As I was growing up, I liked Winnie the Pooh and his street gang, but I don't remember ever going through a phase of being deeply into them like I was with the Fraggles or Peanuts. Sure, I thought Eeyore rocked, but who wouldn't? Mostly I just thought of the characters as that thing that came on after Donald Duck Presents in the early years of The Disney Channel.
But that changed in 2001. As I've flaunted a few times before on this blog, I had the privilege of inhabiting about a dozen or so of Disney's characters in the Orlando theme parks. At first I got measured as Tigger, which was a character I hated playing because I never will have the physical stamina necessary to convince paying customers that I enjoy non-stop jumping. But after the first couple of months I went in for to be remeasured. I wore sweatpants (in August) so the manager couldn't see that I was slightly bending my knees. If I could drop my height from 5'10" to 5'9 & 1/2" it would open up the possibility of me playing Eeyore. It worked even better than I expected. I got measured at 5'9" which meant I was hardcore Eeyore and Tigger was somebody else's problem.
I loved being Eeyore. The Tweedle costume was lighter, and certainly more versatile and fun, but Eeyore was my guy. In general, I think the Tweedles are who I'd like to be, but Eeyore is who I am. Pessimism? Check. Snark? You got it. My hair even started graying when I was 21. It was meant to be. And hell, this was even before I'd been diagnosed with chronic depression (which I finally realized I'd been dealing with since adolescence). Yeah, Eeyore's awesome.
So with a personal attachment to the old grey donkey, and a couple of overlapping memories, let's have a look at the relationship Disney has with this odd cast of characters. I'm going to look primarily at the theatrical releases, with a couple of additions that seem to fit the overall flow of the franchise.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
If you don't already know, this was a "package film" compiled from previously released shorts: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974). Additional wraparound segments were animated, as well as a semi-conclusion with Christopher Robin going off to school.
Okay, first let's address the Heffalump in the room. My GOD, this movie is slow! Even at a paltry 74 minutes it feels we're never going to get going. I hear that the Disney version is pretty faithful to the source material, which may very well include the pacing. Classic literature is slow. There was no television in 1926 when the first book came out. When people sat down with a book, they expected to stay there for quite a while. Today, not so much.
The general rule for storytelling today is, if it doesn't reveal character or advance the plot then cut it. This rule is flawed in the sense that some sequences are just too entertaining to cut, but imagine applying the technique to this movie. What the hell would you have left after the opening song?
So there's an admitted tedium that one would only be willing to tolerate from the first outing. Essentially we're being introduced to the characters. Not a lot of depth happens, and no real development. It's just 74 minutes of stuff kind of happening. It's fine for what it is, but I suspect one reason I didn't get attached to these characters when I was in the right age bracket was because this film didn't capture me. I didn't want to spend any more time in the hundred acre woods than I already had. I'd gotten my takeaways, and that was all I was going to get.
What are the takeaways? Now we're talking. One, my sympathies were with Rabbit. Even though he was abrasive, he had every right to want to be left alone, and it was frustrating to see that nobody could take the freaking hint. Two, the music is vintage Sherman Brothers. The melodies get stuck in your head whether you want them there or not. Most of the ones in the Honey Tree segment are lullabies that make me want to beat somebody up, but Blustery Day fares much better. "Heffalumps and Woozles" is the apex with a good old fashioned Disney acid sequence. Sure, it's practically plagiarizing "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo, but there's something intriguing about Pooh's fearlessness in his own nightmare, and it's a catchier song.
In the end, we're left with the realization that Christopher Robin may be the party's host, but he's also the most expendable character. It's all about the animals. And at this time, they're better in doses than full blown surplus. This will change soon. For now, it's not a bad film. But the parts are significantly greater than the whole.
Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore (1983)
This is a 25 minute short featuring two stories that spotlight my buddy. A couple of things started happening here. Pooh's adventures, which may or may not even be happening to his character, almost always occur without an antagonist. The conflict comes out of the personality dynamics among the ensemble who likely has not chosen to live together.
Tigger was the breakout character of the first film, and he almost instantly locked horns with Rabbit. This short establishes him as the polar opposite of Eeyore, and the chemistry between them is really interesting. Tigger bounces Eeyore like he does everyone, and Eeyore winds up helplessly floating in the creek as a result. When Tigger denies that it was anything but an accident, Eeyore holds his ground. Not out of spite, or the chance to scold old stripey like Rabbit would do, but because it's the simple truth. The donkey may not be the dominant personality, but it doesn't mean he's a weak character. And at the end of the short, Tigger gets frustrated by the fact that the characters are playing a game that he's not good at. It's Eeyore who knows how to cheer him up.
