BACKGROUND
To be clear, I love Winnie the Pooh – but I do not like this film.
The Winnie the Pooh 2011 reboot or revival is not the Winnie the Pooh that I watched in my childhood. Though Jim Cummings returns as the voice of Pooh Bear and Tigger, which is very comforting for me, there are a few voices in this film that put me off instantly, namely Rabbit’s and Owl’s, with the characters of these two also being very different from what I’ve known, almost like their personalities were swapped. I don’t care for the music either, with even the reinterpretation of the Sherman Brothers’ original theme annoying me.
The issue here is just my age. It’s not that Disney made a bad film: they didn’t commit a cardinal sin by deviating too far from either the source material or the previous Disneyfication of the stories, nor did they simply rehash the plot of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), the Disney Studios’ original adaptation of A.A. Milne’s stories. But for me, who went through my childhood with numerous Winnie the Pooh attractions, television series, and movies, some theatrical, others direct-to-video throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2011 Winnie the Pooh just doesn’t feel right.
During the 2000s, Winnie the Pooh as a franchise was making the Walt Disney Company plenty of money and remained popular. This wasn’t a situation like the Muppets, where its reboot in 2011 signalled a return to fame, because Winnie the Pooh and his friends hadn’t gone anywhere. They had been prevalent on our screens and in the Disney theme parks for years by this point, so why make this movie at all?
It’s important to remember who the Disney Studios were making this movie for. Not for me and my age group, but for a new generation. I’m sure many children of the 2010s love this version of Winnie the Pooh. It may even have been their first introduction to the characters, Disney or Milne. The parents of these children probably enjoyed it enough too, to sit through it with them. I, however, do not fit either of these descriptions, so I just found myself bored and irritated in equal measure. Winnie the Pooh is only about an hour in runtime, so how I found the time to feel this way, I don’t know, but I know I felt every minute of that hour. It was a struggle to remember exactly what happened either, but don’t worry, I painstakingly wrote notes so I could recount the plot for anyone who now won’t watch the film because I’ve made it seem so off-putting.
PLOT
Winnie the Pooh begins in a child’s bedroom, where we see all the toys sitting about the room, which resemble the well-known characters of the Milne stories. An invisible narrator tells us that this is Christopher Robin’s room and that it is full of items he likes to collect, including stuffed animal toys, like Winnie the Pooh, his best friend. We then see the Winnie-the-Pooh book open and an animated map of the Hundred Acre Wood comes to life. There, some of the animals are introduced to us, including Eeyore, Tigger, and Kanga.
We then move into the story. Pooh Bear is woken up by the Narrator, and literally tipped out of bed by the book turning upside down. Poor Pooh Bear, he looked so sleepy as well. But of course, once Winnie the Pooh is awake, he soon gets hungry, but all the honey pots in his house are completely empty, so he sets off in search of some, whether that be a new pot of honey or just a beehive. He then stumbles upon Eeyore. Eeyore is feeling gloomier than usual, but he isn’t sure why. Pooh notices that his tail is missing. Owl soon swoops in, talking about how he is writing his memoirs, when Pooh Bear asks for his help in finding Eeyore’s tail. Owl says they should issue a reward for finding a new tail for Eeyore, and posters are put up around the Hundred Acre Wood about this contest, with Christopher Robin running the meeting to discuss further and to announce the prize for the best tail: a pot of honey, something Winnie the Pooh would love to win.
Multiple items are tested on Eeyore, such as Pooh Bear’s own cuckoo clock, the red balloon that makes several appearances in the film, becoming a character all of its own, a yo-yo, a dartboard and a moose head, but ultimately, Kanga’s hand-knitted scarf is declared the winner, leaving Pooh Bear still without any honey and searching for some elsewhere. He spots Eeyore on the next page of the book, where the scarf has begun to unravel, so he still doesn’t have a tail. Pooh Bear goes to Christopher Robin for help again, but finds a note. Since he cannot read it, he takes it over to Owl. At Owl’s house, everyone else is over there, as Owl has decided that a chalkboard would be a good tail for Eeyore and he wins the honey. Pooh Bear asks Owl to read this note from Christopher Robin. Owl announces that Christopher Robin has been captured by a creature called a “Backson”, misreading the note which says “Back Soon”. Owl then proceeds to draw what a Backson looks like on Eeyore’s chalkboard tail and recounts the dangers of meeting one.
