Playdate with Winnie the Pooh

I'm a diehard Winnie the Pooh fan, and it was high time that Disney Jr made their own Pooh Bear show. Yes, they played reruns of My Friends Tigger and Pooh for a while, much to my amazement, but they never made a Pooh Bear show of their own before this came along. During my heyday in the 2000s and early 2010s, I've came across various plush toys and action figures of Pooh and friends as babies and a few other products featuring baby Pooh and company, and I have a few of those toys myself. There was a logo on some of their boxes and tags that said, "Pooh Babies," and for those longest time, I thought that was the name of a TV series starring the Pooh characters as babies, but there's actually no show by that name. I'm guessing that's the name of the merchandise line they're in. This is the closest thing to it that there is.

I've personally never watched Winnie the Pooh growing up because I could never get into it. My SO did though and even then I feel we enjoy it more than our little one :) I feel it teaches some pretty good lessons fairly quickly, such as conquering fears or having to calm down before doing a certain task (at least that's what I gathered from them and what I've been teaching my girl). I just wish they were a bit longer and had a thicker plot but other than that I think it's a really cute art style and a pretty good way to keep the younger gens. Interested in things from our pasts. We're all looking forward to the newest episodes as the songs are fairly catchy :)

My kids were excited for this to come out only to find that the "episodes" are only two minutes long and Disney disabled the autoplay feature for this series so you have to change the episodes over for them every two minutes which is rather irritating as a busy parent who doesn't want to sit down and watch children's music videos. If Disney enables the autoplay feature for this series that would make a big difference, but the fact they also only put in the effort to make 2 minute long songs for every episode and marketed it as full length episodes just shows how grimmy Disney has become as a company and only helps to highlight them as a cash grab company that doesn't care about putting out quality work anymore. Disney is a dumpster fire trying to burn up everything in sight for a dollar.

I don't care what anyone says about this show. You may think that sounds like I am defending it. But I am clearly against this garbage. This show belongs in the Cocomelon bin with kids who were born around 2021. You were an amazing person to know that Winnie the Pooh's old series were one million times better. Like, how do you feel about Jim Cummings and piglet's VA. They probably are upset because they won't be in the spotlight for a lonnng time. I feel bad that kids and redesigns are ruining Winnie the Pooh, and even affecting the entire franchise. Look at the analysis, all the old Pooh series ( except that creepy Pooh corner) were highly rated and loved by Disney fans and practically anyone of all ages. My friends tigger and Pooh, that's a comedy/mystery for sleuthin!, Book of Pooh is a great series that is nostalgic and you could never get bored of watching! The new adventures is basically anything perfect. And then there's this show.

Listen, I understand other reviewers' complaints about how much this diverges from the ostensible source material. However, filtered through the lens of how much Winnie the Pooh content Disney has produced over the years, as well as the title's home on Disney Junior, I would argue it's perfectly in line with the Disney Winnie the Pooh brand (even if not the Milne Pooh brand).

I appreciate the digestible 3-minute episodes and I think the decision (with this and the sister show Me & Winnie the Pooh) to teach kids resilience is an excellent one. As a former filmmaker with little experience in animation, I do find the animation quite charming as well. And as far as my kid is concerned, she loves every second of it. I'm also comforted that the worse aspects of the characters' personalities are both toned down and actually celebrated by their friends. Oh, and the music is pretty decent too!

All in all, I highly recommend this for any parent of a tiny human whose first word was Pooh (and not the diaper kind), and obviously for said tiny human as well.