Underground Gopher Steps Into the Light in Winnie the Pooh: Working Together

Gopher is mildly controversial among Winnie the Pooh fans because he is a Disney invention, having been introduced in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree so that there would be a distinctly American character (and an excuse for several meta jokes involving the fact that he’s “not in the book.”) I love Pooh in all forms, but my favorite version and what constitutes my own personal canon is the Saturday morning cartoon The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, in which Gopher (Michael Gough) is a vital part of life in the Hundred-Acre Wood and actually appears in more episodes than Christopher Robin, Kanga, Roo, Owl and even Eeyore. For me, then, this industrious digger with the mild speech impediment has a very important place in Pooh lore, so I was happy to see so much of him in the video Winnie the Pooh: Working Together, part of the Learning collection of videos featuring episodes from the series.

Shovel, Shovel, Toil and Trouble - Gopher is heavily involved in each of the three episodes on this video, but his presence here is most pronounced as he giddily receives a shiny new power shovel he dubs Lucille. There’s a blush-worthy romantic fervor to his actions wherever Lucille is concerned, and in his blind passion, he tears around the Hundred-Acre Wood digging unwanted swimming pools and basements, wreaking havoc with the homes of his friends. Only Piglet (John Fiedler) sympathizes with his plight, but even he begins to think Gopher has gone too far when he comes home to find his house submerged. It’s up to this timid soul to put a stop to Gopher’s shenanigans without hurting his feelings. A great showcase for both Gopher and Piglet.

Tigger’s Shoes - In this episode, Tigger (Paul Winchell) is the one driving everyone, most notably Rabbit (Ken Sansom), up a wall. In an effort to keep him occupied, he challenges Tigger to reach the top of the dizzyingly high Castle Ridge in a single bounce. When Tigger fails to accomplish the task, he begs Rabbit for help training, prompting the persnickety bunny to play a rather mean prank that involves loading down a “special” pair of sneakers with nuts and bolts so Tigger will lose confidence in his own abilities. Gopher’s role here is mostly as advisor to Rabbit as he tries to make him feel guilty for his actions. This is a great episode for fans of Tigger or Rabbit, and the visual spectacle of the towering cliff is truly grand.

Easy Come, Easy Gopher - Once again, Rabbit is irritated, this time because Gopher’s plans for the fabled Ultimate Tunnel of his grandpappy’s dreams interfere with his house. When the opportunity presents itself, he changes Gopher’s schematics, not realizing that Gopher’s tunnel will now disrupt all of the other homes in the Wood. As in the second episode, we eventually have a remorseful Rabbit as he realizes that his meddling has only made the problem worse. Beyond the spirit of togetherness and forgiveness pervading the end of the episode, I love this one because of the brief introduction, via a tall tale, to Gopher’s grandpappy, who actually comes to the Hundred-Acre Wood himself in one of my favorite episodes of the series.

It’s very rare for an episode to incorporate all ten of the primary characters in the series, and in this case, none of the three episodes includes Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Owl or Christopher Robin. While fans of those characters may be disappointed, those who come down on the side of Gopher will be satisfied with this video that emphasizes the importance of forgiveness and compromise.

Wishing Stars and Pygmy Piglets Make The Wishing Bear a Memorable Pooh Video

Over the years since it was on the air, Disney has released several compilation videos featuring episodes from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The earliest are from the ten-volume Walt Disney Home Video series of which The Wishing Bear is volume two. This video includes just two stories from the series, both of them full-length episodes for a total of about 45 minutes. Both also happen to be among my favorite episodes in the series, so I’m very glad I happened upon this particular volume at the library sale over the summer.

