8. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Poooh

DIRECTED BY WOLFGANG REITHERMAN & JONH LOUNSBERY

WRITTEN BY LARRY CLEMMONS, RALPH WRIGHT, VANCE GERRY, XAVIER ATENCIO, KEN ANDERSON, JULIUS SVENDSEN, TED BERMAN, ERIC CLEWORTH & WINSTON HIBLER

STARRING: SEBASTIAN CABOT, STERLING HOLLOWAY, JOHN FIEDLER, JUNIUS MATTHEWS,  PAUL WINCHELL, HOWARD MORRIS & BRUCE REITHERMAN.

RELEASE DATE: MARCH 11, 1977

AGE RECOMMENDED: ALL

This post is very important for me, I grew up with Winnie the Pooh to the point I have a collection of Eeyore donkeys. Winnie the pooh is the a coming to age movie for the first part of our lives. The movie, this one and all of them that follow it and all the tv shows, are based in the book of A.A. Milne.

The books and the film have several differences but the films, and specially the insertion of the character of  Gopher, who does not exist appear in the books, or in the book Winnie only wear his shirt in winter. Disney decide to create first this movie as a little featurettes, releases in 1966, 1968 and 1974, so the american public became familiar with the story which was quite popular in England but quite unknown in the US. In 1977 the studio decide to re-release the original featurettes (Winnie the Pooh and the honeey tree , Winnie the Pooh and the blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too) as a full length movie.

PLOT

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

Winnie-the-Pooh is going through his morning stoutness exercises during which he accidentily rips the stitching on his bottom. After repairing his torn rump his stomach rumbles, indicating his hunger from exercising. Looking to feed his appetite, he discovers that his jar of honey is nearly empty and starts wondering where he can get honey as he eats what’s left in the pot. He hears a bee fly by, and tries pulls his head out of the jar, then decides to try to get honey from the bee’s hive in the nearby honey tree. He climbs the honey tree and reaches as high as the bee hive but the branch he is standing on snaps and he falls into a gorse bush.

Pooh visits Christopher Robin and borrows a balloon from him. He then disguises himself as a little black rain cloud by dunking himself with mud, and then uses the balloon to float up next to the hive. A lone bee guard flies out to meet Pooh who then takes a giant handful of honey from the hive with bees still in it. He eats the honey then spits out the bees. Pooh is soon surrounded by angry bees from the hive, his disguise wearing off. He kicks the queen bee into the same mud pool he disguised himself in. The queen bee then flies back and stings Pooh’s bottom, which jams his rear into the hive. A now scared Pooh admits to Christopher Robin that these are the wrong sorts of bees, is shoved out the hive and pursued by the incensed bees.

During the pursuit, the string holding the balloon closed comes loose and the balloon flies out of control. The chase is suddenly reversed as the bees are now chased by Pooh Bear. The bees retreat into their hive and Pooh Bear’s balloon deflates its last bit of air. The defeated bear inevitably falls back to earth and lands in the arms of Christopher Robin. The bees give chase once more, but Pooh and Christopher Robin hide in a mud puddle. Pooh then confesses, “You never can tell with bees!” before spitting out one more bee.

Pooh Bear then visits Rabbit’s house, hoping to find honey there. Rabbit welcomes Pooh for lunch, despite being aware of Pooh’s appetite. He gives Pooh some honey but Pooh is still hungry. Rabbit reluctantly give Pooh more and he devours every jar of honey in Rabbits house. Pooh Bear, his face covered with honey, thanks Rabbit and eats leftover honey on his stomach, which is now extremely round and full. He tries to leave through Rabbit’s front door, but has become extremely large from the vast amount of honey he has eaten — so fat that Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s front door. Rabbit tries to free Pooh by pushing his over-sized bottom but it isn’t any use. He goes round to the front of the house to face Pooh’s head, and tells Pooh, truthfully, that he has eaten too much, and as a result, he has grown too fat for rabbit’s front door. Pooh argues slightly saying that he is in this situation because Rabbit’s front door isn’t big enough. Rabbit then goes off to find Christopher Robin for help. While Pooh waits he is visited by Owl and Gopher. Owl decides that the advice of an expert is needed in Pooh’s situation. Gopher offers to free Pooh by blasting him out with dynamite but Pooh refuses. Christopher Robin, Rabbit, and Eeyore arrive and try to help Pooh Bear but they can’t budge him one inch from all the honey. Christopher Robin suggests pushing him back in but Rabbit protests. So everyone comes to a solution; Pooh will abstain from eating until he slims down. Rabbit is forced to make the best of a bad situation and tries different methods of disguising the bear’s bottom.

