Hello & welcome back. Today's review is going to be a bit different, in some regards it'll be more or less like one of Nostalgia Critic's Old Vs. New videos but not completely as you see this short has been released with different voice actors first in 83 with Hal Smith as Pooh and others and then again in '07 with Jim Cummings as Pooh. Now these are not the only characters to have their voices dubbed over in the '07 re-release but not all of the characters were dubbed over. Now Disney is no stranger to dubbing as currently with their Have A Laugh! series, which I'll get to eventually they have dubbed over Walt with Brett Iwan and that kinda sort of pisses me off but this doesn't so much as you see I don't think Hal Smith is a very good Pooh Bear. I should also mention that this short introduces Poohsticks, and it plays an important role in this short. Now when getting to the voices, there is only a slight difference as it seems for the '07 re-release, they wanted the VA's to imitate the VA's from '83 release. Still, there is a notable difference between Hal Smith's and Jim Cumming's Pooh Bear voices.
The Plot
The plot of this short is rather simple but it does give Eeyore a chance to shine, which I appreciate as because even though he is one of the more popular Pooh characters, there aren't many Eeyore stories. Well, okay there are some episodes of The New Adventures and the new film that came out last year has a rather big Eeyore story but this short came out '83 and The New Adventures came out in '88. So, still, I don't think that there were many Eeyore stories around that time. Sure, there was that episode of Welcome To Pooh Corner that I reviewed. All right onto the plot, we open the short with a stream that becomes a river and then we see Pooh and he finds two fern cones that he drops into the river and the game of Poohsticks is invented. During a game between Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, and Roo, they notice Eeyore in the river. Apparently Tigger had bounced him into the river. Tigger tries to cover this up and say it was a cough but in unique fashion, we get a flashback as the narrator turns the pages to when the bounce happened and it was shown that Tigger did indeed bounce poor Eeyore. I'll admit that did make Tigger a bit unlikable and that is hard to say about my favorite character. Later on, Pooh being the good friend he is goes to check on Eeyore as he is gloomier than usual and Pooh finds out that it is Eeyore's birthday and nobody had taken notice and Pooh decides to go back to his house and get something for Eeyore, that being a honey pot but Pooh eat the honey and Piglet wants to give Eeyore a balloon but it pops. But when given to Eeyore, he is appreciative and doesn't care that it popped. He's just happy that someone took notice of his birthday and later we see Eeyore's friends throwing a party for him and the short ends with a game of Poohsticks, which Eeyore won the most. I have to say that I really enjoyed this short's story because it gives most of the characters the chance to shine.
Narration
Narrator - Laurie Main
Ah, what do you know Laurie Main is once again our narrator and once again, he was great but I do believe he was better here then he was in Discover The Seasons as he was actually given the chance to actually interact with the characters unlike Discover The Seasons where at best, he was a third person narrator. Pooh tends to work better when the narrator can interact with the characters as observed here.
Characters
Now I'll be breaking this down into Main & Supporting and seeing as I'm taking a look at both the '83 original and the '07 re -release, some of the characters will have more than one VA listed. With that out of the way, let's begin.
Main Characters
Pooh voiced by Hal Smith/Jim Cummings
It was odd but Pooh came across as smarter than usual, this must have been a trend in the '80s. Anyways, it is Pooh who gets the idea to gather presents for Eeyore's birthday and it's a nice gesture. Now as for the voices, I have to say that even though they were rather similar I found Cummings to be the better voice even if it just seemed that Disney just wanted him to be a voice match for Smith which admittedly he is but even still, I think Cummings gave the better performance as Pooh.
Eeyore voiced by Ralph Wright
Again, I love getting to see Eeyore shine and I think that this short let him shine so well. I think out of everything I've watched where Eeyore was the focus of the story, I think this is the best as it gave him the most depth and this time there was actually a reason for his gloominess and sadness as no one knew it was his birthday. Perhaps it is just me but I feel that sometimes Eeyore's gloominess is unwarranted sometimes but this short actually gave reason for it and I'm thankful for that.