The group make a plan to lead the Backson into a hole and trap it there, leading it to the pit using a variety of their own items. Piglet digs the hole, and Pooh covers it with a blanket. An empty honey pot is left on top to further entice the creature to the area. The others have laid a trail of random things, leading to the hole. Tigger pounces on Eeyore whilst the others are working, believing him to be a Backson. Realising that it is just Eeyore, Tigger decides to make Eeyore a tigger so that they can fight the Backson together, with Tigger getting Eeyore a spring for a tail and painting stripes on him. Eeyore does not want to be a tigger and hides underwater, waiting for Tigger to pass by. As Tigger searches for Eeyore, he sees tracks in the dirt and gets scared that the Backson is nearby.
Meanwhile, Pooh and Piglet catch up to the others who are finishing up the trail of items. Pooh Bear is still hungry but is told there will be no stopping for lunch. He begins to see honey pots and a whole world of honey around him. He spots a honey pot ahead of him and rushes towards it – only to find it was their trick pot for the Backson, causing Pooh Bear to fall into the pit. The others walk by the hole and hear noises, believing they have caught the Backson. But then they realise it is just Winnie the Pooh. They start to discuss how to get him out when Eeyore walks by, now sporting an anchor for a tail, the anchor he found underwater when he was avoiding Tigger. Rabbit believes that they can use the anchor to retrieve Pooh Bear, but the anchor is too heavy and everyone falls in, except for Piglet – and Tigger who is nowhere to be seen. Piglet is told to find something long enough to pull them all out. He can’t find anything, except for a rope, which Rabbit tells him will be perfect. As there are six people to retrieve, Piglet cuts the rope into six individual pieces, now making them too short to pull anyone out… Rabbit asks him to knot the ropes together, but after some confusion, they realise Piglet cannot knot. Rabbit sends Piglet to go and get Christopher Robin’s skipping rope instead.
Whilst trying to find the rope, Piglet sees the red balloon, and also Tigger, who is dressed up as a Backson from his battle training session with Eeyore. Piglet rides the balloon to get away from Tigger, as Tigger also runs scared, thinking there is a Backson actually behind him that is scaring Piglet, not just himself. As Piglet flies across the book, he knocks some of the storybook’s letters into the pit, and then Piglet and Tigger also fall in. Eeyore uses the opportunity of being trapped to tell Tigger that he should be the only tigger, and that Eeyore is not meant to be one. Pooh Bear figures out how to use the storybook letters to build a ladder so they can all get out. Outside of the pit, Christopher Robin arrives with the red balloon, who tells his friends that he was away at school and that his note said he would be “back soon”. The group decide that as the red balloon “found” Christopher Robin, it should win the pot of honey – Winnie the Pooh just can’t win today!
Since Pooh Bear still doesn’t have any honey, he goes over to Owl’s house later and sees that Owl has been using Eeyore’s tail as a bell pull for his front door. Owl tells Pooh Bear that he found it whilst out and about one day, not realising that it belonged to Eeyore. Pooh rushes to return the tail to Eeyore, with Christopher Robin pinning Eeyore’s tail back on for him. This means that Pooh Bear finally wins a pot of honey, this time a huge one! He climbs in to it to finally eat. Christopher Robin tells Pooh that he did something good for a friend and is proud of him. And that’s the end of the story, apart from a short post-credits scene, which sees a Backson, as described by Owl but nicer, coming to the Hundred Acre Wood and deciding that he should return all the items to the “scary looking fella” in the picture, not realising that the fella is actually him. He ends up falling into the trap.
CHARACTERS & CAST
Pretty much everyone in the entire world knows what Winnie the Pooh is like: he’s a little less intellectual than his other friends; he’s childlike and giggly; and he loves honey. We see a lot of Winnie the Pooh wanting to eat honey throughout Winnie the Pooh, as that is what he spends much of his time doing in the film, trying to figure out where he can get some honey to eat because he is just so hungry. His tummy rumbles every few minutes, with a noise that sounds very similar to Tigger’s growl which is a bit odd – and loud. I would have preferred it if his tummy rumble was slightly quieter like in the 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh! Pooh Bear is still just as likeable and cute in this film as in the original movie and throughout the many spin-offs and series that have come since, though. This is partly down to the animators, who continued to use the original design of the character, because the characters never lost the people’s interest so their animated designs have not been changed significantly since they first came to be in the 1960s. Mark Henn was the Supervising Animator for Winnie the Pooh. Henn was also the Supervising Animator for other well-known Disney characters, such as Belle, Pocahontas, and Jasmine.