This is where we're starting to see signs of the layers that make the franchise have lasting appeal. Tigger isn't just hyper, he has an emotional spectrum. Eeyore isn't just gloomy, he has a heroic quality. Rabbit isn't just bitchy, he's also protective. After a bout of selfishness with the honey (jeez, hunny) that Pooh meant as a birthday gift for Eeyore, he gets creative with the empty pot. And Piglet, hoo boy, here's a thesis in the making. Courage doesn't mean you aren't afraid, it means you can still act when you're terrified. Piglet thinks a balloon will make Eeyore happy, but it bursts on the way to delivery. He still follows through in the intent, fully aware that it might make the situation worse, but the little pink guy pulls a victory out of a defeat, and the results are touching.
This is a bite sized taste of what's to come. It's the right length; not too much, not too heavy. We're getting there. But first, a detour to home video.
Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997)
Good grief, Meat Loaf doesn't use titles this long! The animals made many, many appearances throughout the years, and it might actually be impossible to compile a full museum of the franchise. So where do you draw the line? I'm going with an estimated intention from the Disney studios. I figure that if they're going to sink the money into the project to put it on the big screen then they're treating it as their own version of canon.
But this direct-to-video story feels like it holds somewhat of a higher significance to the overall arc than say...well, hell, most of the crap that Disney put on video during Michael Eisner's unending foresight. Word has it, this video was meant to conclude the whole series, dealing with that horrible rite of passage when six year old (looking about eleven) Christopher Robin has to go to school. That may not sound like a huge deal to American audiences, but if the 2017 film Goodbye Christopher Robin is anything to go by (or every single appearance of the British school system in their culture) it seems pretty soul crushing.
So what we have is our first full length story in A.A. Milne's world. As you might expect the threats are mostly shadows and tricks of the mind, but our goal is to explore the characters not kill them. And being on video as opposed to cinema, there's a certain under-the-radar quality that allows for a few risks you wouldn't ordinarily see. Tigger's defining trait is overconfidence, and this is one of the rare times you see self-doubt creep into him. The usually I'm-down-to-my-last-f**k-to-give Eeyore has moments where he seems genuinely terrified. Pooh and Rabbit both show a higher level of empathy than we typically see from them. And the crowning moment is Piglet's. He's gone from one nightmare sequence of a journey through a briar patch to Alfred Hitchcock's The Butterflies, before landing gently in a hope spot, and then comes the perceived growl of the dreaded Skullosaurus. Instead of the immediate scurrying and stammering we've come to expect from him, he simply looks up at Pooh with and almost Stepford smile's denial and a forcibly cheerful "What's that?"
The pacing is very different. Dialogue, story, and even the animation comes at a faster pace than the classic era. Disney knows the 1997 attention span isn't what it was twenty years prior. In a way it's almost jarring because there are times when it doesn't feel like the hundred acre woods, but you can tell the series is in transformation. Wit is beginning to bloom. It's not to say the Milne stories didn't have wit, it's what they're remembered for; but try to imagine Monty Python performing a Marx Brothers script, something is inherently untranslatable. Disney is making the characters its own, and this is a taste of what's to come.
The Tigger Movie (2000)
I totally avoided this movie when it came out. I assumed it was for an audience that wasn't me, and I don't mean age bracket. I simply don't connect with his character. A lot of people do. Around this time period, old stripey's merchandise was outselling that of every other Disney character. Last I heard, the top five went Tigger, Pooh, Mickey, Goofy, Eeyore, and somewhere Donald Duck was being forcibly removed from the studio lot.
But this was also the year I started working for Disney, and by summer of 2001 I was a character performer, which meant water cooler talk was always about House of Mouse episodes (you probably think I'm joking, you sad casualty of the age of not believing). My co-workers (jeez, cast members) raved about this movie. I was expecting to hear descriptions like 'charming' and 'touching'. I wasn't expecting 'intense' and 'heart-breaking'. What the hell had I missed while re-watching Toy Story 2 for the nineteenth time?
Something really well done, that's what. You always know going into these things that whatever upsets the status quo at the beginning is going to be resolved by the end in a way that restores balance. The Sherman Brothers established in 1968 that there was only one Tigger, and not even Steven Moffat would be able to find a loophole in the doctrine; so clearly Tigger isn't going to be finding his own kind (Muppets from Space already demonstrated why that plot sucks anyway). But it's the emotions that happen on the way back to square one which give the film its teeth.
