''The Book of Pooh'' is an American

children's television series Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early eveni ...

that aired on the

Playhouse Disney Playhouse Disney was a brand of programming blocks and international cable and satellite television channels that were owned by the Disney Channels Worldwide unit (now Disney Branded Television) of The Walt Disney Company's Disney–ABC Te ...

block on Disney Channel. It is the third television series to feature the characters from the Disney franchise based on A. A. Milne's works; the other two were the live action '' Welcome to Pooh Corner'' (to which this series bears resemblance) and the animated '' The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' which ran from 1988 to 1991. It premiered on January 22, 2001 and completed its run on November 29, 2004. It was repeated on Playhouse Disney until June 2, 2006 (May 2007 in the UK). The show is produced by Shadow Projects.

Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures is an American Film studio, film production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. The studio is the flagship producer of live-action featur ...

released the first of two films, a direct-to-video spin-off film based on the puppetry television series titled '' The Book of Pooh: Stories from the Heart'' in 2001. The show became available to stream on

Disney+ The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October 1 ...

on its launch, November 12, 2019.

Overview

The series take places after the events of Milne's original stories since his son

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 Disne ...

is clearly a

Year 7 Year 7 is an educational year group in schools in many countries including England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand. It is the seventh full year (or eighth in Australia) of compulsory education and is roughly equivalent to grade 6 in the Unit ...

and 11 years old. The series departs from many of the established facts of Milne's books; for example, Tigger resides in the Hundred Acre Wood from the start and Kanga and Roo are later introduced as newcomers. Neither Christopher nor his mother speak with an English accent, such is the case in '' The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' where Christopher has an American accent. Kessie, the

bluebird The bluebirds are a North American group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the order of Passerines in the genus ''Sialia'' of the thrush family (Turdidae). Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. ...

from ''The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' episodes "Find Her, Keep Her" and "A Bird in the Hand" returns as a main character in this series. Each show begins entering Christopher Robin's bedroom and hearing his mother say "Christopher, time for school." Christopher Robin answers "OK, Mum", grabs his backpack and leaves. This is where the book with Pooh and his friends in it opens and the theme song begins. The show can be viewed as non-canonical in other ways. For example, Tigger can climb up—but more importantly climb down from trees and Christopher Robin's face is never shown. Plus, Rabbit lives in a tree, as opposed to living in a burrow in other adaptations.

Cast

The characters in the show regularly sing and dance in ways that enhance the story being told. Many of the episodes do not have much basis in the original stories by A.A. Milne besides the characters. The production design of the show was done by Chris Renaud, who would later become the co-director of the 2010 film ''

Despicable Me ''Despicable Me'' is a computer-animated media franchise centering on Gru (Despicable Me), Gru, a reformed super-villain (who later becomes a father, husband, and secret agent), and his yellow-colored Minions (Despicable Me), Minions. It is p ...

''. The characters who appear regularly and the actors who voice them are: *

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

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 characte ...

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 t ...

* Piglet:

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 ...

(speaking voice)/

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

(singing voice) *

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 s ...

: Ken Sansom * Eeyore:

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 ...

* Owl: Andre Stojka * Kessie:

Stephanie D'Abruzzo Stephanie Ann D'Abruzzo (; born December 7, 1971) is an American actress, puppeteer and singer. She has performed various Muppets in the TV program ''Sesame Street''. She held starring roles on '' Oobi'' and '' The Book of Pooh''. She was one of ...

* Kanga:

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), a radio station in ...

* Roo: Nikita Hopkins *

: Paul Tiesler * Christopher Robin's Mum: Vicki Kenderes Eibner * Mr. Narrator: Roger L. Jackson The versions of Tigger and Pooh are seen on this show was later made an appearance in a music video by the We Are Family foundation.