The other reason Winnie the Pooh feels very much like the bear we have all known and loved since the 1960s is because of his current voice actor, Jim Cummings, who has voiced the role since 1988, after the death of Sterling Holloway, Winnie the Pooh’s original voice actor. Jim Cummings has successfully mimicked Holloway’s voice just enough so that it has never seemed like two different voice actors have voiced the role. It’s perfect.
Also voiced by Jim Cummings is Tigger, whose original voice actor, Paul Winchell, stopped voicing the character in 1999, with one of Winchell’s final performances of Tigger being for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction at Walt Disney World[1]. Once again, Jim Cummings has been able to perfectly imitate Winchell’s voice acting and give us continuity to the voice of Tigger for so many years, as well as for Pooh Bear. Jim Cummings has been a frequent contributor to not only Disney voices, voicing numerous characters for the Studios since the mid-1980s, but also for other studios such as Warner Bros. Tigger the character is still carefree and fun, frequently pouncing on his friends and loving to bounce. Instead of irritating Rabbit as he usually does, this time it is Eeyore who gets most of Tigger’s attention in this film! Andreas Deja was the Supervising Animator for Tigger, with Deja being most known for animating characters like Jafar, Gaston, Scar and Hercules.
Then, there is Piglet, who still continues to be scared easily and struggles to calm himself sometimes. In this film, that is seen mostly around the new terrifying monster they have to face, the Backson. And again, Piglet mistakes Tigger for being that monster and runs away from him. So that’s Piglet’s “normal”, however, I think they made Piglet too dim in this film, especially when Piglet is trying to find things long enough to get the others out of the pit they are stuck in. It sets up one of the more amusing moments in the film, where they all get confused over whether Piglet can knot the six pieces of rope together, or whether he cannot knot – see what they did there? But I don’t think Piglet should’ve been made to be this stupid because I don’t remember him being like that. Scared easily? Yes, but stupid? No.
Piglet also got a new voice actor after 2005 when John Fiedler passed away, so his voice actor here in the 2011 film is Travis Oates. Oates does a decent enough job as Piglet; his voice doesn’t sound dramatically different, unlike the voice Piglet would get for the 2018 film Christopher Robin, which is not good at all. Bruce W. Smith is the Supervising Animator for Piglet, as well as Kanga and Roo. Smith animated characters such as Pacha, Dr. Facilier, and Kerchak, and co-created The Proud Family (2001-present) animated television series.
We still have Eeyore being as gloomy as ever in Winnie the Pooh, with his tail going missing and everyone trying to find an alternative being one of the primary story elements of the film. It makes Eeyore feel good that everyone around him is trying to help find a new tail though, and when he gets his actual one back, he even smiles a little bit and thanks Pooh Bear for finding it. Eeyore has had many voice actors over the years, but for the 2011 film, Bud Luckey was chosen to voice the character, and Eeyore sounds more or less as I’d expect him to. Luckey was most known for being a character designer for Pixar, working on many of their earlier movies. He also voiced characters for Pixar, such as Chuckles the Clown in Toy Story 3 (2010) and Rick Dicker in The Incredibles (2004). Luckey directed, wrote, sang, narrated and voiced all of the characters in the Pixar short Boundin’ (2004), which won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Film and was nominated for the Academy Award in the same category. Luckey passed away in 2018. Randy Haycock was the Supervising Animator for Eeyore, where he said that they added eyelids to the character for the first time here, giving him more expression in his face.
Now for some of the characters I do not like in Winnie the Pooh, due to either their voice, animation, or personality! Firstly: Rabbit and Owl. I feel like they have had some of their personality switched for some reason. To me, Rabbit was the serious, practical leader of the group, who mostly knew what he was doing and took control over the difficult situations the group found themselves in, with differing levels of success. Owl was the one the group went to for specific information, thinking he is the most knowledgeable of them all, but not entirely trusting what he had to say. Instead, in Winnie the Pooh, it seems like Owl is very much the leader here, giving them all motivational speeches, and having all the ideas, like issuing a reward for finding Eeyore’s tail. The scene of Owl reading the note, misreading “back soon” as “Backson” is right to me though, as Owl does a similar thing in the direct-to-video sequel Pooh’s Grand Adventure (1997) with “school” and “Skull”, but now Owl has suddenly become smarter in some areas, only to make a critical mistake here. He also gets annoyed really easily, like Rabbit would normally have done, yet in this film, Rabbit doesn’t get all that annoyed, even when Piglet cuts that rope. It doesn’t make much sense to me, and I just don’t like how these two characters have been written for this film.
