The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Review: Disney Marathon

Spoilers

In 1966 Walt Disney released a featurette called “Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree”. This was based on the first two chapters of A. A. Milne’s original Winnie the Pooh book. After Walt’s death and noticing that Disney will provide the honey and Winnie the Pooh will provide the money, they made a couple more featurettes. These were “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day” in 1968 which was based on a ton of separate chapters from both A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books and “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too” in 1974 which is based on three chapters from the duology. Now flashforward a few years to 1977 and every Disney employee bolted upright simultaneously realising that they haven’t made anything in four years and need some more money. So instead of making something original they slap these three featurettes together and call it a day. Yeah, they add a bit to it but I imagine anyone who had watched these three featurettes beforehand must have been pretty pissed off when they sit in a cinema only to realise that they’ve been pranked. I’m going to judge the film on its own merits however. Most people will watch this film without having seen the parts it is made of, including me.

I used to watch this all the time as a child. As a child I had a number of DVDs in circulation. I’d watch a DVD every night before bed and would just alternate between the ones I liked the most. These included the first two Harry Potter films, Shrek, Shrek 2, a ton of SpongeBob, Scooby Doo, and of course The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This is the first Disney movie in the marathon that I have a huge nostalgic connection to. I’ll try to be as objective as possible but I can’t make any promises. Finally, even though this is a package film I’ll be reviewing the plot as one as all three segments mesh together so well.

The movie starts with a live-action child’s room. We are told this room belongs to Christopher Robin and that he makes up stories with his toys. This is a great framing device, with everything being complete fantasy from a child’s perspective it just makes the movie all the more charming. Most things are spelt wrong throughout the movie and Christopher Robin is always framed as the most intelligent of the characters. Of course, he is, it’s all in his head. Or at least in the book “Winnie the Pooh” that was written by his Dad about him and all of his toys like it was in real life, it’s all very strange but works well. Here we get introduced to Winnie the Pooh with the “Winnie the Pooh Theme Song” which just brought back so many memories from when I was a child, I’m going to be honest I’m not sure how objective I can be with this review. This song is a basic run down of the characters but in such a charming way I’m not sure how you couldn’t find it charming.

The whole movie is presented as being within a storybook. This is genius. Forth wall breaks can often be annoying if not done well but The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh does it in such a great way. Characters will interact with the actual words on the pages, they’ll acknowledge when they are going ahead a few pages, when they are walking we’ll often see them jump between pages. The only time I’d say it doesn’t work is with Gopher who constantly mentions that he’s not in the book which was funny the first time but gets old quickly.

Gopher is the only character who wasn’t in the original books and he’s also the only character I don’t like in the entire movie. He was made to replace Piglet but after us Brits demanded that Piglet was brought back, he sort of just ends up existing. Piglet was replaced by Gopher to appease an American audience which I think is dumb. When going to the theme parks in America it’s Piglet who has all the merchandise not bloody Gopher. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Americans can’t get enough of Gopher but I doubt it. The rest of the characters are great.

Winnie the Pooh is one of the most charming characters ever to exist. He isn’t too bright but also doesn’t have a single bad bone in his body. Piglet is great as well; he thinks of Pooh as a wise friend and is always nervous. Tigger is just the embodiment of ADHD (I can say that because I have ADHD). Eeyore is always depressed and the more I look at the cast the harder it becomes to disprove the theory that they all represent a mental disorder. Look I’m not one to normally believe in fan theories but this is very believable. People say the theory has been disproven but that is false. The people who originally made the theory claimed they made it as a joke but that doesn’t discredit the points they made. If I ironically said something that was true it doesn’t matter that I said it ironically, it’s still true. For the two of you that don’t know, the theory states that every character in Winnie the Pooh represents a mental disorder. Piglet has anxiety. Eeyore has depression. Rabbit has OCD. Tigger has ADHD. Those are the characters that clearly line up. The others do have mental disorders linked to them but I think these are a bit more farfetched. Winnie the Pooh is impulsive eating disorder. Owl is either dyslexia due to his trouble reading or narcissistic personality disorder. Nobody can read in the Hundred Acre Woods so you can’t just pin that on Owl. Kanga is social anxiety disorder but that’s stretching it as well I’d say, she lets Roo go out to play with Tigger all the time I wouldn’t say she was overly anxious. Roo apparently has autism, what? And Christopher Robin has schizophrenia. The last one just feels like one of those dumb fan theories that try and make a classic animated film or tv series dark, like Ash is in a coma, Angelica is imagining the rest of the babies because they all died, and SpongeBob is the result of nukes. But I’d say the theory has some merit and is at least worth mentioning.

