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Director: John Lounsberry
Release date: December 20, 1974
Stars: Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo & Christopher Robinson
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
The third of the Winnie the Pooh-featurettes is based on chapter seven and four from ‘The House at the Pooh Corner’ and both stories are centered around Tigger.
Now Tigger was from the start a wonderful character, superbly animated, and he shines again in his second appearance after ‘Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day’ from 1968. In both stories Tigger’s main adversary is the serious and rather sour Rabbit, who, too, is greatly animated, and the enormous difference in movement and expressions between the two characters is a great testimony of what character animation is all about, and of the extraordinary art of the nine old men.
As the two stories are very simple and straightforward, it’s best not to say much else about them, but in the second one Pooh himself is at his best when he discovers some mysterious tracks in the snow. There’s again a little playing with the book setting, even if it’s less than in the previous featurette.
The result is another delightful little film that will appeal to youngsters and adults, alike.
‘Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too’ was planned as the last of the Winnie the Pooh featurettes, and in 1977 all three were combined into a feature (which had been Walt’s original plan, anyway) called ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’, which adds one last and moving little scene to end it all. Nevertheless, 1983 saw another Winnie the Pooh short ‘Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore’.
And even that was not the end of the Disney-Pooh-adventure, as in 1988 the television series ‘The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’ started, followed by a few television specials and several straight to video features. And of course, in more recent times, the Winnie the Pooh franchise has gotten an update with films like ‘The Tigger Movie’ (2000) and ‘Piglet’s Big Movie’ (2003). One would almost blame the Disney company for milking the Pooh franchise too much, especially when getting far away from the source material, but then the company surprised us with the absolutely delightful ‘Winnie the Pooh‘ from 2011.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD as part of ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’
Directors: Stephen J. Anderson & Don Hall
Release Date: April 15, 2011
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
In 1961 Walt Disney obtained the film rights to A.A. Milne’s famous books, and over the years made five short specials about the character (1966-1983), of which the second (Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, 1968) and third (Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, 1974) have become absolute classics. In 1977 the first three were stitched together into the feature film ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’, and its in this form they’re available on home media today.
Now, one can lament the fact that many children will know Winnie the Pooh better by its Disney version than by E.H. Shepard’s original irreplaceable illustrations, but within animation history these specials are highlights of inventive story-telling and wonderful character animation. A particular delight are the playful interactions of the characters with the pages of the book they appear in. Moreover, Disney retained the contrast between the naive stuffed animals and the pompous forest animals, Rabbit and Owl, who only think they’re wiser than their plush counterparts.
Unfortunately, following these classic specials, Disney took more and more liberties with the Pooh franchise, resulting in television series, direct to video movies, and even video games. Also, the three feature films made by the Disneytoon Studio division, ‘The Tigger Movie’ (2000), ‘Piglet’s Big Movie’ (2003) and ‘Pooh’s Heffalump Movie’ (2005) seemed to drift away more and more from the source material than either desired or necessary.
In this light one cannot but be weary before approaching the 2011 film, called ‘Winnie the Pooh’ in surprisingly plain fashion. However, the film deviates significantly from the trends set in the previous decade: first, it was made by the Walt Disney Animation Studios itself, being Disney’s last hand drawn animated feature to date, and the quality of animation simply is undeniable. Especially Andreas Deja’s animation of Tigger is fantastic. Moreover, there’s only a little computer animation, most notably the swarm of bees and some flowing honey. Second, the film returns to the original source material, mixing two original chapters together: ‘Eeyore loses a Tail’ from Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and ‘The Search for Small’ from ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ (1928).
The film is surprisingly concise, only lasting 51 minutes, and not dragging one second of it. On the contrary, I rank ‘Winnie the Pooh’ as one of the best told and most entertaining of all 2010s animation films. The film successfully revives the playful spirit of the original specials, greatly helped by using John Cleese as its narrator. There’s plenty of humor, mostly deeply rooted in the interplay between the contrasting characters. For example, at one point Owl boasts he has “achieved completion of [his] autobiographical treatise”, prompting Winnie the Pooh to reply “Oh. Was it painful?”. In another sequence there’s a great confusion when the words ‘not’ and ‘knot’ are mixed together.
Two of the original songs are reused, the ones introducing Winnie the Pooh himself, and Tigger’s song. Five original songs are added, penned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. These are functional, pleasant and short enough to please even a musical aversion-bearer like me. Even better, the Backson song is accompanied by a wonderful fantasy sequence emulating the 1950s cartoon modern style. The ‘Everything is Honey’ song is illustrated with surreal images of honey pots in the forms of e.g. crabs, jellyfish and whales.
The voice cast, too, is excellent. As the voice of Pooh Jim Cummings does an excellent Sterling Holloway imitation, Bud Luckey sounds delightfully gloomy as Eeyore, while Craig Ferguson and Tom Kenny make their characters Owl and Rabbit perfectly pompous and self-important.
Even the end titles are a delight. First, the film’s adventures are retold using stills of the live action puppets in Christopher Robin’s room, then the rest of the titles are accompanied by several antics of the characters, much in the vein of the titles of ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003). And there’s a surprise at the very end of them, so keep watching!
In all, ‘Winnie the Pooh’ is a wonderful surprise, a true gem of a film, no doubt delighting children and adults alike. Unfortunately, it was to be the Disney studio’s last traditionally animated feature. It’s unbelievably sad that the high art of drawn animation was abandoned even by the studio that had elevated the technique to inconceivable heights in the first place. I surely hope Disney will return to this art form one day.
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