As the days go by, Pooh Bear becomes tempted by Gopher to eat honey again, but Rabbit notices and stops him. Then Pooh Bear, finally slims down enough to be freed. Christopher Robin, Kanga, Eeyore, Owl, Roo, and Gopher (who falls into his hole once again when Eeyore’s tail is accidentally pulled off by both him and Roo) start pulling on Pooh Bear while Rabbit pushes from behind but the bear won’t move. Fed up with all this delay, Rabbit takes several steps backwards and charges into Pooh Bear. Rabbit’s push launches Pooh into the air towards the forest. Pooh Bear comes in for a landing in the hole of a similar honey tree, flushing out a swirling swarm of bees. The gang runs after him and finds him stuck in the honey tree. Christopher Robin tells Pooh that they will help him get out again but Pooh tells them to take their time; the bees were scared away by his abrupt arrival giving the silly old bear a chance to enjoy a hive full of his favorite honey.

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

The east wind traded places with the west wind which stirred things up a bit all through the Hundred Acre Woods. At the beginning of this story, Gopher tells Winnie the Pooh that it is “Winds-day”, whereupon Pooh decides to wish everybody “Happy Winds-day.” He visits his friend Piglet, who wears a scarf around his neck on this day. Piglet is blown into the air, his scarf unraveling all the while, and Pooh grabs hold of him. As they fly like a kite through the air over the other characters’ heads, Pooh wishes Kanga, Roo, Eeyore, Rabbit, and Owl a happy Winds-day. However, once they arrive at Owl’s treehouse, he informs them that the wind is due to “a mild spring zephyr” rather than to a particular holiday. During the windstorm, Owl’s house is knocked down, so Eeyore volunteers to house-hunt for Owl. That night, Pooh hears an unfamiliar noise coming from elsewhere in the Hundred Acre Wood. Someone knocks on Pooh’s door, then Tigger bounces inside in search of something to eat. He tries some honey but gets disgusted and decides, “Yuck! Tiggers don’t like honey!”. Before leaving Pooh’s house, Tigger tells him that there are Heffalumps and Woozles in the forest that steal honey, Pooh’s favorite food. After which, he says goodbye and bounces off. Pooh, frightened by Tigger’s tale, takes it upon himself to guard his honey, but eventually falls fast asleep. As he is sleeping, he has a nightmare about heffalumps and woozles stealing his honey and chasing him around.

Later that night, a storm floods the Hundred Acre Woods, and Piglet becomes trapped in his home. He writes a bottle-note for help just before the waters carry him away riding a chair. Pooh is trapped in a honey pot and floats away from his home as well. The remaining characters gather at Christopher Robin’s house, and Christopher reads the message. He then sends Owl to inform Piglet of a rescue plan in the works, but just after he delivers the news, Piglet and Pooh are mixed up in a waterfall which switches Piglet to the honey pot and Pooh to the chair. When they arrive together at Christopher Robin’s house, he mistakenly thinks that Pooh rescued Piglet, and throws a hero party for Pooh. During the party, Eeyore announces that he has found a new home for Owl. When he leads the gang to Piglet’s house, the others are shocked and try to tell Eeyore that Piglet already lives there. However, Piglet decides to reluctantly give his home to Owl, and Pooh offers to let Piglet live with him. Pooh suggests to Christopher Robin that the hero party should become a two-hero party because of Piglet’s generosity. He agrees, and the characters celebrate both Pooh’s and Piglet’s good deeds that day.

