The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is an American animated children's television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on the Winnie-the-Pooh books by authors A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, The New Adventures was the first time a major Disney character headlined an animated, made-for-television series as well as the first Disney television series based on a major animated film. The cartoon premiered with a limited run on The Disney Channel on January 17, 1988. Nine months later, the show moved to ABC as part of their Saturday morning lineup. New episodes continued until October 26, 1991.
Proving popular with children and older fans, the series remained a staple on television in the United States for nearly two decades. Publications ranging from The Los Angeles Times to TV Guide gave it extremely positive reviews for its resemblance to the earlier Disney efforts and its high production quality, receiving praise for its wholesome tradition. The show won back-to-back Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program as well as two Humanitas Prizes. The show was well received by both children and their parents. Most of the viewer mail the crew received were from parents thanking the staff for producing a show that they can watch with their children. The New Adventures is credited with bringing about a resurgence of Pooh animated media, including a series of television and video specials.
Premise The series depicts the everyday lives of Christopher Robin and his 9 companions Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Eeyore, Owl and Gopher. Rather than a straightforward adaptation, the show was more Americanized than previous Pooh efforts. Episodes dealt with strong messages about honesty, responsibility, confidence, teamwork, friendship, and caring. Many stories are designed to help young children distinguish between fantasy and reality and overcome common childhood fears. Most episodes have two stories, but some are a single 22-minute episode.
Characters
Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) is the main title character. He is a naive yet lovable and good-natured teddy bear. Cummings called the program timeless. Tigger (voiced by Paul Winchell in seasons 1–3 and Jim Cummings in seasons 1–4) is an ebullient toy tiger. He is always filled with great energy and optimism, and though always well-meaning, Tigger can also be mischievous, and his actions have sometimes led to chaos and trouble for himself and his friends. Tigger is very confident and has quite an ego, having a high opinion of himself. Tigger has a notable habit of mispronouncing various words, or stressing wrong syllables in them. Unlike previous adaptations, Tigger is shown living in a large treehouse. Winchell thought of him as a cross between the Dead End Kids and the Cowardly Lion. He is one of the only members of the original cast involved. Piglet (voiced by John Fiedler) is Pooh's best friend. He is a shy and kind-hearted toy piglet and is obsessed with keeping things neat and tidy, and enjoys beautiful things like flowers. His fears and nervousness often hinder his life, as Piglet runs and hides when unnecessary and often stutters when nervous, but has been shown to have a lot of hidden courage and often faces danger to help others. Piglet sometimes has an inferiority complex, although his friends think highly of him. Episodes about him tend to revolve around these traits as well as his small size. Fiedler is one of the only members of the original cast involved. Eeyore (voiced by Peter Cullen) is a gloomy toy donkey. He is somewhat less caustic and sarcastic in this version than in the original stories. Despite his depressive nature, Eeyore is capable of great compassion. Eeyore usually expects misfortune to happen to him, such as his house of sticks to be knocked down regularly, but accepts it when it does. Rabbit (voiced by Ken Sansom) is a sarcastic and finicky rabbit. In addition to wanting to be organized and practical, Rabbit's tendency to take charge is inflated to the extent that Rabbit becomes a control freak who insists on doing things exactly right, in his way and in the proper order. Rabbit keeps a garden and does whatever he can to protect it from other animals such as bugs and crows, often getting upset when anyone or anything tries to steal his vegetables. Rabbit and Tigger are usually foils for each other, reluctantly working together. Rabbit was shown as pale green in the series, compared to yellow in later efforts. Kanga (voiced by Patricia Parris) is a toy kangaroo and Roo's mother. She rarely appears, but she is shown to be kindhearted and calm. Roo (voiced by Nicholas Melody) is a young joey. He wears a light blue shirt. The smallest of the characters, Roo frequently is seen hanging around Tigger. Gopher (voiced by Michael Gough) is a hard-working gopher who lives underground. Gopher is shown to be a bit of a workaholic, and is obsessed with dynamite and digging in his tunnels. Gopher speaks with a Southern accent, whistles his "Ss" and wears a helmet with a light attached. Owl (voiced by Hal Smith) is the eldest character in the series. He presents himself as a mentor and teacher to the others, but is really quite scatterbrained. Owl enjoys telling stories about his distant relatives whenever a certain event reminds him of one, but many of his stories are pointless or absurd. Owl speaks with a Southern English accent. Along with Fielder, Smith was one of only two members of the original cast involved in the show for its entire run. Christopher Robin (voiced by Tim Hoskins) is a young boy that has adventures with the stuffed animals. He's also Pooh's other best friend. For the most part, the show used a limited cast consisting only of characters in the original Milne books, with the notable exception of the Disney-created character Gopher. However, several minor characters did make appearances. Christopher Robin's mother is shown occasionally, but always with her face obscured. Kessie, a female bluebird that Rabbit rescues, makes her first appearance in this series; Kessie would later appear in The Book of Pooh. Stan Woozle and Heff Heffalump appear as a pair of honey-stealing thieves. This marked the first time heffalumps and woozles were seen on-screen. Prior to this, heffalumps and woozles had always been portrayed as creatures that did not exist and were representative of childhood fears. Instead, the show used other unseen villains such as Jagulars and the "Grab-Me Gotcha." Papa Heffalump also appeared from time to time. Other characters on the show include Owl's cousin Dexter (voiced by Hal Smith) and Skippy the Sheepdog. Chuck McCann provided additional voices as well.