We start with Winnie the Pooh doing his exercises whilst singing “Up, Down Touch the Ground” it’s just so charming (yes, I will use the word charming more times in this review than in all of the other reviews combined). It’s funny how the only reason he does exercise is so he can be hungry and therefore eat more food. It’s the Disney version of shoving your fingers down your throat. Once he realises that he doesn’t actually have any honey he goes on the hunt for food. He tries to climb up a tree to get some honey from some bees but gets attacked by them and falls down on his dummy thicc ass. Whilst climbing he sings the song “Rumbly in My Tumbly” which is catchy and brought back a lot of memories, I sung this one when it was playing. He decides to ask Christopher Robin for a balloon as he has a plan. Winnie the Pooh rolls in mud to disguise himself as a black rain cloud and uses the balloon to fly up to the bee hive. Here he sings the song “Little Black Raincloud” which I sang along to, yes, I’m a grown ass man. Of course, this doesn’t work and Christopher and Winnie the Pooh are chased away by bees. I love it when Winnie the Pooh tells Christopher Robin that they are the wrong type of bees, I don’t know why I found that as funny as I did.

Talking about humour that’s something you wouldn’t expect from this. I think when talking about Winnie the Pooh many people think super charming yes but not exactly funny. I hadn’t laughed this much during the Disney Marathon since The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Both genuinely intelligent humour and little things like Winnie the Pooh owning a gun are so funny. Every character is so well animated that is really allows you to feel what they are feeling which can lead to some funny moments. You can feel Rabbits frustration at the antics the characters get into and it’s hilarious.

After realising that those bees ain’t gonna pay up their honey Winnie the Pooh decides to terrorise Rabbit. Rabbit is horrified when he hears Pooh bear coming but hesitantly invites him in as to not be rude. Winnie the Pooh eats all of Rabbits honey and then gets his ass stuck in Rabbits door. Rabbit goes out his other door and notifies everyone else. They fail to get Winnie the Pooh out so he just has to wait till he gets thinner. I love how honest Eeyore is, stating that it might take months for him to get thin enough to get out. Am I nostalgia blind? No, shut up I’m fine. Gopher the worst character appears and is unfunny for a bit before leaving. Eventually after enough time has passed, Winnie the Pooh gets thin enough to be pushed out. Everyone sings the song “Mind over Matter” which is alright. Everyone pushes him too far, launching him into a bee’s nest where he is finally happy as all the bees got scared by him landing in their home so it’s just him and a shit load of honey.

Bloody hell this is going to be a long review isn’t it, we’re only one third the way through the movie at this point.

Gopher tells Winnie the Pooh that its “winds-day” because you know, its Wednesday and it’s windy, so Winnie the Pooh decides to go around wishing everyone a happy “winds-day”. Here he sings the song “Like a Rather Blustery Day” which I forgot was a song. He notices Piglet flying away because of how windy it is, so he grabs his scarf which unravels turning Piglet into a kite. On a side note I love how Piglet assumes his grandfather is called Trespassers William because the sign outside his house says “Trespassers will” but the sign is broken and is clearly meant to say “Trespassers will be prosecuted” or even “Trespassers will be shot”. Winnie the Pooh flies Piglet around, Roo asks if he can fly Piglet next (would I be laughing at this shit if I didn’t have a childhood attachment to it, probably not) and Winnie the Pooh and Piglet get blown into Owl’s house. Owl the boomer he is starts talking about some story that nobody cares about whilst all Winnie the Pooh wants to do is get Owls sweet sweet honey. Owls house blows down. Eeyore deciding that nobody should be as depressed as him decides to find Owl a new house (at least I assume that’s his motive he seems very keen to help when nobody else will).

