Silly Old Bear: Remembering the development of Disney's first Winnie the Pooh featurette

re: Silly Old Bear: Remembering the development of Disney's first Winnie the Pooh featurette

Floyd Norman — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:15:12 GMT

Just a few points I thought I'd add to the discussion. Walt's daughter Diane says she's the one who first told her father about The Winnie the Book books -- and she's quite happy to take credit for her small role in bringing those marvelous shorts of my childhood to the bid screen.

I actually asked Diane about reports that I had heard and read that she took the "Mary Poppins" project to Walt, but she said that wasn't true. She said that the publisher had sent Walt Disney a copy of Mary Poppins with something along the lines of "We like your Mickey and we hope you like our Mary" inscribed inside the book.

The original Disney Pooh shorts -- with the stuffed animals and the alphabet block, the vocal casting (including the narration) and the clever storybook setting with the use of type within the frame -- are completely charming. I fell in love with Disney's Pooh and later developed an appreciation of Milne's texts and Shepard's pen and ink drawings.

Also Gopher was a character Walt added to to the stories. Pooh ran for president in 1972 -- in a marketing campaign with Sears. Not all of the original plush animals survived ... I believe one of them Kanga, Roo or Rabbit was lost by Christopher Milne as a child.

re: Silly Old Bear: Remembering the development of Disney's first Winnie the Pooh featurette

Floyd Norman — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:48:13 GMT

"Another annoying design choice was whether the little bear should have fingers, thumbs, or simply stumps at the end of his arms. In time, these details began to annoy Walt so much..."

I can't imagine Pooh any other way than the way he's always been! It's easy to forget, when watching a movie, that so many little details go into the making of it.

Thanks for another interesting article, Mr. Norman!

re: Silly Old Bear: Remembering the development of Disney's first Winnie the Pooh featurette

Floyd Norman — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:47:11 GMT

One of the best decisions that was ever made was to retain the original look of Ernest Sheppard's illustrations in the background art , and making the book itself an important part of the films.

In other instances, where Disney would adapt a classic story for animation, you rarely saw this kind of reverence for the source material. Consequently, most children today are only familiar with the Disney versions of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Bambi, Pinocchio, and others. Entertaining in their own way, but in no way should they serve as a substitute for the originals. When I was young my mother used to read the classics my sister and me, so I was familiar with the characters of Pooh and Mary Poppins before ever seeing the Disney films. I remember seeing "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" at the Drive-In (along with "The Ugly Dashound", I believe) and it was such a thrill seeing these familiar characters come to life. I'm glad they didn't Americanize them too much, it would have ruined them. (personally, I think they're ruining them now.)

I've always wondered, why wasn't Piglet in the first film? He just sort of pops into the theme song as an afterthought and doesn't really take his rightful place as Pooh's best friend until "Blustery Day"

re: Silly Old Bear: Remembering the development of Disney's first Winnie the Pooh featurette

Floyd Norman — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:29:37 GMT

Another great story by Floyd. He's truly an asset to the Disney legacy.
I'd like to see a DVD of Pooh with the shorts and featurettes available as individual content, as they were originally shown (Unabridged Pooh). With a host of extras on the tales that Floyd tells here. That would be cool. As for the new Pooh stuff, I think they've beat that horse way too many times.

re: Silly Old Bear: Remembering the development of Disney's first Winnie the Pooh featurette

Floyd Norman — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:09:40 GMT

Having not seen the book in the stores yet, I haven't any idea of what the content is like. However, I must say that the cover art is as uninspired as I've ever seen on a Disney coffee-table book. Why do today's art directors persist in trying to have us all believe that vector-based computer graphics are appealing to the eye? As a corporate logo perhaps, but not as a piece of character art, especially when that character has a rich legacy of full, personality driven animation. I'll pass on this book, thanks just the same...