Over the years we've seen these characters go from one note archetypes to three dimensional personalities, but it's in The Tigger Movie where the emotional complexities fully erupt, and it makes sense that it would happen with Tigger in the driver's seat. Pooh is the star of the franchise because his motivations propel him at the right speed for stories to happen. Without the bear, Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, and the marsupials might never even be made aware of each other because they all tend to stay in their safe zones. Pooh is nosy and invasive. Tigger is also invasive but he doesn't stick around after the peace has been disrupted, which is why Pooh is the overall star, not him.
But in this case, Tigger is the story. Unlike the normally harmless adventures Pooh instigates involving mess up/clean up, Tigger forces everybody out of their safe zones. In doing so we learn things about them that we didn't know before that permanently change our perceptions about them. We see how intuitive Pooh is, how reliable Rabbit is, and how freaking hilarious Eeyore is (depressed people gravitate to comedy). We see Kanga out dominate Owl in a single glance which speaks more about who she is than her whole history of appearances thus far (but the blog is young).
But it's Roo who becomes the breakout star, with his admiration of Tigger being the heart of the film. It's also his purest intentions that create the central problem, as well as resolve it. Good story telling. Definitely see this film. If it doesn't tug at your heart strings at least once then you're a heartless bastard and I don't like you very much.
Piglet's Big Movie (2003)
Even with Tigger's movie being a resounding financial success, turning the spotlight on Piglet seems like an odd gamble. At a 46 million dollar price tag with a 62 million return the film wasn't a flop, but I doubt it was the hit that Disney was banking on. On the one hand the film makes sense, as John Fielder was the only original cast member still performing his character (although Paul Winchell probably had some strong feelings about that tidbit). There were plenty of Milne stories to pull from in order to make another feature, and centering them around one character has a certain legitimacy.
The problem though is Piglet isn't the superstar Tigger is. People like Piglet, but I don't think anybody really aspires to be him like they do with Tigger. The built in audience isn't quite as big. But I guess the original plan was to give all of the primary cast their own stories before reuniting them in a mega-crossover where they defeat Loki. So, ambitious, if a little ahead of the times.
I saw it in the theater, along with seven other people. Only two of them were children, and all they did was run up and down the aisles for 75 minutes. It may not be the best sample size to answer the question of who the hell the movie was for, but as the unforgiving adult critic that I am I found it genuinely delightful.
The animation was gorgeous, probably where most of the budget went. The Carly Simon soundtrack wasn't quite Sherman Brothers, but it came close enough. And the same balance of innocence and wit that The Tigger Movie tapped into was on full display. We went back to the anthology of stories formula with a wraparound of the non-Piglet characters tracking down li'l pinky to express their appreciation for him. Somehow it incorporates a life threatening waterfall into the climax, but these things have to happen.
It's been a while, but these are the takeaways I can remember. Rabbit may have shined in the previous film as the responsible adult character, but here is where Disney figured out how to make him funny. There's a bit of a chronological plot hole regarding who moved to the hundred acre woods first, Tigger or the kangaroos. Pooh is absolutely fearless once he's made up his mind. And it's established that not even Christopher Robin gave a shit about Owl.
But the thing that stood out the most was Kanga, strangely enough. In the flashback where she and her child have just moved into the area, Rabbit gets an overdose of patriotism and plots to separate mother and child, using Piglet as a thinly disguised decoy 'Roo'. Kanga sees through the charade, but decides to entertain herself by playing along. What follows is the most passive-aggressive version of psychological torture you're ever going to see inflicted on one stuffed animal from another.
This is one Disney mom with a dark side. She knows she's expected to maintain a disposition of sweetness; most Disney moms don't make it through one film, much less three. But think about Lady Tremaine. She spent all of Cinderella's life trying to break her and the best she could get was a few minutes of tears. Kanga practically gives Piglet a heart attack through nothing more than motherly affection. That's badass.
*Is there any truth to the rumor that the animators storyboarded an alternate ending to this segment, where Pooh and company later found Rabbit's stuffed head on a wooden stick with a note safety pinned through his ears that read "DON EFER FCUK WTH MY SUN!"? Well, that sure sounds made up. And in my time working for the company, I certainly was in no position to speak definitively on what the animation studio did. It would be a real pity if that needlessly turned into an urban legend. Can you imagine how much traffic my blog would have to withstand?
Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005)
Now is the ideal time to try this phrase on: oh bother. I guess it works if you think of it as several layers of censorship. Well, okay then. This movie was obviously a cash grab. It has a certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes which makes me want to kick a small child's teddy bear, but since I usually feel like that anyway let me try to be a bit fairer.
There's a clear target audience here, and it ain't me. It's the age represented on screen by Roo. The title should have been Roo's Heffalump Movie, but Disney wanted to pretend that the other characters were in it. One third of the spotlight is on Roo. A second third is on Lumpy the Heffalump, who is essentially also Roo. And the remaining third is divvied up among everybody else, which summarizes why I feel this movie is a massive misstep.
