Walt Disney Home Video presents

Growing Up with Winnie the Pooh: Laughter and Learning (2004)

"Birthday wishes always come true!"- Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings)

MPAA Rating: Not RatedRun Time: 01h:09m:48s
Release Date: 2005-02-08
Genre: animation

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
B	B	C-	B-	C-

 

DVD Review

It's time for some sweet stories from the Hundred Acre Wood; honey not included. These tales of Winnie the Pooh and his friends were originally produced for television, and if they're not entirely faithful to the spirit of A.A. Milne, they're certainly genial enough, and will be enjoyed especially by those already familiar with this Disneyfied cast of characters.

First, Pooh finds out that All's Well That Ends Wishing Well—Tigger doesn't know his birthday, and since there's no time like the present, he declares today his special day. But what to get him? That's the problem facing Winnie, Piglet, Rabbit and Eeyore; Tigger suffers the inevitable disappointment of not getting everything he wanted, so Winnie takes a trip down the wishing well, and soon all the friends find themselves on an adventure in Wishland.

Next, our man Christopher Robin has got the Babysitter Blues, because he doesn't want to go to bed, but the teenager in charge has other ideas; the little boy is aided and abetted by his co-conspirators, Pooh, Tigger and Piglet, but soon the tables are turned, for the next day, when Kanga has errands to run, they are given responsibility for Roo, and chaos ensues.Up third, Rabbit is planning a blowout affair and getting his Martha Stewart on, but our favorite bear may end up being a Party Poohper, because Winnie, Piglet and Tigger don't run quite as tight a ship. (The lesson: do not ask a bear or a pig to prepare your canapés.) Finally, I think that I shall never see something as lovely as Piglet's Poohetry, in which the porcine versified adventures get acted out, featuring an incredible shrinking Tigger.

The stories are separated by very brief animated puppet stories featuring the same characters, which seem to have been produced to pad out the running time, and making these episodes network-friendly.

Rating for Style: B
Rating for Substance: B

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: The animation looks pretty badly faded and dulled down, and there are no shortage of flecks and scratches in the transfer. Looks like a pretty straight up dump job.

Image Transfer Grade: C-
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English, French, Spanish	yes

Audio Transfer Review: Some hiss, and heavy on the treble, but perfectly understandable.

Audio Transfer Grade: B- 

Disc Extras

Animated menu with music
Scene Access with 8 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English with remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
6 Other Trailer(s) featuring Pooh's Heffalump Movie, JoJo's Circus, Bambi, Disney Learning Adventures, Disney's Princess series, The Incredibles
1 Featurette(s)
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extra Extras:

1. interactive game

Extras Review: Two extras of note: the first is an interactive game, in which you've got to figure out which one of these things is not like the other, in aid of cheering up poor old Eeyore. The second is a sing-a-long (02m:15s) with the Winnie theme song that was a staple of my childhood; it's led by the redoubtable Jiminy Cricket, paying tribute to that willy nilly silly old bear.

Extras Grade: C-
 

Final Comments

There isn't a whole lot to these, but they are amiable stories featuring everybody's favorite chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.

Jon Danziger 2005-03-10