YMMV / Vinni Pukh

• Broken Base:
  • Most of the designs have little resemblance to their incarnations from the books or the Disney franchise, which has divided the Pooh fandom. Some dislike them for being too much of a deviation from their more popular designs, while others consider them to be charming and adorable in their own right. That said, this debate is mostly limited to the Western fanbase, as the designs from the series are just as widely beloved in Russia and the former Soviet colonies as the original/Disney designs are in the West.
  • How do the Russian shorts compare to Disney's featurettes and how do they fare as adaptations to the books in their own right? While Disney's take on the stories is more faithful visually and is undeniably more popular as a whole, with some fans disliking this series for how much it deviates from the books and Disney's version in places (most notably the removal of Christopher Robin), several fans enjoy the Russian series, with some arguing that, while it isn't faithful visually, it does a far better job at capturing the wit and more philosophical tone of the original books than Disney's version did. It helps that Wolfgang Reitherman, the director of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, reportedly regards the series to be better than Disney's version.
• Fan Nickname: In the Western Pooh fandom, Winnie is usually dubbed "Russian Pooh" or "Russian Winnie-The-Pooh". This is mainly to distinguish him from the classic and Disney incarnations of the character and to avoid confusion.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While the series was never exported to the West and is largely overshadowed by Disney's version, thanks to the series getting uploaded onto YouTube, the series has gained a bit of a cult following in the Western fandom, who love the series for how different and unique it is compared to the books and Disney's version, on top of being solid adaptations that perfectly capture the spirit of the source material, with some feeling they captured some aspects of the books (like the witty, philosophical dialogue) better than Disney's version did.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • All phrases from the series are now part of the Soviet and Russian culture.
  • Jokes exist about Winnie being the very first rapper in Russia.

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