When I was growing up, I couldn’t get enough of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,
the animated series that ran from the late 80s to the early 90s and
gave Pooh and his pals a distinctly American feel. Though the series was
never released in complete seasons, several compilation DVDs feature
episodes that are thematically related. Playtime With Pooh all
have to do with the Hundred-Acre Wood gang getting into some imaginative
mischief and features great voice work by Jim Cummings as Pooh, Paul
Winchell as Tigger, John Fiedler as Piglet, Ken Sansom as Rabbit,
Michael Gough as Gopher, Peter Cullen as Eeyore and Tim Hoskins as
Christopher Robin.
April Pooh - Something is amiss with
the pot of honey in Pooh’s pantry. It’s too sticky, even for honey; it
feels more like glue. Christopher Robin explains that it’s April Fool’s
Day, so he’ll have to be on the lookout for pranks. Pooh isn’t sure he
likes this idea much, so he wanders through the wood to see if his
friends have been pranked and whether this April Fool is someone they
should be nervous about. A cute episode with some creative tricks, my
favorite of which involves fooling Piglet into thinking that his house
is underwater.
The Good, the Bad and the Tigger - A
tribute to westerns. Christopher Robin invites his stuffed pals over to
his house to check out his new train set. All are intrigued, but Tigger
is the most impressed. In fact, he can’t wait to get his paws on those
controls. But Christopher Robin warns Tigger before his mother calls him
away for a few minutes not to try to operate the train while he’s gone.
Tigger disobeys, leading to a fun fantasy sequence in which Sherriff
Piglet must decide whether to lay down the law and deliver train-napping
Tigger and his unwitting accomplice Pooh into the hands of the grim
Gopher and his ominous tire swing. It’s always fun to see Pooh and his
friends in totally different surroundings, and the tweaking of the
conventions of westerns in this one is really fun.
Bubble Trouble
- I’ve always loved the idea of a portable hole, which has come up a
number of times in cartoons. How convenient it would be to be able to
pick up a hole and carry it with you, then slap it down wherever you
wanted! This is the only Pooh episode I recall using this device, which
adds to a slight sense of unreality even within this fantastical world,
but that’s okay. Poor Gopher has lost his favorite hole in a windstorm,
and nobody seems to care. Meanwhile, Tigger has perfected a super-strong
bubble, and Pooh is trapped inside of one. Will he ever escape? Each
thread is fun on its own, and I love the way they come together in the
end. This episode also includes one of my favorite uses of the series’
mournful music as Pooh contemplates having to spend the rest of his life
stuck in a bubble.
What’s the Score, Pooh? - Aside from
Poohsticks, the most popular game in the Hundred-Acre Wood is
Squishball, a marvelously zany game that has no clear-cut rules. You
just pick up whatever game gear is available and make things up as you
go along. My brother and I used to play our own version of this with our
neighbor, and it was a lot of fun. Here, we find Pooh, Piglet, Tigger
and Rabbit engaged in quite a ferocious match spanning the whole forest.
Meanwhile, Eeyore is in the midst of rebuilding his house, but every
time he thinks he’s done, something comes along to destroy it again. His
house designs get ever fancier, but it seems nothing can save his poor
house from winding up a shabby pile of sticks. One of the most
rambunctious Pooh episodes ever.
If you love the Silly Old Bear and don’t mind some departures from his original form, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a wonderful show, and this is a grand collection to give you a taste of what made this version of Winnie the Pooh so fun.
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