Hello and welcome back, we once again continue our visit to The Hundred Acre Wood as today Winnie The Pooh Discovers The Seasons. First a little background information is needed This short was made by Walt Disney's educational department and it was meant as a short to be shown in schools and has not been officially released by the public to Disney. Now it is pretty easy to figure out I found this as it was uploaded to YouTube. After watching it, I can see why it was never released to the public as there really was no need for it to be. And I honestly don't think there are Pooh or Disney fans clamoring for this short's release. Anyways onto the review.
The Plot
The plot is rather simple in that Christopher Robin gives Pooh Bear a calendar to keep track of the seasons and this where the title comes into play as throughout the entire short, it goes through the span of one calendar year to teach the children that were meant to watch this short about the different seasons and they do this by having Pooh learn about the different seasons and being informed on them by mainly Owl and Rabbit who come across as smarter than usual in this short. Going back to that for a second though, it seems as if this short required some of the characters to act out of character and to be fair, this was meant to be an educational short. You can't have all the characters be as un-smart as they are in their regular appearances. What, I'm not going to call Pooh, dumb. It would feel wrong. Now you may have noticed that I did not mention Tigger and that's because he is not in this short. Which in some ways makes sense as I think he would be a distraction when trying to do an educational short.
Narration
Narrator - Laurie Main
Oh, what do you know the same narrator from Welcome To Pooh Corner worked on this short. As I said when I last talked about him, I enjoyed his narration and I think it was all right here. Not as good as the show but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
Characters
Now again as I mentioned Owl & Rabbit seem to be out of character in this short and for the most part that doesn't bug me as much as it did when I first watched the short. And really, there is no need to further break down the characters than here. With that out of the way, let's begin.
Pooh voiced by Hal Smith
Now I should have touched upon this during my Welcome To Pooh Corner review but Hal Smith was the second actor to voice Pooh. Compared to Holloway and Cummings, his Pooh is at best forgettable. It's not a bad performance but it's not one to write home about either. Now as for Pooh in this short, again he really isn't memorable. Then again when making a short about the seasons how memorable can you make the characters.
Owl & Rabbit voiced by Hal Smith & Ray Erlenborn
Now the main reason I'm grouping these two together is because they serve the same role. Their role in the short was just to give information on the different seasons and this is where the whole thing of character acting out of character comes in. Because as I said when talking about the plot, the 100 Acre Wood characters aren't the smartest and to hear these characters say things that are accurate s a bit jarring.
Piglet voiced by John Fielder
What is there to say about Piglet? He was there, he didn't serve much of a purpose to this short. That's it, really. He didn't do much, which is kind of ashame.
Eeyore voiced by Ron Feinberg
Just as with Piglet, Eeyore didn't do much in this short. He's not a bad character and a lot of fun but really the most important characters were Pooh, Rabbit and Owl. Although he does at one point, mention the temperature.
Christopher Robin voiced by Kim Christianson
Christopher Robin was barely in this short. He was there at the beginning and there at the end but really, that is what I expect from Winnie The Pooh shorts. Now he was important in the fact that he gave Pooh the calendar so that Pooh could follow the seasons and at the end of the short, he gives him a new calendar. That's about it.
My Final Thoughts
Now there are two ways I have to look at this short to give my opinion. First as an educational short and then as a Pooh Bear short. As an educational short, it works well and it was a great idea to use these characters in this way. I honestly think that idea of doing an educational short about the seasons was a good idea and using these characters makes sense as they're timeless and more importantly most young kids love Pooh Bear. Now as a Pooh Bear short, it's not very memorable. It's not bad but it doesn't have the same feeling or flow as any of the other Pooh Bear shorts and again that goes back to this being an educational short and on that level, it works but as a Pooh short, it's okay at best. I guess the best way I can put it is that I think this is a better educational short than it is a Pooh short. Join me next time as Winnie The Pooh makes a day for Eeyore as I take a look at...
No comments:
Post a Comment