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too

Tigger has been bouncing on anyone he comes across for fun, especially Rabbit when he is gardening, which makes Rabbit furious. Soon Rabbit holds a meeting with Pooh and Piglet and the three agree to take Tigger to explore through the Hundred Acre Wood. As they do so, they then abandon Tigger on the hopes he would get lost which is part of the plan. The three hide in a log as Tigger searches for them. The three try to make it back home, but end up at a sand pit.

Pooh offers a silly suggestion to search for that same sand pit, and Rabbit reponds that he will prove him wrong by finding a way home by himself. After he goes off, Pooh and Piglet wait a long time but he doesn’t come back. Pooh then realizes that he and Piglet can find their way out of the mist by following Pooh’s appetite for the honey pots he left at his house. Just when the two finally reach the end of the mist, they come across Tigger who reveals that he never gets lost easily. Pooh tells Tigger that Rabbit is still in the forest and Tigger heads back to find him. Rabbit is lost and ends up in a dark, damp and misty part of the forest, to add to that, he’s scared by various animal noises. Frogs start croaking loudly, a caterpillar munches loudly on leaves and after seeing frogs sitting there in front of him, that gets to him so badly that it drives him mad and he frantically tries to run away, only to be tackled by Tigger. Tigger explains to him that “Tiggers never get lost”, and drags Rabbit home.

Wintertime comes and Roo wants to go play. Kanga can’t be with him so she calls on Tigger to look after Roo which he gladly accepts. Along the way through the woods, Tigger and Roo see Rabbit skating on the ice. Tigger tries to teach Roo how to ice skate by doing it himself, but unfortunately, he loses his balance and collides with Rabbit while trying to regain it. In moments Tigger slides into a snowbank and Rabbit crashes into his house. Tigger then decides that he doesn’t like ice skating.

Later on, while bouncing around the woods with Roo on his back, Tigger accidentally jumps to the top of a very tall tree and is too scared to dare climb down, especially when Roo starts using Tigger’s tail as a swing which causes him to think Roo is rocking the whole forest. Meanwhile, Pooh and Piglet are investigating strange animal tracks that are really Tigger and Roo’s. Suddenly, they hear Tigger howling for help and quickly hide. At first, Pooh mistakes Tigger’s howl for the sound of a “Jagular“; but after seeing that it is only Tigger and Roo in the tree, he and Piglet come to the rescue. Shortly afterward, Christopher Robin, Rabbit, and Kanga arrive and the gang uses Christopher’s coat as a net for Tigger and Roo to land in once they jump from the tree. Roo successfully jumps down but Tigger is still too frightened to move. Rabbit then decides that the group will just have to leave Tigger in the tree forever, on which Tigger promises never to bounce again if he ever is released from his predicament. At that moment,  the narrator chimes in for help. Tigger begs Cabot to “narrate” him down from the tree, and Cabot tilts the book sideways, allowing Tigger to step onto the text of the page. Tigger starts to feel better that he made it this far but before he can do otherwise, Cabot tilts the book back the other way, causing Tigger to fall down into the snow.

Happy, Tigger attempts to bounce but Rabbit stops him reminding Tigger of the promise he made. Devastated, Tigger realizes he can’t bounce anymore and slowly walks away and Rabbit feels better that there will be peace. But everyone else is sad to see Tigger like this and remind Rabbit of the joy Tigger brought when he was bouncing. Finally, Rabbit also feels sorry for Tigger and takes back the promise they had agreed on, he is then given a friendly tackle by an overly-excited Tigger. Tigger invites everyone to bounce with him and even teaches Rabbit how to do it since Rabbit has the feet for it.