''A Very Merry Pooh Year'' (also known as ''Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year'') is a 2002 American

direct-to-video Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, TV series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy was p ...

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

musical film produced by Walt Disney Animation (France), S.A and the series finale of ''

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ''The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' is an American animated 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 ...

''. The film features the 1991 Christmas television special ''

Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too ''Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too'' is a 1991 Christmas television special based on the Disney television series ''The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'', originally broadcast on December 14, 1991, on ABC and produced by Walt Disney Animation ...

'', as well as a new film, ''Happy Pooh Year''. The film animation production was done by Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd., and Sunwoo Animation, (Korea) Co., Ltd. It was the only

Winnie the Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

film where

Jeff Bennett Jeffrey Glenn Bennett (born October 2, 1962) is an American voice actor who voiced Johnny Bravo in the Johnny Bravo, eponymous television series, Dexter's Dad in ''Dexter's Laboratory'', Brooklyn in ''Gargoyles (TV series), Gargoyles'' and List o ...

provided

Christopher Robin Christopher Robin is a character created by A. A. Milne, based on his son Christopher Robin Milne. The character appears in the author's popular books of poetry and ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' stories, and has subsequently appeared in various Disney ...

's singing voice. It is also the first Winnie-the-Pooh film where Owl does not appear at all, and the first Winnie the Pooh film that

Carly Simon Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, memoirist, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), " The Right Thin ...

is involved in.

Plot

On Christmas Eve,

is having trouble setting up his Christmas tree. Pooh slips and falls, and breaks a shelf holding a present he made for Piglet. When Piglet suddenly arrives, Pooh desperately searches for a new hiding place for the present (since the broken shelf can no longer stay up) as more of his friends arrive at the door. Afterwards his friends, tired of waiting for Pooh to answer, they invite themselves in and proceed to help decorate his house. After they settle down to tell stories, Rabbit tells the story of how they almost missed out on getting gifts one year, re-telling the story of

. Afterwards Pooh appears dressed as Santa and exchanges gifts with everyone. The next morning is Christmas Day and everyone ventures out into the snow to enjoy the aftermath of Christmas as Tigger annoys Rabbit with his collection of jingle bells. After Pooh receives his gift from Piglet, he remembers that he has not yet given Piglet his gift yet, and unable to remember where he put it, searches for it all the way until New Years’ Eve. Christopher Robin finds Pooh, and explains to him how New Years is celebrated. Pooh decides that he’ll ask Rabbit if he can host the party and goes off to propose the idea to him. Meanwhile, Rabbit is focused on preserving a carrot he saved for winter so he can use it to restart his garden come Spring. A series of mishaps, (involving Pooh inviting himself in and eating out of Rabbit’s cupboard, Piglet getting spooked and hiding under his bed, Tigger annoying Rabbit with his bouncing, and Eeyore being in the way and gloomy as usual) a fed-up Rabbit throws them out and declares his plan to leave the Hundred Acre Wood. Not wanting Rabbit to leave, Pooh suggests the idea to use their New Years’ resolutions to change their ways for their friend. Pooh vows to never eat honey again, Piglet agrees to be brave, Tigger vows to not bounce anymore, and Eeyore promises to be more positive. However, their resolutions cause them to switch personalities as a result, Pooh becomes gloomy and downbeat, Piglet becomes zany and bouncy like Tigger, Eeyore develops a taste for honey and dresses in Pooh’s clothes, and Tigger becomes paranoid and panicky like Piglet. Which only makes Rabbit more annoyed and wanting to leave. After leaving, Rabbit finds himself in trouble after tumbling and sliding through the snow and being catapulted into the air by his suitcase. They all begin searching for Rabbit where they find him about to be abducted by bees. They all rescue him with Tigger bouncing to grab hold of his scarf the bees were using to abduct him and luckily get him down from the tree. They express shame at not being able to keep their resolutions but Rabbit upon discovering their intentions, is touched, and assures them that he loves them just the same, and that if anything, he is the one who needs to change and be more accepting of their quirks and flaws. They reunite with Christopher Robin and return to Rabbit’s house to celebrate New Years, where everyone reconciles and enjoys the festivities as planned. Pooh suddenly remembers where he his Piglet's gift and quickly goes back to his house to get it. By the time he returns, Piglet opens the gift to find it’s musical box that he made for him that plays “Auld Lang Syne”. Piglet is thankful for his gift and everybody joins together to sing just as the film closes.

Voice cast

Jim Cummings James Jonah Cummings (born November 3, 1952) is an American voice actor. Since beginning his career in the 1980s, he has appeared in almost 400 roles. Cummings has frequently worked with The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros., including as th ...

and

Tigger Tigger is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic stuffed tiger. He was originally introduced in the 1928 story collection '' The House at Pooh Corner'', the sequel to the 1926 book ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' by A. A. Milne. Like other Pooh char ...

Peter Cullen Peter Claver Cullen (born July 28, 1941) is a Canadian voice actor. He is best known as the voice of Optimus Prime in the original 1980s ''Transformers'' animated series, reprising the role many times since 2007. He has also voiced many other c ...

Eeyore Eeyore ( ) is a fictional character in the ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' books by A. A. Milne. He is generally characterized as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, anhedonic, old grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of the title character, Winnie-th ...

John Fiedler John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

as Piglet *

Michael Gough Francis Michael Gough ( ; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was a British character actor who made more than 150 film and television appearances. He is known for his roles in the Hammer Horror Films from 1958, with his first role as Sir Arthu ...

Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...

* William Green as

Nikita Hopkins Nikita Matthew Hopkins (born 13 August 1991) is an American screenwriter, visual artist, and former child voice actor and singer who had a career for seven years as the singing and speaking voice of young Roo in six movies and videos of ''Win ...

Roo Roo is a fictional character created in 1926 by A. A. Milne and first featured in the book ''Winnie-the-Pooh''. He is a young kangaroo (known as a joey) and his mother is Kanga. Like most other Pooh characters, Roo is based on a stuffed toy an ...

Ken Sansom Frank Kenneth Sansom (April 2, 1927 – October 8, 2012) was an American actor. Among his best known roles, Sansom voiced Rabbit in animated television series, television specials, and films for Disney's ''Winnie the Pooh'' franchise from 1988 t ...

Rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

Kath Soucie Kath or KATH may refer to: * Kath (city), the historical capital of Khwarezm * Kath (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname * KATH-TV, the NBC TV station in Juneau, Alaska * KATH (AM) KATH (910 kHz) is an ...

as Kanga *

Michael York Michael York OBE (born Michael Hugh Johnson; 27 March 1942) is an English film, television and stage actor. After performing on-stage with the Royal National Theatre, he had a breakthrough in films by playing Tybalt in Franco Zeffirelli's ''Ro ...

as The Narrator *

as Piglet and

(singing voice) *

Paul Winchell Paul Winchell (''né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell S ...

(''

'' sequence, final film role)

Songs

Home media

The film was released as a direct-to-DVD on November 12, 2002. The film was released for the first time on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

on November 5, 2013 as the "Gift of Friendship Edition", the same day as the 30th Anniversary Blu-ray release for the 1983 animated featurette ''

Mickey's Christmas Carol ''Mickey's Christmas Carol'' is a 1983 American animated family comedy-drama featurette directed and produced by Burny Mattinson. The cartoon is an adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol'', and stars Scrooge McDuck as ...

''.

References

External links