Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

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Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree is a 1966 animated featurette based on the first two chapters of the book Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions. Its songs were written by the Sherman Brothers (Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman) and the score was composed and conducted by Buddy Baker.

This featurette was shown alongside the live-action feature The Ugly Dachshund, and was later included as a segment in the 1977 compilation film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Video Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

Plot

The story opens with Winnie the Pooh going through his morning exercises during which he accidentally rips the stitching on his bottom. After repairing his torn stitching, he goes to his pantry for some breakfast, only to discover he is out of honey. He hears a bee fly by and decides to climb a nearby honey tree, but as he reaches the beehive, a branch he is sitting on breaks, causing him to fall and land in a gorse bush.

Later, he gets help from his best friend Christopher Robin. Christopher Robin gives Pooh a balloon and he tries his best to trick the bees by disguising himself as a Little Black Rain Cloud by rolling in a muddy puddle. He then floats to the bees' nest and tastes the honey, but accidentally ends up with a mouthful of bees. He tries to spit them out and kicks one of them into the puddle he rolled in. This causes the bee to get angry at him, and it stings him on the bottom with such force he is jammed into the hole in the tree, making him get stuck in the hole of the beehive. As the bees laugh at him, Pooh warns Christopher Robin that he is dealing with the wrong sort of bees as the tree bees trapped inside begin to get angry, and they build up enough pressure to force Pooh out of the hole.

The bees follow at hyper-speed, causing the balloon string to fall off as it flows through the air with pooh still holding onto the balloon. Pooh is chased around in the air by the bees, until the string breaks and he falls through the air, to which Christopher Robin shouts "I'll catch you, Pooh!". The two fall to the ground and try to escape the bees chasing them, eventually diving into the muddy puddle Pooh had rolled in earlier, to which Pooh quips "you never can tell with bees".

Winnie the Pooh is still determined to get some honey, and the narrator points out that "when he put his mind to honey, he stuck to it". Pooh Bear decides to visit Rabbit's house, as Rabbit "uses short, easy words like 'how about lunch?' and 'help yourself, Pooh." Rabbit at first pretends he is not home, as it is suggested that Pooh has previously invited himself to lunch. Pooh realizes that Rabbit is actually home, despite Rabbit's attempt at trying to convince him otherwise. Rabbit reluctantly invites Pooh in, where Pooh helps himself to jars and jars of honey. When Pooh has eaten all of the honey in Rabbit's house, he announces that he "must be going now", but gets stuck in the front door in the process after consuming so much honey. Rabbit attempts to push Pooh out of his front door, exclaiming that "it all comes from eating too much", but Pooh responds "it all comes from not having front doors big enough!". Rabbit realizes he will need help to get Pooh out, and leaves via his back door to fetch Christopher Robin for help.

While Rabbit is gone, Owl flies past and stops to talk to Pooh, but when he realizes Pooh is very quiet, he asks if he is stuck. Pooh laughs and denies this, telling Owl he is "resting, and thinking and humming to myself". Owl sees through this and begins to tell Pooh he is a wedged bear in great tightness and that the situation calls for an expert, but is then interrupted by the arrival of Gopher who claims he can fix the problem by using dynamite to "blast" Pooh out of the hole.

Christopher Robin and Rabbit arrive back, and Christopher Robin tells Pooh not to worry and that they will get him out. Despite the effort of Christopher Robin and Rabbit pulling together, it seems to hurt Pooh and he exclaims it's no use as he is indeed stuck. Christopher Robin advises that they may be able to push him back if they cannot pull him out, but Rabbit is adamant this won't help, stating that "having got this far, it would be a pity to waste it". Pooh is worried he may be stuck for a while, and Eeyore gloomily adds that he may be stuck for "days, weeks, months, who knows?".

While Pooh is stuck, Rabbit decides to decorate Pooh's bottom so he will not have to face looking at him being stuck for so long. He decorates Pooh's bottom into a moose-like "hunting trophy". While he is doing this, Kanga and Roo visit Pooh and give him some honeysuckle flowers. Pooh at first thinks they are to eat but Kanga corrects him, telling him to smell them instead. When he does, the flowers make Pooh sneeze, causing Rabbit's moose to crash down around him. Rabbit is exasperated and wonders out loud "why did I ever invite that bear to lunch?!"

Several nights later, Gopher was having lunch right in front of Pooh, where Pooh manages to convince Gopher to hand him a pot of honey from his lunchbox, but Rabbit hears this and comes running, setting up a sign in front of Gopher that says, "Don't feed the bear!". Gopher walks off, irritated, and in doing so he falls down one of his previously dug holes.