The Wishing Bear - One quiet wintry night, Christopher Robin (Tim Hoskins) takes Pooh (Jim Cummings) up to his favorite spot in the woods and shows him his very own wishing star. After teaching Pooh the “special wishing rhyme,” he tells the bear to close his eyes and make a wish. Of course, Christopher Robin knew he would wish for honey and came prepared. When a delighted Pooh tries to make more wishes on the spot, Christopher Robin warns that too many wishes could wear the star out but promises he can come back tomorrow. The next day, Pooh lets the secret slip to Piglet, Tigger and Rabbit, and after a valiant struggle to remember the rhyme, he leads them to the star, which goes behind a cloud as soon as they leave. When Pooh sees a shooting star immediately afterward, he is convinced that he wore out the star and sets about to grant his friends’ wishes himself.

This is a great episode for several reasons. It shows the powerful bond that exists between Christopher Robin and Pooh. It’s very funny, with Piglet (John Fiedler), Tigger (Paul Winchell) and Rabbit (Ken Sansom) each struggling with specific issues that lead to many complications for Pooh, whose attempts to remember the rhyme earlier in the episode are also quite amusing. He comes up with some very strange lines, my favorite of which is “Flap like an armadillo.” My biggest laugh-aloud moment comes later in the episode when Piglet asks Pooh, who has just been working on a plan to keep the bugs out of Rabbit’s house, about his strange headgear. Scrambling for an explanation that won’t blow his cover, Pooh tells him that its purpose is to keep sharks away, which of course sends Piglet into a panic. Classic!

However, the best thing about this episode is the determination and ingenuity Pooh shows in seeing to it that his friends get their wishes, or at least an approximation of them. It’s an idea that also turned up on the show during a Christmas episode that found Pooh filling in for Santa Claus after failing to get his letter out in time, but the episodes are distinct enough to keep either one from feeling redundant. It just goes to show what a kind and generous bear Pooh is. Even though so much of what he does is driven by the demands of his rumbly tumbly, ultimately his heart takes precedence.

The Piglet Who Would Be King - Like The Wishing Bear, this is a story about being generous to a friend. However, the circumstances are quite different. In this case, after Pooh gives Piglet a spring he finds on the ground as a “friendship gift,” Rabbit and Tigger tell Piglet that he must reciprocate by giving Pooh the grandest gift of honey imaginable. A small pot will not do; he needs something truly extravagant. After their first honey-collecting attempts go awry, Tigger proposes an audacious idea: undertake a quest to the Land of Milk and Honey, where they will find all the honey they could ever want. As before, Piglet uncomfortably goes along with the plan, and once they get there and find it populated by the Pigglies, who look just like Piglet but are half his size, he becomes more and more distressed. They regard him as their rightful king, a job he is reluctant to accept, but Tigger and Rabbit insist he take the job so they can enjoy its perks. As their selfishness escalates, Piglet must find the courage to truly step into his role as ruler.

Now, this is a very strange episode positing that deep in the Hundred-Acre Wood, or just beyond it, lies a secret civilization of pygmy Piglets resting in the shadow of a volcano. Between Piglet’s house and the Land of Milk and Honey, they come across a hysterical hyena, a monkey marching band led by a burly primate in a sharp red suit and a thick Scandinavian accent, and a herd of stampeding pint-sized elephants. It’s weird, all right. But it’s an excellent episode full of adventure. Tigger and Rabbit even sing an original song, Nothing’s Too Good for a Friend, as they drag Piglet through treacherous paths toward the Land of Milk and Honey.

The question is, what are the true qualities of a friend? Tigger and Rabbit spend this entire episode as Piglet’s dueling advisors, united in their desire to force Piglet into procuring an unusually complicated gift but bickering over every detail along the way. Both of them are extremely bossy, and even when their intentions are good, their way of doing things isn’t the best way for Piglet. Hence, this episode is about Piglet learning how to do like Neville Longbottom in the first Harry Potter book and assert himself when he believes they are in the wrong instead of being a pushover. Two excellent quotes come out of this process: “People should do things for friends not because they have to but because they want to” and “Even very small animals must stand up for what’s right.” As Piglet’s timidity is a characteristic to which I can relate far too easily, I find this an inspiring episode.

