Winnie Puuh und der stürmische Tag

Disney's track record when it comes to adapting other source material to the screen is mixed, to say the least. But with their adaptaions of Pooh,they succeed marvelously. This short won the Academy Award for Animated Short and it's easy to see why: everything clicks. The voice casting is great, the design is superb, animation is top-notch and the source material is accorded with the respect and affection it merits. By all means, find this and watch it if you can. As of this writing, it is in-print. Most joyously recommended.

Oscar-winning Winnie the Pooh cartoon is a wonderful piece of entertainment. The story starts out on a very windy day, where Piglet is blown around like a kite and poor owl has his tree knocked over. From there we meet Tigger, who sings the classic song "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers." Tigger warns Pooh that Heffalumps and Woozles love to steal honey. This leads to Pooh having a nightmare about them (and another wonderful song). Then it begins to rain, eventually flooding poor Piglet's home and it's up to his friends to save him. They really crammed a lot into this one but it flows together nicely.

Great animation, wonderful voicework, and some terrific songs make this a classic. Later made up part of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie.

Winnie The Pooh is probably Disney's most successful adapted franchises. Walt sought to do a feature in the early 60s, but decided to dole out adaptations in short subjects, because American audiences were not familiar with the British source material. The first featurette was an excellent introduction which captured the warm nostalgia for early childhood whimsy.

This featurette, the second one, is a more atmospheric, action driven adaptation, which goes back to Disney's earlier filmmaking roots. It almost feels like a Wilfred Jackson directed film overall, with the touch of perilous action and you feel that blustery wind. The sequence with Owls house swaying back and forth and Piglet sliding on the chair out the door and back inside is well executed. It's like Clyde Geronimi's sense of tight comic timing. Both Jackson and Geronimi had left the studio a decade earlier, but their influence is strongly felt in this film.

While the three featurettes that would make up the compilation feature The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh have not been in circulation since the VHS era, it is good to view them the way they were originally released to get a sense on how Americans were first introduced to these timeless characters. Even though the feature was the initial vision. Aside from unique opening and end titles, nothing is missing from the feature.

In the 90s both the compilation feature and the original featurettes were available simultaneously.

This was one of the last animated projects Walt greenlit.

Not surprisingly, this is the one featurette that won an Oscar. The story, pacing, songs, execution, make this the strongest Pooh.

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Oscar-winning short from Disney has Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and the rest of the gang being forced to leave their homes after a storm with heavy rainfall comes through. I'll admit right up front that I'm really not that big of a Pooh fan. I didn't care too much for him as a kid and my tolerance level hasn't grown much more in the three decades that followed. With that said, I think even a person who hates Pooh would still find this film to be a winner simply because of the imagination that's on full display. The greatest sequence in the entire film happens during a dream sequence where the term psychedelic would certainly fit. The song is a very good once but the wonderful use of colors is what really makes this sequence jump off the screen. There are also some very funny bits to be found in the film including one inside Owl's house where everyone keeps sliding around the place. The animation quality is certainly very high but that's exactly what you expect when it comes to Disney. Fans of Pooh will certainly love this film but even those non-fans should be entertained.

By that, I mean that I absolutely love all the Pooh vignettes, with or without Tigger. But Tigger, marvellously voiced by Paul Winchell, absolutely hilarious he was, was so memorable in this vignette that I can't help mention him.

The vignette has a great story, the animation is wonderful, and the songs are highly memorable. I loved the songs, every one of them memorable in every way.

Especially the Heffalumps and Woozles song, that did scare me as a child, but now it is very entertaining. The voice acting is terrific from all involved, Sebastian Cabot as the narrator shines particularly.

Overall, a hugely entertaining gem, flawless from the start, but Tigger's presence elevates it to a greater level. 10/10 Bethany Cox