The next morning, Rabbit leans against Pooh while wondering if he will ever be able to use his front door again, when he feels Pooh move a little. Ecstatic, Rabbit runs to find Christopher Robin. Shortly after, Christopher Robin, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Piglet, Eeyore, and Gopher all gather to help free Pooh. Christopher Robin pulled Pooh with Kanga, Eeyore, Roo and Gopher holding on to each other behind him and pulling too, with Rabbit inside pushing Pooh. There seems to be little progress and Rabbit becomes fed up of waiting. He takes a few steps back, and whilst the others are pulling Pooh, Rabbit takes a run at Pooh and pushes him even harder. Pooh is launched into the air while the others fall to the ground, and they watch as Pooh shoots into the hole of another honey tree, becoming stuck in the process, to which Eeyore quips "stuck again!"

The gang run after Pooh and finds him stuck in the honey tree headfirst. Christopher Robin shouts up to him not to worry, and that they will get him out, but Pooh is happily eating the honey that fills the inside of the tree and responds not to worry and to take their time, as he is happy to be stuck with so much honey in front of him.

Maps Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

Voice cast

• Sterling Holloway as Winnie the Pooh
• Junius Matthews as Rabbit
• Bruce Reitherman as Christopher Robin
• Hal Smith as Owl
• Howard Morris as Gopher
• Clint Howard as Roo
• Barbara Luddy as Kanga
• Ralph Wright as Eeyore
• Dallas McKennon as Bees
• Sebastian Cabot as The Narrator

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Songs

• "Winnie the Pooh"
• "Up, Down and Touch the Ground"
• "Rumbly in My Tumbly"
• "Little Black Rain Cloud"
• "Mind Over Matter"

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Production

Walt Disney first learned of the Winnie the Pooh books from his daughter, Diane. "Dad would hear me laughing alone in my room and come in to see what I was laughing at," Diane later recalled. "It was usually the gentle, whimsical humor of A. A. Milne's Pooh stories. I read them over and over, and then many years later to my children, and now to my grandchildren." As early as 1938, Disney expressed interest in obtaining the film rights to the Pooh books by first corresponding with the literary agency Curtis Brown. In June 1961, Disney acquired the film rights. By 1964, Disney told his animation staff that he was planning to make a full-length animated feature film based on the books. A meeting was held with senior staff members to discuss the proposed film, and during the meeting, Disney decided not to make a feature film, but instead a featurette that could be attached to a live-action film.

For the first film, Walt and his collaborators turned to the first two chapters of the first chapter, "In which we are introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and some honey Bees, and the stories Begin", and "In which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets into a Tight Place". The scene where Rabbit deals with Pooh's being part of the "decor of his home", was not used in the original book, and was reportedly contemplated by Disney when he first read the book. Following the mixed reception of Alice in Wonderland, he turned the project over to staff members who were nonchalant with the original stories. He selected Wolfgang Reitherman to direct the project in hopes of Americanizing the characters and including more humor. Reitherman cast his son, Bruce, to voice Christopher Robin and the character of Gopher, who doesn't appear in the original stories, was added to the cast. Because other "Nine Old Men" animators were working on The Jungle Book, only Eric Larson and John Lounsbery were assigned to animate the characters. Other character animators such as Hal King, John Sibley, and Eric Cleworth were brought onto the project.

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Release

The film was released on February 4, 1966, as a supplement to Disney's live-action feature The Ugly Dachshund. It would later be included as a segment in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which included the two further Pooh featurettes, released on March 11, 1977.

The film had its television premiere on March 10, 1970, as a special on the NBC television network. The special was sponsored by Sears, who was then the exclusive provider of Pooh merchandise.

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Reception

The short initially received mixed reception. Howard Thompson of The New York Times said that "[t]he Disney technicians responsible for this beguiling miniature have had the wisdom to dip right into the Milne pages, just the way Pooh paws after honey...The flavoring, with some nice tunes stirred in, is exactly right--wistful, sprightly and often hilarious. English critic Felix Barker strongly disliked it. E.H. Shepard called the short was a travesty. A.A. Milne's widow, Daphne, is said to have liked it.

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See also

• List of American films of 1966

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Bibliography

• Finch, Christopher (2000). Disney's Winnie the Pooh: A Celebration of the Silly Old Bear. Disney Editions. ISBN 978-0786853441. 

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References

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External links

• Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree on IMDb

Source of article : Wikipedia