Winnie the Pooh

After Lasseter took over, the three previous theatrically released Winnie the Pooh films were stricken from the main canon. However, in 2011, Disney’s 51^st animated film was a part of the franchise aptly named Winnie the Pooh. Starring Jim Cummings, Travis Oates, Tom Kenny, Craig Ferguson, Bud Luckey, Jack Boulter, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, and Wyatt Hall, it was narrated by John Cleese and had music performed by Zooey Deschanel, which were written by the co-writers of Avenue Q. It grossed $44.7 million.

When Pooh (Cummings) runs out of honey, he goes to find some and finds that Eeyore (Luckey) is missing his tail. But when everyone goes to find one, it’s discovered that Christopher Robin has gone away for a while, but left a note and everyone assumes he was captured by a monster called the Backson.

 This film really hearkens back to the 70s and the original film, especially in the characterizations. Everyone is back to their incredibly oblivious selves, highlighting their quirky qualities rather than playing up the negative. Pooh is back to being dim, yet very aware, Piglet isn’t that scared anymore so much as he’s high strung and says the oddest things, Rabbit is still highly on edge, but it’s not about work, Tigger has returned to being the overly confident blowhard and Owl is back to being somewhat smart, but just barely smarter than anyone else. And notice that Gopher isn’t in this. Just like he wasn’t in the books or the first movie.

It’s also much less dramatic than the films from the 90s and 2000s, which can be seen in many of its gags. For instance, at one point, Owl keeps talking about the “issue” at hand and Pooh constantly thinks he’s sneezing. There’s also a point where the gang, sans Piglet, is stuck in a hole and Piglet is trying to get them out. It keeps building on gags that don’t work, like when Piglet finds a rope, but cuts it up for each of them. And yet, it doesn’t occur to anyone that Owl, who is in the pit, can fly. And when he does fly up to encourage Piglet to travel to Christopher Robin’s house, h flies right back and everyone compliments him on the speech. And one of the plots is finding a new tail for Eeyore. And a song is sung every time a new tail is found. Including when Eeyore uses an anchor as one.

Then there’s the plot, which consists of three chapters from the books turned into one coherent story. And with all the scenes that don’t advance the plot, it really enforces that it’s all in Christopher Robin’s imagination.

Better than all the films between this and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. If there ever was a place to bring the series to a close, this is it.

#39 

The Tigger Movie

In 2000, Disney would release the first theatrical Winnie the Pooh film to not be a collection of shorts as well as not centered around the bear. The Tigger Movie was also the first Disney movie to feature music by the Sherman Brothers since Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Starring all the regular voice actors, the film did moderately well at the box office.

The film centers on Tigger who feels lonely about being “the only one” and decides to search for his family.

Simple concept for a film that centers on what previously was a side character. Usually, Tigger loves being the only one of his kind around. But when he doesn’t have anyone to bounce with, he realizes how alone he really is and wonders what happened to his kind. And most of the film just pushes him down more and more with misunderstandings. He thinks he’s “reading between the lines” with the letter that his “family” is coming, when they’re really not. And when the gang shows up pretending to be them, when he finds out, he won’t let them explain, so he goes off into a blizzard. It makes sense, he believes he’s seeing his family for the first time and is dejected that it wasn’t really them. It’s what makes the main theme of the movie so great when it comes around.

Tigger comes to realize that he may be the only Tigger, but he does have a family in the friends that have stuck by him through everything. And it may seem tacked on, until you realize that they didn’t like seeing Tigger so upset at not having a family, so they orchestrated a letter and then faked being his family. Then they went to go find him in a snowstorm. Everything they do shows how much they care for him.

There’s not much else to say about the film. The music is good and Christopher Robin shows up at the very end of the film, even though he had absolutely no business even being there.

#39, but does cross the Edge of Satisfaction

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

In the late 60s and early 70s, The Disney Company released three animated featurettes based on A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books. On March 11, 1977 they were released as one animated musical feature, with one new addition, as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Starring Sterling Holloway, John Fiedler, Bruce Reitherman, and Timothy Turner, the company eventually released a sequel in 2011.