The other problem I have with both of them is their voice actors. Ken Sansom did not return to voice Rabbit in this film, despite apparently still being under contract, and as he passed away in October 2012, this would have been his last opportunity to voice the character. Instead, Tom Kenny, most known for voicing SpongeBob SquarePants, came in to voice Rabbit. Kenny tries to make Rabbit sound similar to the other screen adaptations that Disney has made, but he doesn’t quite manage it. But Owl is the worst for me, voiced by former late night talk show host, Craig Ferguson. Though I can see that Ferguson is trying to make Owl sound posh and very English, the problem I think we have is that Ferguson has a strong Scottish accent, so by making himself sound English, he has gone too far and over-exaggerated the voice. I don’t have anything against Craig Ferguson – I thought he was great as Lord Macintosh in Brave (2012) where he could be his naturally Scottish self – but I don’t think he is right for the voice of Owl here. Dale Baer was the Supervising Animator for Owl, who was the animator for characters such as Yzma, Wilbur Robinson and Alameda Slim. Baer said that Ferguson ad-libbed most of his lines[2]. Eric Goldberg was the Supervising Animator for Rabbit; Golberg co-directed Pocahontas (1995) and animated characters like Genie and Philoctetes. Though the character designs of Rabbit and Owl are mostly the same, at times, they do end up with very large, wide eyes, which is unusual.
Finally, I have a problem with how Christopher Robin looks and sounds. For his design, Christopher Robin was given human eyes, instead of black dots like he had in previous adaptations from Disney. Mark Henn, the Supervising Animator for Christopher Robin, said this was to update the character to make him look more like a real human boy[3]. He was also given a smart school uniform to wear, clearly showing his family’s social class, or the time period of the film, as this is not what most children in the UK wear to school these days! I just don’t like how he looks, probably because I’m used to Christopher Robin with his black dot eyes and his yellow shirt and blue shorts; he just looks strange to me here. Jack Boulter was brought in to voice Christopher Robin. Although more authentic to the real person behind the character, as Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh now sounds like a young British boy, I just can’t get used to it. It’s not the voice of Christopher Robin that I’ve known for years, which has been a vaguely American accent.
English actor and comedian John Cleese voices the Narrator, since Winnie the Pooh adaptations always need an English narrator! John Cleese does a good job here as the Narrator, as he doesn’t have to sound like anybody else but himself. Cleese is best known for his work as part of the Monty Python comedy troupe, as well as starring in sitcoms such as Fawlty Towers (1975-79), and various movies, including A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and as Nearly Headless Nick in the first two Harry Potter films, and has done voice work, as King Harold in the Shrek franchise from 2004 to 2010, for example.
The final characters to mention are Kanga and Roo, who do not have much of a role in this film, at least not in terms of dialogue; they appear in the movie, helping the others, but they aren’t hugely important in my opinion. This time, Kanga is voiced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who also wrote the music for the film alongside her husband, Robert Lopez. Roo is voiced by Wyatt Dean Hall. Oh, and there is also the Backson, who appears right at the end of the movie, voiced by Huell Howser. Strangely enough, we find that the Backson has a very Southern accent, which surprised me after all that Britishness!
PRODUCTION
To properly talk about how Disney Animation made this 2011 film, it is important to go back to where the creations began. In 1924, the character Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared in a collection of poems by A.A. Milne titled When We Were Very Young. In 1926, a book of stories simply titled Winnie-the-Pooh was released, with another collection of poems, Now We Are Six, being published in 1927, which contained some illustrations of Winnie-the-Pooh. A final children’s book of stories about Pooh Bear and friends by A.A. Milne was published in 1928: The House at Pooh Corner. These were based on his son, Christopher Robin, and his teddy bear, which he named “Winnie” after Winnipeg the black bear at London Zoo and “Pooh” after a swan he saw on holiday. After 1928, Milne did not want to write any more of these stories, and came to resent the books as Milne felt they overshadowed his more serious work. Not only that, but the childhood fame that the real Christopher Robin received as a result of being mentioned in the books, took its toll on both Christopher Robin and his relationship with his parents. He was bullied at boarding school, and blamed his childhood fame for struggling to find work later in life[4]. This difficult past was depicted in the movie Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), which was not made by Disney.