Winnie the Pooh just goes back to his house but is awoken by a loud noise outside. After grabbing his gun (which is hilarious) Pooh bear find out it’s only Tigger who sings the song “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers”. After the main theme this is arguably the most iconic song from Winnie the Pooh as a franchise. It’s pretty good, it really fits Tigger’s character and is just as annoyingly catchy as it needs to be. Tigger explains that Heffalumps and Woozles will try and steal Winnie the Pooh’s honey. Winnie the Pooh tries to guard his honey but falls asleep to have a nightmare about them trying to steal his honey. Screw the pink elephant’s scene from Dumbo this is the real childhood nightmare fuel. We get a bunch of honey, elephant, weasel amalgamations tormenting Winnie the Pooh to the song “Heffalumps and Woozles”. One time when I was young, I watched this film whilst ill, I was drifting in and out of sleep and this scene really didn’t help, it ended up haunting my fever-ridden nightmares, so thanks for that Winnie the Pooh.

Winnie the Pooh wakes up to find that the Hundred Acre Woods is getting flooded, he ends up accidently rescuing Piglet in the flood and is praised as a hero. When the rain comes down the song “The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down” plays and I keep getting this song confused with “Little April Shower” from Bambi. This song is better than that, it changes to fit the scene and it actually adds to the tension that the flood brings. Once the flood has died down, they celebrate Winnie the Pooh. Here we get the song “Hip Hip Pooh-ray!” which fits well, it feels like a song a child made to congratulate a friend which is perfect for this scene. The celebrations are interrupted by Eeyore who has found a house for Owl. This house just ends up being Piglet’s. I don’t really like this scene; everyone is just chill with giving always Piglets house including Piglet himself. I know none of the characters are smart but this paints them as being braindead, and Piglet being a pushover, not a hero which they end up calling him. Pooh and Piglet are both celebrated as heroes. Pooh for rescuing Piglet and Piglet for just giving his house away.

After a bit of time Rabbit has had enough of Tigger bouncing on everyone (that’s assault Tigger). So, decides to have a meeting with Pooh and Piglet. This is where the tired/posh Winnie the Pooh meme comes from by the way.

Rabbit explains his plans to break Tigger’s spirits whilst Winnie the Pooh sits there tired and bored. They all agree to take Tigger somewhere and ditch him, getting Tigger lost. They’d then go find him a few days later where he would have lost his spirits and no longer want to bounce people. This motive kind of works with Rabbit, he hates Tigger’s bouncing and learning to live with it is part of his arc. But it seems a bit mean for Piglet; you’d think he’d object and either refuse to be a part of it or even warn Tigger of Rabbits plan. Winnie the Pooh barely knows what’s going on so it works with him. Anyway, they take Tigger to a foggy part of the Hundred Acre Woods and ditch him. The trio then get lost themselves. Rabbit decides to go off by himself to check on something but gets even more lost when doing so. Winnie the Pooh then uses his magic honey tracking powers to get him and Piglet home. Rabbit runs into Tigger who takes Rabbit home. This whole segment is the worst part of the movie, it isn’t bad but Piglet seems a bit out of character and even though it does work with Rabbit mostly, it still feels a bit meanspirited for him.

After all of this it begins to snow and Tigger and Roo go out to play. When they are bouncing Tigger ends up stuck in a tree with Roo. The whole gang ends up finding them and Roo quickly gets down but Tigger is too scared. Tigger says that if he ever gets down, he’ll never bounce again which Rabbit is ready to hold him to. With help from the narrator Tigger used the words on the page to get down and wants to bounce to celebrate but Rabbit says he isn’t allowed to. Tigger walks away sad and Rabbit eventually claims that Tigger can bounce again so all ends up well.

We conclude with a short segment of Christopher Robin telling everyone that he is going off to school so won’t be able to see them as much again (or ever again it isn’t very clear). Christopher explains this to Pooh and they promise to always remember each other. It’s a great bittersweet conclusion dealing with the concept that we’ve all got to grow up eventually which for a 21-year-old who has to come to terms that the most carefree years of my childhood and teenage years are behind me hit me harder than it did when I was a child. As a child this was just the boring conclusion to the movie, little did I know how powerful the ending would be for an older me. Although I’m sitting here written daily reviews for children’s movies so maybe I haven’t grown up.

So that’s The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. A charming collection of stories, that are just as charming as they are hilarious. Also, no racism, you did it Disney, I’m so proud of you. Definitely give this a watch if you haven’t already. Next up we have The Rescuers.

8 / 10