Winnie l'ourson et le Tigre fou

This is the third of the four Winnie the Pooh featurettes. I should find this as satisfying as Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. But it really focuses on Tigger. The voice cast is great as the other 2 films, and the music is great as well. And the plot? Well, let's say that it satisfies me. I am disappointed on one thing however. It was nominated for an Academy Award, but it lost to Closed Mondays. (I haven't heard of or seen that one yet, but it's not a Pooh film.) But still, I recommend this film as well as the other three. You should see them all. They can really satisfy you.

I have watched and reviewed a ton of Academy Award nominated animated shorts and this is a rare situation where I saw two films in this category in the same year that I think earned a 10--one of which was this wonderful film from Disney. The other, CLOSED MONDAYS, I loved because of its amazingly cranky main character and the uniqueness (at the time) of Claymation. Both are great and worth seeing, though I can't help but prefer WINNIE THE POOH AND TIGGER TOO!--it just had a timeless magical quality about it.

However, I can certainly understand the Oscar people not giving this Pooh film an Oscar--after all, in 1969, WINNIE THE POOH AND THE BLUSTERY DAY earned the award in this category, so it wasn't like this Tigger film was super-unique--which CLOSED MONDAYS certainly was.

As for this film, it is available now in a DVD with several other early Pooh shorts and is a must-have for fans of Pooh. It is simply perfect--charming and expertly crafted--with some of the best Disney animation you'll ever see.

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974)

*** (out of 4)

Charming Disney short has everyone growing tired of Tigger bouncing around and especially annoyed at him bouncing on people. Owl, Pooh and Piglet come up with a plan to finally teach Tigger a lesson. WINNIE THE POOH AND TIGGER TOO certainly has its charming moments and these here are enough to make it worth viewing even to a somewhat non-fan such as myself. There were some very good moments scattered throughout this film but the highlight from me was a very funny sequence where Rabbit is trying to ice skate when Tigger comes along, bouncing, and makes a mess of everything. While all of the supporting players are on hand here, there's no question that the film belongs to Tigger whose bouncing ways make for many great scenes. This includes the ending, which I won't spoil but it's quite funny to see the trouble that Tigger gets himself in.

I don't think Tigger Too is quite as good as Honey Tree and Blustery Day, but I definitely recommend it. Sure there are no songs apart from the reprise of The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers, but the incidental music is absolutely beautiful.

The animation is spot on, and the story is still a nice idea. And it is entertaining, and what makes it entertaining is Tigger. What wonderful voice work from Paul Winchell.

The other voice actors also do very well with a good script, and Roo is really cute. There is one part that sticks out for me though- the part when Rabbit tells Tigger he can never bounce again, and Tigger goes off on his own, with his head down. That part never fails to bring tears to my eyes, and I still don't know why. Perhaps it was because I couldn't bear to see Tigger so sad.

Very sweet and memorable! 10/10 Bethany Cox

This was the third 'act' of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which is how I first saw this as a very young child (probably a baby, now that I think about it). Though the whole feature was kind of ingrained into my system at an early age, I think this final section always left an impression on me. It was because of Tigger being this main subject here - in later years he'd get his own movie, The Tigger Movie as it was pretty obviously called - though really moreso about how he was perceived, that made it so funny and captivating and even a couple of times scary and almost-borderline sad.

The two things that happen in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too involve Rabbit in a big way, and it's little wonder from a storytelling perspective; they're diametrically opposed, with Tigger and his, to put it lightly, carefree attitude, and Rabbit being, to also put it mildly, fastidious. He likes his garden and Tiggers bouncy ways mess it up. Can the bounce go away for a while? A personality adjustment could do it, so he, Pooh and Piglet go out into the woods with the plan to abandon him (just for the night, as Rabbit proposes to a hilariously sleepy Pooh by the way), but it backfires as Rabbit is the one who gets stuck (not unlike, say, Snow White in her feature).

The other thing is that Tigger does get some emotional shock when he is stuck up high on a tree - he even talks to the Narrator Sebastian Cabot, which I found both young and today absolutely hysterical - and maybe does, just for a moment question or lose his bounce (by, you know, 'request' of a sort). This second part may not be completely as masterful as the first segment, but the two compliment each other and work together as two stories in one whole: what does it mean for other people around Tigger? Or just Rabbit, for that matter? If all you do is bounce around and have fun, is it fun for everyone else around you, or will some people not 'get' it, or completely match up to that fun (ala Roo, if memory serves).

Ultimately, as it's shown, being 'bouncy' is a good thing, certainly if one is a Tigger. But what I've always liked about these stories here is that it's actually not Pooh challenging the springy fella, it's the character who we probably shouldn't stand really, the 'grown up' curmudgeon guy. Maybe some day kids will have to stop bouncing, but for now, it's alright, and certainly for comedy sake, that is.