Catherine McCafferty

A re-watch of Pooh's Grand Adventure reinforces in me why it is my least favorite of the Pooh movies, though it does have a terrific soundtrack. It's the first film to really stray far from the Milne canon, playing excessively fast and loose with the Busy Backson chapter from The House at Pooh Corner. I believe that's a result of being produced as a direct-to-video release by the TV animation group that gave us the equally freewheeling The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh series. The whole show more adventure is forcefully squeezed between scenes in the closing chapter of the preceding The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie to give it some unearned credibility.

This is the darkest and most morose of the Pooh movies, with the Hundred-Acre friends searching for Christopher Robin because they believe him to be kidnapped by a monster and, though it is unspoken, possibly dead. The rescue is plagued with members of the group having self-doubts about their bravery, strength, or intelligence, which seems lifted directly from The Wizard of Oz. Rabbit, Piglet, and Tigger are Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Tin Woodman to Pooh's Dorothy and Eeyore's Toto. The rumored Skullosaurus serves as their Wicked Witch. Without a yellow-brick road on hand, a map serves to wind the quest through creepy encounters amidst dangerous mountains that seem far from the hundred acres of coziness where they usually reside. Despite Pooh's bouts of depression, a happy ending is served up for the kiddies.

Without the songs to alleviate the gloom, this book adaptation is stuck hitting the major story points, getting in and out as quickly as possible while leaning on the bits about growing one's self-confidence. It's a decent try brought down by less-than-decent source material.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less

A decent adaptation of a so-so movie gets a bonus star for including the complete lyrics of the songs (since it is part of a book and CD set). Disney veterans Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman serve up another batch of their catchy movie ditties, getting a little help from Kenny Loggins for the closing tune.

The Tigger Movie is my second-least favorite Pooh film, ranking just above the morose Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. Like that movie, this one veers far show more from the Milne canon, barely including anything from the books except the characters. To spice it up, they even include a big action sequence at the end with an avalanche and characters falling off a cliff. Fortunately, there are some decent songs and a cute scene of everyone in the Hundred Acre Wood in Tigger costumes.

The story: despite years of taking pride in the fact that "the most wonderful thing about Tiggers" is that he's "the only one," Tigger decides to seek out his blood relatives. The search goes poorly and his friends start lying to him like crazy in a misguided bit of comforting, but after the deception is revealed he still decides, predictably, that they have been his true family all along.

There are many distinct adaptations of The Tigger Movie. Several of the adaptations like this one have different text for the story but use the same art (sometimes cropped and/or flipped) credited here in The Tigger Movie (Disney's Songs & Story) (ISBN 0763406007) as "Illustrated by the storybook artists at Disney Publishing Creative Development" with art direction by David Braucher. This is also one of the few versions to have a credited writer for the adaptation in Catherine McCafferty. The actual movie credits: directed by Jun Falkenstein; story by Eddie Guzelian; screenplay by Jun Falkenstein; based on characters by A. A. Milne.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less

Piglet has some unlucky breaks on a day he's planning to throw a muffin party. The author wants to teach us to make lemonade from life's lemons, but one of the examples didn't really apply to the situation and another was the sort I hate, where making the best of it means not standing up for yourself and instead putting up with other people's mistreatment of you.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult show more by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less

Rabbit's in a bad mood after his day gets off to a bad start when little things in his routine go awry. His grumpiness sloshes over onto his friends as he snaps at them for simply wandering into his zone of wrath.

I find this all very relatable as I've often been the ass who has had to apologize for the collateral damage caused by my temper.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading show more her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less