Project Disney- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Project Disney: The plan is to tackle all of the Disney films, re-reading the classic stories and tales that inspired many of them and to look at how the changes the filmmakers made, the new elements they introduced and the essential elements they kept. We will, of course, be talking about the films as movies as well, saying why we enjoy them and what some of our favorite moments are, but our focus will be on looking at them as adaptations. For the films that are not drawn from any one work we’ll be looking at some of the possible literary influences that we see in the stories. I am participating in Project Disney inspired by Picture Me Reading!  

"Silly Old Bear." Project Disney this time around is The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) based off the books Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne.  I loved this Project Disney so much. There is so much Pooh out there that I had forgotten just how good the original Winnie the Pooh movie is.  I had never read the original Winnie the Pooh book (perhaps my mother read tit to me) and I loved it so much.  There are so many re-tellings of the Pooh stories I don't think I even knew about the Milne book.  Even re-watching the movie after all these years was wonderful.  As an adult I pushed this movie off as just for kids, and realized this is not the case.  I think all the remakes made me believe this.   I watched it all the time as a child and we even had a record with the music from the movie.  The movie is actually composed of three short movies that were made into one film which is unique for a Disney movie.

Original illustration by Shepard

The book I read is the Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh, which includes both books that Milne wrote which are Winnie the Pooh and House at Pooh Corner.  The book also includes the original illustrations by E.H. Shepard (who also illustrated the Wind in the Willows which will be a future Project Disney).  I think those are so whimsical and wonderful.  The book's stories are so simple but yet beautiful.  I found such magic in them... an innocence of sorts. The book is actually a story being told to a boy about his stuffed animals. Pooh's character in the book is just an easy going bear.  He is fluffy, doesn't have a lot of brains and loves honey.  Winnie the Pooh's real name is Edward in the real world.. but Christopher Robin names him Pooh in the stories.  Christopher Robin is the actual name of Milne's son in real life.

The film represents the original story marvelously.  I love that it even looks like a children's book. I think this is quite creative and really adds more to the film.  Disney has changed a few things from the book... really though they have just added some neat and fun lines.. especially for Tigger.  Tigger's best quote is "TTFN- TaTa for now"! Really though the movie follows the book really well.  When Pooh is tracking his own footprints, Tigger gets stuck in the tree, Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit's front door.  All from the book. At the end of the book broke my heart. We are readers know that Christopher Robin is growing up and leaving his imagination behind him.  It was so sad.  I loved it.  Then to see it in this film was just as sad.  In the movie though we are told that Christopher Robin is going to school, while in the book we are reading from Pooh, Owl, Eeyore, Rabbit, Piglet's perspective so they are confused and don't actually know where he is going.  They all say goodbye to him in the book.

One part of the film not in the book that is WAY out there and scared me as a child is the part where “Heffalumps and Woozles” float all around in a psychedelic way.  It is odd and still scares me as an adult!! The music is so great, like the classic song the "Wonderful Things about Tiggers"! I just loved Tigger so much. I just love Pooh.. he tries to be such a good bear.  I think people love Pooh and his stories so much because it represents what we want friendships to be, we want love to be, we want to be able to fail try again and succeed.

Again I am truly glad I watched this.  Winnie the Pooh now seems to be marketed to the preschool crowd so honestly I just brushed it off. I was also surprised by the book length and how good it was.  The book and film are great and should get more attention though it's hard with all the revamps that are out there.


Check out my other Project Disney:
Snow White
Cinderella
Peter Pan
Treasure Planet
Sleeping Beauty
The Great Mouse Detective 
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Princess and the Frog
Pinocchio 
Fantasia 
Beauty and the Beast
Lady and the Tramp
Alice in Wonderland
The Rescuers
The Rescuers Down Under
Tangled
Oliver and Company
Mulan
The Little Mermaid
Bambi
101 Dalmatians
Frozen
Fantasia 2000
The Jungle Book
The Emperor's New Groove
The Sword in the Stone
Aladdin
Atlantis
The Aristocats
The Lion King
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
Robin Hood
Hercules
Pocahontas
Dumbo
The Black Cauldron  
Mary Poppins
Lilo and Stitch
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Make Mine Music
Tarzan
Fox and the Hound
Melody Time