Episodes
Season Episodes TV season Time slot (ET) Originally aired Season premiere Season finale1 22 1988–89 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM 2 10 1989 9:00 AM – 9:30 AM 3 10 19908:00 AM – 8:30 AM 4 8 1991
History Origin Winnie the Pooh was created by British authors A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard in the 1920s. The character was named after a teddy bear owned by Milne's son, Christopher Robin Milne. He had named his toy bear after Winnie, a Canadian black bear he often saw at London Zoo, and "Pooh", a swan they had met while on holiday. Drawing from this and other toys owned by his son, Milne created the world of Winnie-the-Pooh. He first appeared by name on December 24, 1925, in a Christmas story commissioned and published by the London Evening News. The following year, a collection of Pooh stories was formally released bearing the name Winnie-the-Pooh. The stories proved very popular and inspired a sequel.
The idea for a television series was first discussed in 1957. NBC suggested Jay Ward undertake the pilot, then titled The World of Winnie the Pooh, with an option for thirty-nine episodes. Some songs and bits of dialogue were recorded, but the project was ultimately abandoned. In 1961, Disney's namesake founder Walt Disney purchased the film rights to make an animated movie starring the characters. He subsequently produced a series of three short featurettes throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966). Disney had also aired a variety show with the characters that used electronically controlled puppetry and life-sized costume titled Welcome to Pooh Corner. This became the highest rated program on The Disney Channel. The original featurettes also proved popular, with video sales topping the charts in 1986 and 1987.
Development
An animated cartoon starring the characters was first proposed by Walt Disney Television Animation Vice President Gary Krisel during a Disney retreat, in which company assets and future prospects were examined. Rich Frank later recalled him saying: "I think Pooh is a great character for Saturday morning animation". He believed the merchandising license, held at that time by Sears, would work as a great promotional tool. Mark Zaslove was contacted to write the series bible; he had recently finished work on the DuckTales pilot episode. The document was written over Memorial Day weekend 1987, with Zaslove having only three days to complete the proposal. The pitch was well received by Disney and subsequently green-lit.
Instead of shopping Winnie the Pooh around to different networks, the show was pitched directly to ABC. The network had desperately wanted a cartoon from Disney for their Saturday morning schedule, which had fallen to last place in the ratings. They had hoped Pooh could boost ratings for the channel, specifically that they believed Winnie-the-Pooh would draw an audience old enough to operate the people meter that largely dictated television ratings at the time; ABC had blamed the people meter being too difficult for young children to operate for the failure of its previous series The Little Clowns of Happytown, a show geared toward a preschool-aged audience. Two years earlier, Michael Eisner and Krisel had set up meetings with all three major networks in hopes to sell rights to their two cartoon series: Disney's Wuzzles and Adventures of the Gummi Bears. CBS and NBC had purchased Wuzzles and Gummi Bears respectively. Realizing they had nothing left to offer ABC, Eisner and Krisel met with them anyway and received a warm response to the gaffe.Article Emmy. Volume 16. A deal was reached giving ABC the show, while giving first run rights to The Disney Channel.
The show was official announced via a press release on November 15, 1987. It would mark the first time a prominent Disney character was seen on Saturday morning television. The series was viewed as a gamble, with people unsure if Pooh would survive on the new medium. Because Saturday morning cartoons had a reputation for dry and repetitive storylines, shallow characters, clichéd narratives, and cheap animation, animation fans greeted Disney's plans to adapt the books to the small screen with a mixture of skepticism and dismay, fearing the show could not top the original featurettes.
Production
ABC eagerly commissioned 25 half-hour episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh for its first season, rather than the standard 13 to 17. Karl Geurs, a self-described Pooh fan, developed the series, which took several months. At the time, Walt Disney Television Animation had only 80 employees and two projects in production. The department did not yet have in-house facilities built, so employees worked out of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences building. Disney put the same high standards of expectation that they had with their feature films. They had hoped to set a new standard of excellence in Saturday morning television, one with "storytelling rich in language and values, as well as delightful well acted characters" that would appeal to audiences of all ages.