In July 1961, the Walt Disney Studios obtained the rights to make an animated film about Winnie the Pooh and the rest of Milne’s characters and stories, however, Disney Animation did not announce anything until a few years later. During production, Walt Disney was unsure about how American audiences would respond to these very British stories. This is something that Walt felt had been the problem with Alice in Wonderland’s (1951) audience response, as the film received mixed reviews at the time of its release. With this in mind, Walt Disney decided they should make the first story a featurette, in case it fell flat, though there was some creative license used to give the British stories more of an appeal with American viewers.
Woolie Reitherman, who directed the first featurette, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), said that the British press were incredibly critical of Piglet being left out of the story, with an American gopher, a new invention by Disney and not be A.A. Milne, somehow making the final cut. Midwestern accents were also used for the characters, instead of British ones – something that the 2011 film seems to go some way in correcting, specifically with the voice of Christopher Robin. Milne’s niece, Angela, would later say that Milne had wanted his stories to be more American, however, his publishers had told him to retain the Britishness. Milne’s widow was also happy enough with the Disney featurette, though Shephard, who had drawn the original illustrations, hated it. But despite British criticism, American audiences loved it, and this led to a second featurette being made, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) rounded out the three original featurettes, which were then combined to make The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) feature-length film.
After many years of attempts, the Walt Disney Company finally obtained exclusive rights in 2009, meaning that they retain the copyright and trademarks to the Disney versions of the characters, though Milne’s book, along with others such as Felix Salten’s Bambi, a Life in the Woods, fell into the public domain in 2023[5]. Due to this, a horror film, titled Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, was released in early 2023. It was subsequently panned, but that hasn’t stopped the director from planning a sequel to it, or planning to do the same with the likes of Bambi.
But back to the 2011 film. There hadn’t been a theatrical movie release from Disney of a Winnie the Pooh story since Pooh’s Heffalump Movie in 2005, a film that I still very much like. When Pixar was acquired by Disney in 2006, John Lasseter was named the Chief Creative Officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Feature Animation. Lasseter expressed interest in producing a new Winnie the Pooh movie. He approached Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall, who had both worked on Meet the Robinsons (2007), to direct this new film. Legendary Disney artist Burny Mattinson was also brought on to the project, working as lead storyboard artist. He was 76 at the time. Mattinson had worked on the original 1977 film so his knowledge was incredibly useful to the current crop of animators. He even pitched the five-minute sequence of Eeyore losing his tail, based on Milne’s story, which convinced the Disney executives to make a feature-length film, instead of another featurette.
Burny Mattinson was an employee of the Disney Studios from 1953 until his death in February 2023. He had worked on numerous Disney animated movies throughout his time with the company, and became a Disney Legend in 2008. Mattinson has a live-action cameo appearance in the Once Upon a Studio 2023 short, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Disney company. That and Wish (2023) are both dedicated to him. Mattinson was the longest serving employee of The Walt Disney Company.
The team working on Winnie the Pooh went on a trip to Ashdown Forest in Sussex, to look closer at the area that had inspired A.A. Milne’s stories. Disney decided that the movie had to be traditionally animated, i.e., hand-drawn animation, as using CG would do a disservice to the characters. Therefore, the characters look more or less the same as they always have done, but, with the addition of new technology, the clean-up of the images is better and neater, giving them a fresher look.
The 2011 film does feel more like a complete story than the 1977 film, as it is quite plain to see that The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) was three short featurettes put together with some linking material. There are some similarities between the two as well, other than the character designs. Both movies begin in Christopher Robin’s bedroom, which is filled with cuddly toys. Sylvia Mattinson, wife of Burny, made the stuffed Winnie the Pooh that features in the 2011 movie. It was meant to be used in the 1977 film, but, for some reason, never was[6]. Also, both films begin with the opening of the Winnie-the-Pooh book, before taking us into the animated map of the Hundred Acre Wood. I was also pleased to see the characters interacting with the Narrator, as well as the pages and the words of the actual storybook, as they do in the 1977 film.
