Will they replace Eeyore with a cheerier, more market friendly character or will Pfizer get him on antidepressants for some product placement.
Posted on 12/13/2005 2:30:52 PM PST by Ultra Sonic 007
A unexpected new character is coming to the Hundred Acre Wood.
Disney is working on a new Winnie the Pooh TV series, to come out in 2007, that will replace Christopher Robin with a 6-year-old girl.
Its new animated series, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, will have the same gentle spirit as the much-loved A.A. Milne classic, Disney says.
But Disney hopes to attract an older audience by introducing a six-year-old tomboy as friend to Tigger, Pooh the bear and tiny Piglet. The Disneyfied characters also will have a new look.
Though the stories will still emphasize trust, friendship and happiness, there will be more physical activity to appeal to more active children in the older preschool age range, Disney says.
"We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide," Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel told USA Today.
Disney knows it will face criticism from fans of Milne's stories about the imaginary world of his son Christopher Robin. Lovers of the original stories say they are timeless and don't need an update.
Seeing the animated series will help bring young children to the written word, Disney counters.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
All of disney's fare has been "girl oriented" of late.
There are no real traditionally positive stories oriented towards normal boys. The few stories that are out there are generally tinged with a bit of PC.
I guess it makes sense to include a girl with the pooh series if you want to sell more toys. I wonder if this has more to do with the fact that disney lost a copyright law suit to the owners of the pooh stories.
What's that purple thing on her head?
"What's that purple thing on her head?"
A "safety helmet," of course.
Can you say jump the shark?
Oh, of course. Egad! Makes me want to have a few more drinks and beat my head against the wall!
Didn't Warner Brothers revamp Bugs Bunny and company a while back?
" Makes me want to have a few more drinks and beat my head against the wall!"
Actually, I've seen studies that show a correlation between increased risk-taking and improvements in safety equipment, so you might be on to something there, lol.
I don't know, not much of a cartoon fan.
Excellent point!
This smaks of Disney trying to create a new doll they own the copyright to.
This way they can dump christopher for a girl doll.
In the original pre-Disney illustrations, Christopher Robin looked quite like a girl. He had longish hair in a page-boy cut, and he wore a sort of blouse. He looked like the little boy of a woman who wanted a little girl instead and tried to turn him into one.
After growing up with Milne's books with the original Shepard illustrations, and then later reading them to my children, I thought Disney's version was pretty crummy anyway.
For one thing, Pooh is the wrong color, and the animals all behave like jumped-up imbeciles.
Get the books. Forget the movies.
Same thing with the Jungle Books. Kipling is marvellous. Disney is tripe. Read the books.
Just consider yourself fortunate that Disney didn't rename the recent Narnia movie: "The Tigger, the Witch and the Wardrobe" as a product crossover with their Winnie the Pooh franchise.
Oh, YUCK!
I like the recorded books version where Tigger sounds like an Indian civil service functionary, Rabbit sounds like Winston Churchill, Kanga sounds like Steve Irwin in tight pants, etc.
Keyboard spew alert!!
Sounds good to me. Anything but Hollywood accents for this quintessentially English work.
Will they replace Eeyore with a cheerier, more market friendly character or will Pfizer get him on antidepressants for some product placement.
Let me guess. Her name is Pat, right?
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