On its own, it's not a bad story, and the egregiously obvious message isn't a bad one to drill into the heads of children, and hopefully some voters for this year's mid-terms. But there's only enough going on for about a 20 minute short film, and they stretch it out over three times the necessary length; which means more time with Lumpy, and my God is he annoying! Maybe not Fievel annoying...but you can't help wonder if the kid's mom might not be trying that hard to find him.
I'll admit, I probably wouldn't feel this strongly about an ultimately harmless film if it had been a purely isolated story, or released straight to DVD where it could be conveniently ignored. The problem I have is it completes an unofficial trilogy (the Nikita Hopkins as Roo trilogy perhaps?). Either that or it derails the energy we had of movies that focus on Pooh's side characters. Gone are Conversations with Owl, Rabbit has a Meltdown, and Gopher's Underground Hustle. I actually had a cute idea for an Eeyore movie, which involves the animators forgetting to put him in it.
But returning to this lovely bit of irrelevancy, I just don't have anything nice to say. Kids of a narrow window of an age bracket seem to enjoy it. I didn't. I paid real money for a ticket to see this movie in the theater (for character research purposes), and some small part of my inner child has been in a bad mood ever since.
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
What is it about family films in the 2010's? I'm always wary of words like 'flawless' but if Megamind, The Lego Movie, and Muppets Most Wanted have any flaws, I can't tell you what they are (and believe me, I've looked). Maybe its Pixar's influence? Right around the time that the cracks in the studio's quality started showing, it's neighbors may have gotten their crap together. I don't know. But if this genre of entertainment has a high-roller's club, Winnie the Pooh waddles right through the door.
The only real downsides I can find are the short length and the fact that much of this territory has been previously covered; Pooh wants honey, Eeyore loses his tail, Christopher Robin goes to school, Owl creates a problem out of a misunderstanding. But the repetitiveness honestly doesn't matter because the elements are put together so perfectly to tell a single story.
What story is that, you're obligated to ask? In a word, Eeyore's. This is as close to an Eeyore movie as we're ever going to get, with good (if unfortunate) reason. Eeyore doesn't make for a viable protagonist. I hate saying it, but he doesn't have a protagonist's necessary drive or aspiration. At his most ambitious, he can only hope things will be slightly less unpleasant than he believes they'll wind up being. So instead, we explore the world through his eyes from Pooh's eyes, a character who has a clearly defines drive and aspiration, albeit a simple one. He wants honey. What follows is Pooh and the terrible, horrible, no good, very Eeyore day in not getting what he wants. The results are emotional gold.
Every character gets their emotional moments, although previously foregrounded players like Tigger, Piglet, and Roo receive fewer than you'd expect. Owl is surprisingly more important of a presence than usual, and even gets a slight touch of growth (which may or may not stick). He has actual awareness that he doesn't know as much as he'd like to believe, as well as a humiliating moment where he realizes that his pride created the bulk of the problems. But as any writer will tell you, flaws are the alphabet of character.
At the end of the day, this menagerie isn't about finding true love or defeating a villain, it's about childhood. More accurately, it's about the world through a child's eyes. When you're a child, the world is simpler. There are whole adventures to be had in cardboard boxes, and hours of enjoyment projecting your voice into a desk fan. As adults, our worlds and our minds become highly complicated, often to the point of clutter.
It's films like Winnie the Pooh which remind us that there's a certain wisdom which comes from pure emotions, a side of humanity that stays relatively unchanged as we age. We may experience joy and sadness for different reasons as adults than we do as children, and we may also mentally stifle them into somewhat less dominant influencers on our choices, but emotions essentially carry the same taste for adults as they do for children. And too often we forget to check in with that wisdom our feelings possess.
It's understandable. As children, much like Pooh and friends, we aren't aware of such a thing as wisdom. Therefore we couldn't possibly recognize it in ourselves. The more we interact with the world, the more emphasis is placed on intelligence, which is a similar yet fundamentally different ability score. Quite a lot of professional therapy involves getting at that inner wisdom which is being drowned out by an overabundance of adulthood. And maybe that's why I find myself returning to the hundred acre woods whenever the opportunity arises. I don't have kids, and I have no intention of obtaining any. But having been a child, it sometimes helps me process the world by viewing it through the eyes of the little guy who used to curl up inside pillow cases and spin around flag poles for no reason other than it just felt like the thing to do. And even though the bear, the pig, and my main donkey aren't the characters of my own childhood, they've become the close friends of my inner child. And that by itself is enough reason to spend a little time with them. Doing nothing.