Originally, Winnie the Pooh was going to be based on five of A.A. Milne’s stories. As far back as November 2010, it was still stated that the team had used five of Milne’s stories as the basis for the film’s plot. This is also evident from the official trailer, released to the public that same month, where many scenes from the trailer did not appear in the final cut of the film[7]. The trailer curiously used the Keane song “Somewhere Only We Know”, which does not appear anywhere in the movie, unsurprisingly! In the end, the three stories that Winnie the Pooh is based on are: “In Which Eeyore Loses a Tail and Pooh Finds One” and “In Which Piglet Meets a Heffalump”, from Winnie-the-Pooh, the 1926 children’s book, and “In Which Rabbit Has a Busy Day, and We Learn What Christopher Robin Does in the Mornings”, from The House at Pooh Corner 1928 book, though some elements of these stories have been changed for the 2011 film. The books show Rabbit finding the original note from Christopher Robin that speaks of a “Backson”, and the trap hole originally being meant for a Heffalump, not a Backson. One of the unused story elements would have included a scene meeting Rabbit’s friends and relations. Pooh is looking for some honey and sees some on Rabbit’s table. He is told it is not for him, but for Rabbit’s friends and relations. Sure enough, they soon come by, eat everything on the table, and then swiftly leave[8].
MUSIC
When watching Winnie the Pooh, I was not a fan of its music, but luckily many of the songs are less than two minutes long. Though the film begins with the original title song, “Winnie the Pooh”, written by longtime Disney collaborators Richard and Robert Sherman, known as the Sherman Brothers, it is performed by Zooey Deschanel, known for her starring role in the sitcom New Girl (2011-18) as well as for her role in the Christmas film Elf (2003), in which she also sings. I do not like her singing voice much, but I’m not saying she isn’t a good singer; it’s just personal preference. I am at least glad that this original number did make it in the new film in some form.
Aside from the End Credits song, “So Long”, the other seven songs in the film were written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who would later become known as the creators of those catchy numbers from Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019). The two had also composed the music for Finding Nemo – The Musical at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World, which officially opened in 2007.
The first song of the film is called “The Tummy Song”, performed by Winnie the Pooh, as he’s searching for honey after he wakes up. It’s not a terrible song, but it’s not as good as “Rumbly in my Tumbly”, which appears in the 1977 film. Zooey Deschanel then returns to perform the song “A Very Important Thing to Do”, as the group start searching for Eeyore’s tail. I didn’t like this song at all. A feeling I also encountered with the next song “Winner Song”; as different members of the group are named the winner of the contest for Eeyore’s tail. It’s just annoying. “The Backson Song” is sung primarily by Craig Ferguson as Owl, as he details exactly what a Backson is to the rest of the group. It’s an interesting scene, animation-wise, as it uses animated chalk drawings to show us what a Backson is. The song itself, though inspired by “Heffalumps and Woozles” from the 1977 film, is not nearly as good as the original. I did like the end of the song though, as Owl almost realises that “Backson” sounds like “Back Soon” and he perhaps could’ve read the note incorrectly.
“It’s Gonna Be Great” is the most energetic of the music in Winnie the Pooh, probably because it is mostly performed by Tigger, as he tries to teach Eeyore how to be a tigger, and shows how they can defeat the Backson together. Zooey Deschanel and the Lopez duo then contribute the backing vocals to Winnie the Pooh’s next solo, “Everything Is Honey”, as he envisages a whole world of honey just for him. It’s a cute song, and I quite like the visuals of islands of honey and overflowing honey pots. Both of these two songs are probably the ones I like the most in the whole soundtrack. “Pooh’s Finale”, Pooh Bear’s winner’s song after he has returned Eeyore’s tail, which is mostly a reprise of “Everything Is Honey”, is just ok.
Finally, “So Long” appears during the End Credits. This song was written and performed by Zooey Deschanel, and is the longest of all the songs at over three minutes. It’s meant to be a kind of cross between pop and country genres I think, but I didn’t enjoy it. Again, this might have something to do with me not really liking Deschanel’s singing voice. The Grammy Awards very much disagreed with me though as this song was nominated in the category of “Best Song Written for Visual Media” at the 2012 Grammys Ceremony. It lost out to “I See the Light” from Tangled (2010).
The score for Winnie the Pooh was composed by Henry Jackman, with additional music from Christopher Willis. Though I couldn’t pick out individual instrumental pieces from the score that stood out to me, I did feel like the score was more in keeping with the original score of the 1977 movie, composed by Buddy Baker, than the new songs are, compared with those of the Sherman Brothers. Jackman would return to the Disney Studios a few more times, to work on the music for Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). Willis went on to compose the score for movies such The Death of Stalin (2017), and television series such as Schmigadoon! (2021-present). For Disney, Willis has composed the music for the latest Mickey Mouse shorts (2013-2023).