Supporting Characters
Piglet voiced by John Fielder
Piglet was rather sweet in this short and this is probably one of my favorite moments with Piglet when he wants to give Eeyore the balloon and he is so upset that it popped. My heart broke a little for the little guy as he was trying to do the right thing but it just wasn't working for him and to see Eeyore accept the popped balloon and be happy to get it because red is his favorite color is one of the sweetest moments involving these characters.
Rabbit voiced by Will Ryan/Ken Sansom
I just have to say hat I can't stand Will Ryan's Rabbit in this short and saying that why in the world did they want Ken Sansom to copy the Will Ryan Rabbit, when his Rabbit is a 1000 times better than Will Ryan's Rabbit. Will Ryan just makes Rabbit sound nasally and geeky. That's not Rabbit, Rabbit should be uptight and serious. Honestly, Tom Kenny knew how to do a good Rabbit and behind Ken Sansom he is the best Rabbit. Now as for Rabbit's role in the short, he is his usual self but I think his time it's more warranted because of what Tigger did to Eeyore and Tigger doesn't want to own up to it. I've read some people say that Rabbit was being too hard on Tigger in this short but as much as I love Tigger and I love Tigger, Rabbit was right this time. As Tigger thought it would be funny and clearly Eeyore didn't think the same and I'm not saying Tigger should've been punished but at best reprimanded.
Tigger voiced by Paul Winchell
Now I have to say that I'm bit surprised that they didn't have Cummings voice Tigger in the '07 redub seeing as The Tigger Movie came out in 2000 and that was when he took on the role of Tigger full time. Sure, he voiced Tigger in some episodes of The New Adventures but for the most part, it was still Winchell voicing Tigger. Seems rather odd but who knows? Anyways as for Tigger's role in this short has been covered at great length already and as I said he does come across as being a little unlikable but he still has the jovial attitude about him and I do recall reading somewhere that a scene of Tigger walking away looking defeated was later recycled and reused in The Tigger Movie. That doesn't bug me, not really as animation studios are known for recycling scenes a lot of times. I mean Walt did it too so therefore I can't be mad at them for doing this.
Roo voiced by Dick Billingsley/ Aaron Spann
I have to say that I think that Aaron Spann as Roo was the biggest improvement made to the short. As Dick Billingsley made Roo sound more like a teenager then a young child whereas Aaron Spann actually brought a childlike voice to the character and thank goodness for that. Aaron Spann was the better Roo in this short. Now going onto the character, he didn't do much but it was nice to see him get to hang out with the other characters without Kanga around.
Christopher Robin voiced by Kim Christianson/Trevyn Savage
There really isn't much to say about Christopher Robin in this short as he didn't show up until the very end but it is always nice touch. Now out of all the characters, this is perhaps the least noticeable voice difference between the '83 voice and the '07 voice.
My Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, I truly enjoyed this short. Having watched both the '83 release and the '07 re-release, I must say that I prefer the '07 version of this short as I think the voice acting is so much better there in regards to the characters that were dubbed over then they were in the '83 release. Now I know this may sound sacrilegious to say but I honestly think they got it right the second time around because as I said through this review I don't think the VA's that appeared in the original release of this short are the best fit for these characters. Now I did not touch upon all of the characters such as Owl and Kanga as they really added nothing to the story and there was no reason to bring them up. However I will state that Kanga's voice was also dubbed over in the '07 release. I'd reccomend the '07 release if you wish to watch this short but I think it is best to watch the '83 release and the '07 re-release back to back to get a good feel for the short and decide for yourself, which one you like better. Join me next time as we start to close out our visit to The Hundred Acre Wood, when I take a look at Winnie The Pooh and The Honey Tree. Now originally I was going to review them off of my VHS of The Many Adventures but it's too old and doesn't seem to work anymore. Therefore I had to find a different way, kind of bummed about the VHS though.
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