As always, I wish that it was possible to buy a DVD boxed set of the entire series, but if you’re going to get them piecemeal, I highly recommend this second volume. If you’re wishing for a pair of great Pooh stories, your wish will certainly be granted.

Christopher Robin Faces Some Grown-Up Problems in Winnie the Pooh: Growing Up

When I was a kid, I had a bit of a crush on Christopher Robin. Of course, the idea of Christopher Robin having a crush on anyone seems pretty foreign to the world of Winnie the Pooh. However, in the video Winnie the Pooh: Growing Up, part of the Learning series of videos that use episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh to demonstrate simple lessons, it doesn’t seem quite so far out of the realm of possibility. The two episodes on this video both deal with Christopher Robin (Tim Hoskins) maturing, and hints of romance enter the picture in the second episode, though they loom much larger in the minds of his fluffy friends than his own…

Home Is Where the Home Is - In this episode, Christopher Robin’s mom (Patricia Parris) leaves him alone for a few hours with instructions to clean up the house and not to disturb the bust of a very grumpy-looking Great-Grandfather Eustace. Pooh (Jim Cummings), Piglet (John Fiedler), Tigger (Paul Winchell) and Rabbit (Ken Sansom) try to help him tidy up the place Mary Poppins-style, but they end up making an even bigger mess and the statue topples in the process. Afraid to face his mother, he decides to live in the woods, but nobody’s house seems like a good fit and taking the first bus to who-knows-where begins to look like the best option. But is it?

This is a fun group episode which has the above five characters together for a majority of the story. Eeyore (Peter Cullen) turns up a bit later, and while he’s still a sad sack, particularly since his house keeps crumbling on him, he’s more of a sage, dispensing bits of homespun wisdom. While the others try to help their friend run from his problems, he is the one who gently encourages him to return home and face them. A fun but also serious episode about taking personal responsibility for one’s mistakes.

Grown But Not Forgotten - This episode is one of my favorites, in part because it starts out with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Rabbit playing a rousing game of Squishball, an anything-goes, make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along game that I at one time declared the funnest game in the world. My brother, my neighbor and I used to play our own version, though it was never quite as satisfying as it is in the Hundred-Acre Wood, where there is so much open space and so much oddball equipment and where one of the players – Piglet – keeps getting confused for the ball.

But that’s ultimately a small part of the episode. The bulk of it deals with the quartet’s discovery that Christopher Robin has been invited to a formal party – with (GASP!) girls. He has to dress up, he has to show proper manners and he might even have to dance. At first they try to help him get out of going, but when his mom won’t back down, Rabbit decides to instruct him in the finer points of etiquette and Tigger gives him dance lessons. During a practice tea party, Rabbit sternly demonstrates the correct sipping posture: “Proper gentlemen drink with the pinky extended – like so!” My brother and I have imitated this little demonstration time and again even since we first saw the episode.

While it’s not much longer than the first episode on this video, it feels longer because there’s just so much story stuffed into it. Although Pooh never quite understands what all the worry is about and simply hopes Christopher Robin goes to the party and has fun, the other three, spurred on by a goofy scenario in which Tigger imagines Christopher Robin’s life as an adult with a wife (played by Tigger) and a baby (played by Gopher (Michael Gough)), begin to panic. If they can’t prove themselves sufficiently grown up stat, they are sure to lose his friendship forever. An incredibly sweet and funny episode about the balance between embracing new opportunities and staying true to one’s friends.

As always, I’m a little annoyed at the way that Disney chose to package these. It seems like a money-grubbing move to get people to buy a whole library of videos at ten bucks a pop when you could have a boxed DVD set that would take up a lot less room and ultimately be less expensive. That typical complaint aside, though, I love these two episodes, which complement each other very well, allowing Christopher Robin to do just the tiniest bit of growing up without any fear of his outgrowing his wonderful friends in the Hundred-Acre Wood.