video.

There's more Maurice Sendak to enjoy. As part of the Blu-ray for Where the Wild Things Are, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (Madame Tutli-Putli) have adapted Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life as a live action/animated short, produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with Warner Home Video. Produced by Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay and Marcy Page, Higglety Pigglety features the voices of Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker. A tribute to Sendak's dearly departed pooch, the story follows Jennie (Streep), a Sealyham terrier, who hits the road to gain "experience" on her transcendental journey to becoming the leading lady in the World Mother Goose Theatre. Szczerbowski discusses how they whipped up this Sendak dessert.

Bill Desowitz: How did this come about? 

Maciek Szczerbowski: Prior to the release of Madame Tutli-Putli, it was noticed by a fellow named Russell, who works with Spike Jonze, and it was suggested to him when they were looking for someone to contribute to a larger package in tribute to Maurice Sendak to go along with the Wild Things feature. He called us in France while promoting the Synecdoche, New York project. So, of course, we met up and hit it off over beers and he pitched us the idea of doing some other short story by Maurice Sendak and gave us pretty much creative freedom to pick a story. And so not being familiar with all of them, found them in the library and really, really got turned on by one in particular, which was Higglety Pigglety Pop!, maybe the most narrative of all his works but also one of the most profound.

BD: And it had to complement Wild Things.