RECEPTION
At Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, to promote the Winnie the Pooh movie, Winnie the Pooh replaced the Lotso meet-and-greet at the now-closed Magic of Disney Animation building in June 2011. This meet-and-greet location had guests walk past pages from the Winnie-the-Pooh book to then see Pooh Bear meeting guests in front of a background of his house[9].
D23 had a paid-for advance screening event for the film, calling it “A Wonderful Morning with Winnie the Pooh”. It was held on the weekend before the release of the movie, so either 9th or 10th July 2011, at El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. The event included a showing of the full movie, a small continental breakfast, a movie poster, and a panel with some of the animators who worked on the movie[10].
Winnie the Pooh was released in some cinemas, mostly in European countries such as Germany and the UK, in April 2011. However, the film did not get released to theatres in the US until 15th July 2011, which meant that the American people had a choice to make: watch Winnie the Pooh, or choose Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 instead, which was released on the exact same day in the US. Not a great start for Disney seeing as this was the culmination of the entire Harry Potter story, so really, they didn’t have much chance in coaxing anybody over the age of eleven to see Winnie the Pooh instead of Harry Potter – not unless they happened to be a parent of a young child. Not even if Disney had somehow managed to get, let’s say, Daniel Radcliffe to voice Winnie the Pooh, Ralph Fiennes to be Owl, Alan Rickman to be Eeyore, and Rupert Grint to voice Piglet, would they have managed to get that older demographic to tear themselves away from Harry Potter.
Still, those who went to watch Winnie the Pooh did seem to like it. Some enjoyed the fact that this was a return to traditional animation once more, after Disney’s The Princess and the Frog was released in 2009, though Winnie the Pooh was the final outing of 2D animation by the Disney Studios, at least for now anyway. The songs received a mixed response; however, it was generally agreed that this movie would appeal most to young children and the nostalgia factor was a reason for older people to watch. Some felt the movie was a bit too short, with a runtime of just over an hour.
Winnie the Pooh was released alongside the short The Ballad of Nessie (2011), narrated by Billy Connolly and obviously based on the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, sometimes nicknamed “Nessie”. It was said that Nessie cried so much at having her first home destroyed and replaced with a miniature golf course that she made a whole loch of her own tears and made that her home. It was a pleasant enough short cartoon and I liked Billy Connolly’s narration, but it wasn’t exceptional, unlike previous Pixar or Disney shorts.
Unfortunately, Winnie the Pooh just didn’t get enough of an audience, and only made just over $50 million worldwide. This is more than its supposed $30 million budget, but it would have lost money due to its marketing costs, however, this was likely recouped from the subsequent DVD and Blu-Ray releases. But, as I said, the movie did get quite positive reviews, which led to Winnie the Pooh being nominated for Annie Awards, in areas such as Music, Directing, Writing, and Character Animation for Andreas Deja and Mark Henn. It won the Annie Award for Storyboarding in a Feature Production, which is better than nothing!
LEGACY
Though the original 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh spanned multiple films, television series, and specials, as well as video games and a theme park attraction, from 1977 right up until the release of the 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie, nothing much has come out of the franchise since then.
In 2018, Disney released a live-action/animated film starring Ewan McGregor as an adult Christopher Robin. The film sees Christopher Robin reunite with Winnie the Pooh to take him back to the Hundred Acre Wood. Whilst there, all of his other childhood friends appear and try to get him to rediscover his inner child. At the same time, Christopher Robin realises that his high-pressure job has caused him to neglect his wife and daughter and that he must make amends for that. It’s actually a very good film, with the scenes between Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin in “the real world” being particularly funny. It’s worth a watch, but having said that, though I mentioned that the voices in the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film are bad, some of the ones in Christopher Robin (2018) are even worse!
In 2021, a musical titled Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Adaptation debuted Off-Broadway. It featured music by the Sherman Brothers and Carly Simon, and was produced by Disney Theatrical Productions. The music here does not appear to include any of the songs from the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film, but does include music from other Winnie the Pooh films, including The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), The Tigger Movie (2000) and Piglet’s Big Movie (2003). It uses puppets of each of the Hundred Acre Wood residents to tell the story, alongside a child actor as Christopher Robin. The musical has toured both the US and the UK in 2022 and 2023, with a tour in the Netherlands and Belgium currently ongoing until 2024. Another stage adaptation, titled Disney’s Winnie the Pooh KIDS, is specifically based on the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film, following its same story and music, with additional music and lyrics from Will Van Dyke and Cheryl Davis. This show is around 30-minutes long and is available to license for use in local children’s productions.