Puppeteers

* Heather Asch * Peter Baird * Jennifer Barnhart - Kanga *Carol Binion *Ron Binion *Matthew Brooks * Tyler Bunch - Tigger *Todd Coyle *

- Kessie *Sophie Doyle *Vicki Kenderes-Eibner *Jodi Eichelberger *Eric Engelhardt *David Matthew Feldman *Chris Fields *John C. Fields *Preston Foreder *James Godwin *B.J. Guyer *Robin Howard * Eric Jacobson - Piglet *Liz Joyce *Jim Kroupa * Tim Lagasse *Matthew Lavin * Peter Linz - Winnie the Pooh *Jon Ludwig * Rick Lyon *Lara MacLean - Roo * Noel MacNeal - Rabbit *Amanda Maddock *David Martin *Cathy McCullough * Paul McGinnis - Eeyore *Anney McKilligan *John Pavlik *Barbara Pollitt * John Tartaglia *Robin Walsh *Dan Weissbrodt *Steve Widerman * Alice Dinnean-Vernon *

Victor Yerrid Victor Yerrid (born November 13, 1971) is an American actor and puppeteer for the Jim Henson Company and has performed Muppet characters in many films, television commercials and television shows. He is best known in the Muppet World for his wo ...

- Owl *Bryant Young

Style of puppetry

The style of

puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performan ...

is based on Japanese

bunraku (also known as ) is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre, founded in Osaka in the beginning of the 17th century, which is still performed in the modern day. Three kinds of performers take part in a performance: the or ( puppeteer ...

puppetry, and that — along with the cut-out-styled backgrounds — gives the show the look of a

pop-up book The term pop-up book is often applied to any book with three-dimensional pages, although it is properly the umbrella term for movable book, pop-ups, tunnel books, transformations, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each ...

, hence "The Book of Pooh". It was the first use of the

Shadowmation Shadowmation is a patented animation process () created by Mitchell Kriegman. It uses realtime virtual sets and bunraku style team puppetry (some puppets are controlled by up to three puppeteers), thus combining live action animatronic characters ...

process developed by creator Mitchell Kriegman which was later used in the PBS series '' It's a Big Big World''.

Main themes

* "Everyone Knows He's Winnie the Pooh" (opening theme) - Brian Woodbury * "Goodbye for Now" (closing theme) - Brian Woodbury and Mitchell Kriegman

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (2001)

Season 2 (2001–04)

Awards and nominations

The series received three

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s nominations, and tied with

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) and ...

for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Series at the 29th Daytime Emmy Awards in 2002.

Film

'' The Book of Pooh: The Stories from the Heart'' is a direct-to-video animated spin-off based on the television series ''The Book of Pooh''. It was produced by

. The film was distributed by

Buena Vista Television Buena ( ) is a borough in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 4,603,Walt Disney Television Animation Disney Television Animation (DTVA), formerly known as Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group and Walt Disney Television Animation, is the television animation production arm of Disney Branded Television, a sub-division of the Disney Ge ...

and released on both VHS and DVD. It contains 6 episodes, each of which focuses on one character. It is wrapped together by a loose plot in which the characters wait in Christopher Robin's room for his arrival. As is typical with the series, each episode features an original musical number. It is a

compilation film A compilation film, or compilation movie is a film composed of scenes and shots taken from two or more prior films and edited together so as to make a new film, whether on the same or a different subject. The most common example would be a docum ...

of footage from the TV series.

Home media

Several VHS Tapes were released in 2001 and 2002: Fun with Words *The Words Are Out *Brain Drain *I Could Have Laughed All Night *X Marks the Spot Fun with Friends *You Can Lead Eeyore to the Books *The Spice of Life *Best Wishes Winnie the Pooh *The Double Time A Valentine for Eeyore *My Gloomy Valentine *Mr. Narrator *Don Pooh Xote *The Beastly Burden

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Book of Pooh, The 2001 American television series debuts 2004 American television series endings 2000s American children's comedy television series 2000s American musical comedy television series 2000s preschool education television series American children's fantasy television series American children's musical television series American preschool education television series American television spin-offs American television shows featuring puppetry Disney Channel original programming Disney Junior original programming English-language television shows Television series about bears Television series based on Disney films Television series by Disney Winnie the Pooh (franchise) Winnie-the-Pooh television series