Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year
Year: 2002
Director: Jamie Mitchell, Gary Katona, Ken Kessel & Ed Wexler
Starring: Peter Cullen, Jim Cummings, John Fielder, Ken Sansom & Michael York
Runtime: 63 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 02/05/22
Director: Jamie Mitchell, Gary Katona, Ken Kessel & Ed Wexler
Starring: Peter Cullen, Jim Cummings, John Fielder, Ken Sansom & Michael York
Runtime: 63 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 02/05/22
I don’t know what it was, but I had a bad feeling about this one going in. Perhaps the fact that it’s a seasonal release and much like Belle’s Magical Christmas I was expecting A Very Merry Pooh Year to be snippets of a low budget TV show strung together with some terrible overarching narrative. To my disdain I wasn’t entirely wrong, but A Very Merry Pooh Year does deserve more credit than something like Belle’s Magical Christmas, or the appallingly bad Tarzan & Jane.
A Very Merry Pooh Year collects two thirty-minute adventures for the friends of the Hundred Acre Wood. The first being the 1991 Christmas Special, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too, wherein our friends get so wrapped up in wanting gifts for Christmas that they forget to write their letter to Santa, and Pooh (Jim Cummings) must try and save Christmas before it’s to late. The second is Happy Pooh Year, a film exclusive to this collection and a sequel to the previous story. This time Pooh organises a party at Rabbit’s (Ken Sansom) house without his knowledge, which prompts Rabbit to want to leave the Hundred Acre Wood, and so Pooh, Piglet (John Fielder), Eeyore (Peter Cullen), and Tigger (also Jim Cummings) try to change the things Rabbit dislikes about them so that he might stay.
A Very Merry Pooh Year collects two thirty-minute adventures for the friends of the Hundred Acre Wood. The first being the 1991 Christmas Special, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too, wherein our friends get so wrapped up in wanting gifts for Christmas that they forget to write their letter to Santa, and Pooh (Jim Cummings) must try and save Christmas before it’s to late. The second is Happy Pooh Year, a film exclusive to this collection and a sequel to the previous story. This time Pooh organises a party at Rabbit’s (Ken Sansom) house without his knowledge, which prompts Rabbit to want to leave the Hundred Acre Wood, and so Pooh, Piglet (John Fielder), Eeyore (Peter Cullen), and Tigger (also Jim Cummings) try to change the things Rabbit dislikes about them so that he might stay.
A Very Merry Pooh Year is blissfully short at just over an hour in length, so the lower quality of the stories isn’t quite so grating because of their brief nature. That being said, Walt Disney Television Animation have already proved they can make a great Winnie the Pooh film in The Tigger Movie, so why is this such low budget rubbish?
The stories themselves are reasonably well written, with them both feeling true to the kinds of story that A.A. Milne would have written in the original children’s books. They are both fun little seasonal tales that the whole family can enjoy as light entertainment.
But what holds A Very Merry pooh Year back is the atrocious animation. Similar to the previously mentioned Belle’s Magical World and Tarzan & Jane, A Very Merry Pooh Year looks like it was either made on a budget smaller than the change in my wallet or rushed to meet an unreasonable deadline. After the return to form of Return to Neverland, why does A Very Merry Pooh Year kick back and settle for below-mediocrity? It’s by far the worst looking Winnie the Pooh film to date and had this not been the case then the entire experience would have been considerably better.
There is enjoyment to be had with A Very Merry Pooh Year, and it’s a film I can see going down like a treat for young children at Christmas time. But its low production values hold it back from being a film that you’ll want to return to year on year. A shame, but not unexpected.
The stories themselves are reasonably well written, with them both feeling true to the kinds of story that A.A. Milne would have written in the original children’s books. They are both fun little seasonal tales that the whole family can enjoy as light entertainment.
But what holds A Very Merry pooh Year back is the atrocious animation. Similar to the previously mentioned Belle’s Magical World and Tarzan & Jane, A Very Merry Pooh Year looks like it was either made on a budget smaller than the change in my wallet or rushed to meet an unreasonable deadline. After the return to form of Return to Neverland, why does A Very Merry Pooh Year kick back and settle for below-mediocrity? It’s by far the worst looking Winnie the Pooh film to date and had this not been the case then the entire experience would have been considerably better.
There is enjoyment to be had with A Very Merry Pooh Year, and it’s a film I can see going down like a treat for young children at Christmas time. But its low production values hold it back from being a film that you’ll want to return to year on year. A shame, but not unexpected.