In August 2023, a new animated television series called Playdate with Winnie the Pooh aired on Disney Junior. It follows a young Winnie the Pooh going on playdates with the other characters of the Hundred Acre Wood. I’m sure it’s entertaining enough for today’s children, but the animation looks weird to me and the characters are voiced by child actors.
Within the Disney Parks, the original 1977 film inspired a dark ride that still operates today. It first opened at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in 1999, taking over the former Fantasyland home of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. As Winnie the Pooh had become so popular at the time, it was an obvious decision to make a theme park ride based on him. Buddy Baker returned to arrange the attraction music from the 1977 film score. The ride goes through many of the same scenes as the 1977 film, and they follow the story order of the film[11].
The ride exists in every Disney Park around the world – except for Disneyland Paris, who must just be miserable for not having any ride based on Winnie the Pooh! It appears the best you’ll get in Paris is a new Winnie the Pooh scene within Le Pays des Contes de Fées, their version of the Storybook Land Canal Boats, sometime around 2024. They do apparently have a meet-and-greet location for Winnie the Pooh on Main Street though. At Disneyland, the ride replaced Country Bear Jamboree, opening in 2003, with the order of some scenes being rearranged compared with the Magic Kingdom version. At Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland, a very similar ride to the Magic Kingdom version opened on the official opening date of those parks in 2005 and 2016, respectively. Shanghai’s “tea cups” ride is also themed to Winnie the Pooh, being called Hunny Pot Spin. Only Shanghai’s Winnie the Pooh attractions opened after the release of the 2011 Winnie the Pooh, though they are not specifically based on that film. At Tokyo Disneyland, they went one step further and created a trackless version of the original ride called Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. This opened in 2000, with many calling it the best Pooh Bear attraction at any Disney Park, with similar scenes to the original ride, but somehow better.
For meet-and-greets, some of these specific locations are listed on the Disney Parks’ respective websites. At Tokyo Disneyland, you could meet Pooh Bear at Pooh Corner; at Shanghai Disneyland, you can meet Pooh Bear at the Hundred Acre Wood area of Fantasyland. At Hong Kong Disneyland, Winnie the Pooh may be available to meet at Fantasy Gardens. At Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, you can have a character meal with the four characters of Pooh Bear, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore, for either breakfast, lunch, or dinner, buffet-style at the Crystal Palace, as well as meeting Pooh Bear and Tigger at the Thotful Spot in Fantasyland. Plus, Pooh Bear has a meet-and-greet location at the back of the UK pavilion in Epcot, inside a room themed to be Christopher Robin’s bedroom. Winnie the Pooh and some of his other friends, such as Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger, may also be found greeting guests in undesignated times and places at all the Disney Parks. They are also likely to feature within various parades.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Due to unfortunate timing with the release of the film, it is unclear just how well Winnie the Pooh could have done financially; however, most reviews were positive. I personally did not enjoy watching this 2011 film, but I see the attempt by Disney to revitalise the stories for the younger generation. It probably worked for them but I know for me, if I want to watch something with Pooh Bear and friends, I will always choose to watch either the original film or any of the 1990s or early 2000s spin-offs.
Winnie the Pooh was the “reboot” that was never needed. Disney’s franchise was, and still is, as popular as ever, so this film was an unnecessary addition to the numerous screen adaptations of Milne’s stories in my opinion. And yet viewers just can’t help themselves. You can’t help but love Winnie the Pooh, that “tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff”, no matter what he shows up in!
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.
[2] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘D23’s Winnie the Pooh Advance Screening Event’, DisneyTravelBabble.com, 14th July 2011.
[3] Credit: Adam Donald, ‘How ‘Winnie the Pooh’ Updated the 1977 Animated Classic ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’, Collider.com, 18th January 2023.
[4] Credit: Mike Miller, ‘Inside the True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh’, People.com, 13th October 2017.
[5] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘The Problem with Pooh’, CartoonResearch.com, 19th August 2022.
[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Winnie the Pooh (2011)’, pp. 151-153.
[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Winnie the Pooh (2011)’, pp. 151-153.
[8] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Winnie the Pooh (2011) Blu-Ray (2011).
[9] Credit: Todd Perlmutter, ‘New Winnie The Pooh Meet & Greet’, TouringPlans.com, 19th June 2011.
[10] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘D23’s Winnie the Pooh Advance Screening Event’, DisneyTravelBabble.com, 14th July 2011.
[11] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.
The Disney Purist 