The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

Directors:

John Lounsbery
Wolfgang Reitherman

Writers:

A.A. Milne (books)
Larry Clemmons (story) ...

Release Date:

11 March 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Family | Animation | Musical

Plot:

A collection of animated shorts based on the stories and characters by A. A. Milne.

Plot Keywords:

Bear | Tiger | Friendship | Based On Children's Book | Disney Animated Feature

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Sebastian Cabot	...	Narrator (voice)
Junius Matthews	...	Rabbit (voice)
Barbara Luddy	...	Kanga (voice)
Howard Morris	...	Gopher (voice)
John Fiedler	...	Piglet (voice)
Ralph Wright	...	Eeyore (voice)
Hal Smith	...	Owl (voice)
Clint Howard	...	Roo (Honey Tree and Blustery Day) (voice)
Bruce Reitherman	...	Christopher Robin (Honey Tree) (voice)
Jon Walmsley	...	Christopher Robin (Blustery Day) (voice)
Timothy Turner	...	Christopher Robin (Tigger Too) (voice)
Dori Whitaker	...	Roo (Tigger Too) (voice)
Sterling Holloway	...	Winnie the Pooh (voice)
Paul Winchell	...	Tigger (voice)

Runtime:

74 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone Sound Recording)

Certification:

Brazil:Livre | Iceland:L | Sweden:7 (video rating) | Australia:G | UK:U | USA:G | West Germany:o.Al.

Company:

Walt Disney Productions

Trivia:

Tigger's trademark "Hoo-hoo-hoo!" laugh by was ad-libbed by Paul Winchell as well as his famous "TTFN-Ta Ta For Now!" line.

Goofs:

Continuity: The storybook that opens at the beginning of the film has the title "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" (since it was created specifically for that short), but only reads "Winnie the Pooh" when it closes in the end.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: This could be the room of any small boy, but it just happens to belong to a boy named Christopher Robin. Like most small boys, Christopher Robin has toy animals to play with, and they all live together in a wonderful world of make-believe. But his best friend is a bear called Winnie the Pooh, or Pooh, for short. Now, Pooh had some very unusual adventures, and they all happened right here in the Hundred-Acre Wood.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Disney Sing-Along-Songs: The Bare Necessities (1987) (V)

Soundtrack:

Hip-Hip Pooh-ray!

Wonderful evocations of the Pooh world, closely based on the originals

This film is actually comprised of three earlier featurettes ("Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree", "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day", "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too"), the first three of the four Disney efforts at filming the world of Winnie The Pooh which (the fourth was "A Day for Eyeore") that were closely based on specific A.A. Milne stories, and were excellently done. Despite not being drawn the way E. H. Sheppard originally illustrated them (which is, perhaps a loss), the characters are played with great respect for the way they were written. They have been Americanized in their speech, and they don't rely so much on the British comedy of manners that Milne mined so successfully, but they are quite solidly the same "people" they were in the books. Sterling Holloway is a marvelous Pooh whose his furry voice seems to convey both his outer softness and his mental fuzziness. Paul Winchell's Tigger is probably an improvement of the original, simply because words alone could never really convey Tigger's manic exuberance the way Winchell's performance does. Ralph Wright's Eyeore is a delight, and the other characters hold their own and uphold their tradition completely.

The one completely un-Milne touch that has been added seems to me entirely acceptable, too. This is the occasional presence, in the story, of the Narrator, whose intervention helps move the characters through some of the more difficult moments. It is a touch of gentleness that is not cloying at all, and is occasionally rather witty.

These stories are genuinely wholesome without being sticky. If you want to feed your kids entertainment that's truly funny, has decent human values, is completely free of potty jokes, and will stand up for 6-year-olds yet won't scare three-year-olds, it doesn't get much better than this.