YMMV • Radar • Quotes • (Funny • Heartwarming • Awesome) • Fridge • Characters • Fanfic Recs • Nightmare Fuel • Shout Out • Plot • Tear Jerker • Headscratchers • Trivia • WMG • Recap • Ho Yay • Image Links • Memes • Haiku • Laconic • Source • Setting |
---|
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 film 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.
Tropes[]
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Other than the Heffalumps and Woozles, who come in pretty much every color (and change colors at will), Pooh himself is a yellow bear.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Pooh encounters at least five living honey pots during the Heffalumps and Woozles scene. Four of them provide the singing for the sequence, while the fifth is a honeypot with bizarrely human legs that a Heffalump attempts to steal honey from.
- Balloon Belly: One of the Heffalumps grows this from eating a pot of Pooh's honey. Then he explodes.
- 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.
- Brick Joke: In Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Pooh becomes trapped in Rabbit's door, and Gopher's suggestion for freeing him is to blow Rabbit's house up with dynamite. One movie later, in Blustery Day, Pooh manages to get stuck in the trunk of one of the Heffalumps he meets, only for the Heffalump to then be blown up by dynamite.
- 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.
- 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".
- 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?).
- Didn't Think This Through: Towards the end of "Heffalumps and Woozles", Pooh is suspended by a Heffalump balloon high up in the sky, when he spots another Heffalump balloon eating a pot of honey. Pooh then immediately jumps for it, resulting in him hanging off the side of the pot as the annoyed Heffalump tries to shake him off.
- Disney Acid Sequence: "Heffalumps and Woozles" in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. Hey, Tigger messed up his garden, that don't shit don't fly in the Hundred Acre Wood.
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: One of the Heffalumps pulls this on Pooh, sucking up Pooh's pot of honey. This backfires on him when it causes him to over-fill and explod
- Expository Theme Tune
- Also something of an Ear Worm.
- Evil Laugh Given by one of the Heffalumps, right before shooting Pooh with a popgun.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When the Heffalump playing with the yo-yo transforms, he tosses away his umbrella. For the two frames before going offscreen, the umbrella can be seen folding itself up.
- Later during the same scene, a ballerina jumps into the arms of her partner. He apparently wasn't expecting her to be as heavy as she was, because for one frame his expression changes to one of surprise and his hat pops off.
- 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." More likely it used to say "Trespassers will be shot."
- 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 (literally) living in the Hundred Acre Wood under the name of "Sanders".
- Grumpy Bear: Ironically, not the bear character. 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, most notably during Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. This is later referenced in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day when Pooh becomes stuck in the trunk of a Heffalump after being hit with a popgun.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Rabbit's plan to get Tigger lost in the woods results in Rabbit getting lost instead.
- Horrifying the Horror: Played for comedy. A Heffalump takes the lid off a living honey pot in order to steal the honey, but the pot starts laughing so psychotically that she quickly slams the lid back on.
- Hypocritical Humor: Ssssay, you oughta do ssssomething about that sssspeech impediment, ssssonny.
- In a subtler example, during the "Heffalumps and Woozles" sequence, Pooh spends the entire sequence fleeing from honey-stealing Heffalumps. At the very end of the scene, he spots a hot air balloon shaped Heffalump off to the side enjoying a pot of honey, and promptly tries to take the honey from it.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: The giant stick of dynamite attached to the head of one of the Heffalumps.
- 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.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Some of the Heffalumps in Pooh's dream don't seem to have control over their transformations. Of note is the large Heffalump Pooh first encounters playing with a yo-yo - in the course of the scene, he transforms three times, and only the second appears to be intentional (the first he seemingly accidentally shrinks himself, the second he turns into a Woozle, with an expression indicating he meant to, but as he is in the middle of showing off his Woozle body he suddenly turns into a honey pot).
- 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.
Rabbit: W-Who said that? |
- Also, the ending to And the Honey Tree:
Gopher: Sufferin' sassafras, he's sailing clean out of the book! QUICK, TURN THE PAGE! |
- Obliviously Evil: While some of the Heffalumps and Woozles seem to enjoy causing trouble for Pooh, most of them seem completely unaware of the consequences of their actions (such as a Heffalump that accidentally crushes a Woozle underfoot, or a Heffalump that simply didn't notice that Pooh wanted the honey the Heffalump was eating).
- Painting the Fourth Wall
- Plunger Detonator: Gopher's preferred means of setting off dynamite.
- Pop Goes the Human: Not a human example, but during the "Heffalumps and Woozles" dream sequence, one of the Heffalumps explodes after attempting to eat a never-ending pot of honey.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "DON'T! FEED! THE! BEAR!"
- Running Gag: Gopher falling/being knocked into his own inexplicably deep holes.
- Eeyore's house constantly falling down could be considered this.
- Scary Jack in the Box: Pooh runs into a trio of Jack-in-the-Box Woozles while chasing a Heffabee that stole his honey. He is frightened enough by them that he abandons the chase and runs away, even though the worst they ever do is laugh at him.
- Shout-Out: Owl mentions that his uncle was the owl in the Edward Lear poem The Owl And The Pussycat.
- Self-Disposing Villain: One of the Heffalumps in Pooh's dream blows itself up while attempting to eat an infinite amount of honey.
- 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. Additonally, in the "Heffalumps and Woozles" scene, one of the Heffalumps has a stick of dynamite growing out of his head. He's barely on screen for a few seconds before a Woozle gets the brilliant idea to try lighting it.
- Talking Animal: Though most of the characters are actually Living Toys.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The female Heffalumps all have hairbows and long eyelashes, most wear miniskirts and necklaces, and a few even wear eyeliner.
- "The Villain Sucks" Song: "Heffalumps and Woozles". Doubles as a Villain Song as most of the instrumental parts are provided by the Heffalumps and Woozles themselves, though the lyrics are entirely sung by a group of living honey pots.
- This Is Gonna Suck: One of the characters in Pooh's dream sequence is a Heffalump with a stick of dynamite attached to his head. When one of the Woozles decides to light the dynamite, the Heffalump just squeezes his eyes shut and tries to brace himself - unlike the Woozle, who pulls a massive Oh Crap when he sees just how quickly the fuse burnt up.
- Visual Pun: one of the Heffalumps has a popgun for a trunk - in other words, an elephant gun.
- Villainous Rescue: During
the "Heffalumps and Woozles" sequence, Pooh gets sent flying and becomes stuck in the trunk of a nearby Heffalump. When Pooh is unable to get out, a passing Woozle rescues Pooh...by blowing the Heffalump up with dynamite.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Heffalumps and Woozles have this as their main gimmick. Over the course of the scene they transform into everything from musical instruments to hot air balloons to pots of honey and back again.