The 1966-1974 “Winnie the Pooh” shorts that used to air on Disney’s Sunday night program were thinly plotted, simply drawn and replete with silly songs and jokes for third-graders.
Why mess with perfection?
Disney’s big-screen “Winnie the Pooh” lovingly re-creates those delightful cartoons — right down to the theme song, the characters wandering out of their illustrations to toddle across the sentences of A.A. Milne’s stories and even the imperishable voice of Pooh. Sterling Holloway, who did those scratchy, uncertain vocals, has perished. But actor Jim Cummings has him down cold.
At less than an hour before the credits, the film hardly qualifies as a feature (it is preceded by an OK short about a friendly take on the Loch Ness monster, her rubber ducky and a nasty Scottish developer named MacFroogle).
But what price childhood regained? “Winnie the Pooh” instantly zapped me back to a Disneycentric upbringing (including five Orlando pilgrimages from Massachusetts) in which Sunday night belonged to Walt.
Fellow Gen Xers: If it’s between you and a 6-year-old to nab the last seat in the theater, exercise the prerogatives of height and muscle and snag that precious upholstery.
The movie begins with a soothing visit to a child’s playroom decorated as it might have been in the 1930s, complete with stuffed bear belonging to one Christopher Robin. Ever so gently we float away on John Cleese’s narration of Pooh’s discovery that Eeyore’s tail has gone missing.
All of the Hundred Acre Wood gang are here. Piglet, that redoubtable lieutenant, is always willing to defer to his rotund friend, even when Winnie has contrived to get him stuck in a beehive. Piglet, making the best of matters, says it’s quite peaceful inside, as long as no sudden movements disturb the bees. Cue the Pooh, desperately whacking away with a stick.
Owl (nice job by Craig Ferguson), as useless as any graduate student, is working on his lengthy memoirs. (“Chapter One: Birth of a Genius.”) And for real graduate students, there is rich fodder for contemplation in the way the characters break the fourth wall, egged on by Cleese’s gently mad narration.
Psych students might consider the manic-depressive dynamic of Tigger and Eeyore. “We’re all gonna die,” says Eeyore, when everyone is stuck in a pit. Was Charlie Brown ever more clear-sighted than the donkey in his visions of doom? Was Snoopy ever more sybaritic and spring-loaded than the kinetic tiger who declares, “Consider yourself pounced”?
After the friends hold a contest to discover the best substitute tail for Eeyore (candidates include a cuckoo clock, an umbrella and a balloon that carries him away), they find a note from Christopher Robin that only Owl claims to be able to read. But C.R.’s promise to be “back soon” is, according to Owl, a warning that he has been kidnapped by a “backson.” These monsters, everyone soon decides in a dazzling sequence designed to look like chalk drawings on a blackboard, are responsible for everything from the scribbles in your books to your habit of sleeping late. They eat your snacks; they won’t relax.
This is all as pure and sunny as lemonade, and Zooey Deschanel’s citrusy sweetness as she contributes several songs is a nice touch. This is the closest the movie comes to being contemporary, which, given Deschanel’s retro vibe is: not very. She and everyone else involved are content to spirit us back to 1966-1974, an age without iPhones or alarmingly hip tweens. All we had to worry about was civil unrest, political assassinations, Vietnam and Watergate.