The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh



The 22nd movie of the Disney Animated Canon, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is essentially a Compilation Movie incorporating three previously released featurettes about A.A. Milne's title character (which were also released independently on VHS back in the day): Winnie The Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie The Pooh and Tigger Too. A fourth short, Winnie The Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, was released later in 1983 and bundled with later re-releases of the movie, so for all intents and purposes it's lumped in here. It was the last work in which Walt Disney himself had personal involvement: he died before Blustery Day was released (the original three shorts were made between 1966 and 1974, with the movie released in 1977).

As part of their new announcement to return to 2D animation every two years, Disney has released a new feature in 2011, that adapts several of the short stories that were not covered in the original featurettes. The trailer has been released and can be viewed here. It looks promising. Very promising. Beware sudden bouts of nostalgia.

"Rabbit: W-Who said that? Tigger: It's the narr-ay-tor!"
 * Big Brother Instinct: Pooh, despite his rather clueless and docile demeanor, cares a lot about Piglet. Tigger also acts this way to Roo to a lesser extent (though this came into play a lot more in later features).
 * Bittersweet Ending: Christopher Robin has to go to school, starting the end of his childhood. As he puts it himself, he's not "going to do just nothing anymore".
 * Breakout Character: Tigger wasn't really a major character in the books, but his role grew significantly in the Disney adaptation.
 * Canon Foreigner: Gopher, made for Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. He's *whistle* not in the book.
 * Word of God has it that Gopher was not only based on the Beaver in Lady and the Tramp and made to be an "American" character, but his "I'm not in the book" is actually supposed to carry a double meaning: not only is he not in the original Milne books, but he isn't in the phone book either. I'm sure he's "ding-dang proud of it".
 * Christopher Robin Milne's autobiography, The Enchanted Places, reveals that A. A. Milne had planned to include an American Gopher in his Pooh books, but his publisher nixed it. Enchanted Places reprints a short poem from the lost Milne version of Gopher. Disney has done plenty of damage to Pooh, but here they tried to do right by Milne—and still can't catch a break.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Again, anyone except Eeyore, Tigger especially. Owl may classify given his ramblings about his family's history.
 * Of course Eeyore's depressive state takes near oddball lengths at times. Nearly every member of the Hundred Acre Wood (even more cynical characters such as Rabbit and Eeyore) have a crippling naivete and childlike complex on occasion making the whole wood somewhat a Cloudcuckooland (then again what do you expect from a place consisting of a kid's sentient stuffed animals?).
 * Disney Acid Sequence: "Heffalumps and Woozles" in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
 * Expository Theme Tune
 * Also something of an Ear Worm.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: While not a reference to sex or swearing or anything like that, in Blustery Day, the sign outside Piglet's house says "Trespassers Will." The sign is broken off after "Will." Piglet says it's short for "Trespassers William."
 * On the other hand, Piglet does explicitly say that Trespassers William was his grandfather's name, and that his grandmother used to call him "T.W."
 * In Honey Tree, it's briefly mentioned that Pooh is (litterally) living in the Hundred Acre Wood under the name of "Sanders".
 * Grumpy Bear: Rabbit is much more cynical and open about the others' idiocy (especially Pooh and Tigger's) compared to the other residents of the wood. Eeyore also seems more aware of the haplessness going on, even if he is more recessive and "matter-of-fact" about it.
 * Help, I'm Stuck!: Pooh frequently becomes stuck in Rabbit's front door.
 * Hypocritical Humor: Ssssay, you oughta do ssssomething about that sssspeech impediment, ssssonny.
 * Inevitable Waterfall: Pooh and Piglet go over one of these in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
 * Interactive Narrator: In Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too, he even serves as a Deus Ex Machina.
 * Medium Awareness
 * Mind Screw: As said before, the Nightmare Fuel song "Heffalumps and Woozles". In other words, THIS.
 * Mood Whiplash: Going from Tigger showing Rabbit that it's fun to bounce to Christopher Robin making Pooh promise not to forget him is quite jarring. We were having fun there, and all of a sudden the plot gets all Toy Story 3 on us.
 * The filmmakers then have the stuffed Pooh wink at the audience, which is probably to try and bring the mood back up again, but it comes across like they're thumbing their noses at us. "Ha, ha! Now you're sad!"
 * To be fair the ending is very similar to what happens in the end of House At Pooh Corner. Still the Tear Jerker though.
 * No Fourth Wall: In And Tigger, Too, the narrator helps Tigger get down from the tree, and in A Day for Eeyore, he steps in to settle an argument between Eeyore and Tigger.

"Gopher: Sufferin' sassafras, he's sailing clean out of the book! QUICK, TURN THE PAGE!"
 * Also, the ending to And the Honey Tree:


 * Painting the Fourth Wall
 * Plunger Detonator: Gopher's preferred means of setting off dynamite.
 * Punctuated for Emphasis: "DON'T! FEED! THE! BEAR!"
 * Running Gag: Gopher falling into his own inexplicably deep holes.
 * Eeyore's house constantly falling down could be considered this.
 * Shout-Out: Owl mentions that his uncle was the owl in the Edward Lear poem The Owl And The Pussycat.
 * Skintone Sclerae: With the exception of Christopher Robin (who averts it in the 2011 movie), they can easily be justified as button eyes.
 * Speech Impediment: Gopher whistles through his teeth when he speaks.
 * Piglet has quite a stutter too.
 * Stock Footage: Much of Tigger's animation and poses in And Tigger, Too (especially whenever he pounces anybody) were reused from his original appearance in Blustery Day, where he was excellently animated by Milt Kahl. Nicely averted when he gets stuck at the top of the tree, where we see some brilliant animated acting specific to context.
 * Stuff Blowing Up: Gopher often does heavy tunneling work with dynamite.