Tigger: Oh, well, please, for goodness' sakes, narrate me down from here.
Entry #22 in the Disney Animated Canon, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is the first of Disney's Pooh adaptations.It's essentially a Compilation Movie incorporating three theatrical shorts 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: Pooh is in desperate need for some honey, and takes desperate measures to get it.
Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day: A heavy storm kicks up in the Hundred Acre Wood, which may not be good news for some of the resident's homes.
Winnie The Pooh and Tigger Too: Rabbit grows increasingly irritated with Tigger's bouncing and decides to take action.
A fourth short, Winnie The Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, was released later in 1983 and became the stock bonus feature for this movie on home video releases.
This movie 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).Many of Disney's later Pooh adaptations (a couple TV series, some DTV or Disney Toon sequel movies, and an actual canon sequel) have gotten flak for not being faithful to the original book series. This movie, however, is very faithful apart from the inclusion of a Canon Foreigner. It's Xerox-style animation, backgrounds and simplistic Slice of Life setup have rightfully earned much praise, making it easily one of Disney's more iconic movies.For the new 2011 feature (which as of now, is the last hand-drawn animated film Disney will do in a long time), see Winnie the Pooh.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh provides examples of:
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).
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.
Cloud Cuckoolander: Again, anyone except Eeyore, Tigger especially. Owl may classify given his ramblings about his family's history.
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 Cloud Cuckoo Land (then again what do you expect from a place consisting of a kid's sentient stuffed animals?).
Compilation Movie: Of Honey Tree, Blustery Day, and Tigger Too, with linking material between stories and an additional ending.
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 beshot." 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.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Rabbit's "splendid idea" to get Tigger lost in the woods hilariously backfires on him, so Tigger finds him and helps him get home.
Also Nightmare Fuel/Crowning Moment of Funny, if you look at the scene when Rabbit was freaking out over the assorted noises. Bonus points for that scene being animated by Don Bluth.
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.
Innocently Insensitive: Pooh, and to a fair extent the entire Hundred Acre Wood. It's as nice and cheerful a place as can be, but all sorts of accidents and unpleasantries are caused by their oblivious bumbling.
Rabbit: Oh Tigger, look what you've done to my beautiful garden!
Jerkass: Rabbit in And Tigger Too. Tigger is annoying him by bouncing everyone and ruining his garden, so what does he do? Plots to use his friends in a plan to leave him for dead in the middle of the woods. And when the gang realizes that forbidding Tigger to bounce would make him horribly depressed, all his friends are all for letting him bounce again... except Rabbit. He needs to be pretty much forced into not being a total doucheweasle.
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 sad though.
Nice Guy: Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh stand out as being the most glaringly nice guys.
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? Tigger: It's the narr-ay-tor!
Also, the ending to And the Honey Tree:
Gopher: Sufferin' sassafras, he's sailing clean out of the book! QUICK, TURN THE PAGE!
Plunger Detonator: Gopher's preferred means of setting off dynamite.
Running Gag: Gopher falling into his own inexplicably deep holes.
Eeyore's house constantly falling down could be considered this.
Sad Clown: Tigger is a hyperactive Cloud Cuckoo Lander and forever jolly and inflappable. When the others finally succeed in bouncing him however, the result is such a depressed broken shell, they are left heartbroken and completely go back on it.
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.
Talking Animals - Only Owl, Rabbit, and Gopher are actual animals, however. The other characters are Living Toys, at least to some extent.
Whenever facing a problem, Pooh, being not to so bright, tends to lightly tap his head and repeat "Think, think, think" while rocking back and forth.
While he's thinking, Tigger makes a bizarre facial expression with his mouth. Kind of like he has chewed an idea in his mouth and he's deciding if it tastes good or not.
We Want Our Jerk Back: A downplayed version, but everyone insisting that they want Tigger to bounce again at the end of And Tigger Too plays out like this.
Art Shift: The visual style is quite different from the other shorts: this is because it was animated by a different animation company, Rick Reinert Productions.
Early-Bird Cameo: Piglet has a red balloon, exactly the kind of balloon that would later turn up in the 2011 movie.
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