The narrative is told in the form of the narrator (Sebastian Cabot) reading the original books, occasionally interacting with the characters.

The first story, Winnie the Pooh and Honey Tree, involves Pooh (Holloway) trying to get honey from a tree filled with bees. He disguises himself in mud and pretends to be a black rain cloud as Christopher Robin (Reitherman, Jon Walmsley, and Turner) furthers the con. Unsuccessful, Pooh visits Rabbit (Junius Matthews) for some honey and gets stuck in his front door. After a few days, Pooh is able to be pushed out and gets tuck in the honey tree.
The second story, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, takes place on a very windy day. Piglet (Fiedler) turns into a kite due to his scarf unraveling and Eeyore’s (Ralph Wright) house breaks while Pooh tries to hold on. Owl’s (Hal Smith) house also blows over and Eeyore begins to seek out a new house. That night, Tigger (Paul Winchell) surprises pooh and warns him about Heffalumps and Woozles that steals honey. During a flood, Piglet is washed out of his house Pooh and Owl help Piglet and Christopher Robin organizes a hero’s party for Pooh. However, Eeyore finds Piglet’s empty house and announces that he found a new home for Owl. Piglet lets him stay and moves in with Pooh.
The third story, Winnie the Pooh and Tiger Too, has Tigger annoying everyone with his bouncing, so Rabbit plans to lose him in the woods. However, Rabbit gets himself, Pooh and Piglet lost. Rabbit wanders away, and Pooh and Piglet are found again by Tigger, who eventually finds Rabbit as well. During the winter, Tigger and Roo (Clint Howard and Dori Whitaker) get stuck up a tree and are found by Pooh and Piglet. Christopher Robin uses his coat as a net to get them to jump down. Roo jumps, but Tigger has to be helped by the narrator tipping the book.

The final story, based on the final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner is simply a discussion with Christopher Robin and Pooh about remembering the time they had together.

Another package film. But this one is a little bit different as it involves all the same characters and is framed by a narrator going between chapters. This makes it the smoothest package film the company has put out and the fourth wall jokes actually make sense, with explanations that Owl went on and on for 20 or so pages, that Pooh allowed the narrator to continue simply because he was in the next chapter and that Tigger was only able to get out of the tree thanks to the narrator. The way it’s done adds to the film’s sense of humor, instead of just being a way to shoehorn something in like The Aristocats did. Also, the entire “Heffalumps and Woozles” song is another Disney Acid Trip. But it’s much better and much weirder than Dumbo’s “Pink Elephants on Parade.”

The original books were based off of Milne’s own son, Christopher, and his interactions with his stuffed animals. This stays true to that. The book the story takes place in is Christopher Robin’s copy of that same book and the opening shot of the film is in his room. As such, all the characters in the film are the creation of Christopher’s imagination. The point is, that all the characters seem one dimensional. Pooh is slow witted, loyal, friendly, and constantly hungry, Tigger is hyperactive and oblivious to his own surroundings, Rabbit is full of himself and quickly gets weary to the hijinks of everyone else, Owl isn’t as intelligent as he thinks he is and often drones on and on, Piglet is paranoid and easily excited, Kanga is the overprotective mother and Roo is the brave kid. Only having one facet to their characters actually works in the film’s favor. Christopher is a young boy and young children don’t often give imaginary friends a lot of depth. This gives the film more believability.

Furthermore, the final part of the movie is incredibly deep with Christopher and Pooh going into what makes friendship and memories without derailing Pooh’s character. And then it ends. But this works really well to tie up the film, which is simply the misadventures of a boy and his imaginary friends. It’s not overtly grand, there’s no fantastic action, and the characters don’t really learn anything. But when you had an imaginary friend as a child, did that happen to you?

Final Call: just a slice of life in the Hundred Acre Wood. #5.