Winnie the Pooh (2011 film)

Winnie the Pooh wakes up one day to find that he is out of honey ("The Tummy Song"). While out searching for more, Pooh discovers that Eeyore has lost his tail. Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo come to the rescue ("A Very Important Thing To Do") while Tigger has his bouncing fun. Christopher Robin decides to hold a contest to see who can find a replacement for Eeyore's tail. The prize for the winner is a fresh pot of honey ("The Winner Song"). After several failed attempts for what would replace Eeyore's tail, Kanga suggests that they use a scarf, which unravels.

The next day, Pooh goes to visit Christopher Robin and finds a note that says "Gon Out Bizy Back Soon" (a misspelling of "Gone Out Busy Back Soon"). Pooh is unable to read the note, so he asks for Owl's help. Owl's poor reading comprehension skills lead Pooh and his friends to believe that Christopher Robin has been abducted by a ruthless and mischievous monster they call the "Backson" ("The Backson Song"). Rabbit plans to trap the Backson in a pit, which they think he will fall into after following a trail of items leading to it. Meanwhile, Tigger, who wants a sidekick to help him defeat the Backson, recruits a reluctant Eeyore to be a second Tigger ("It's Gonna Be Great"). He dresses up like the Backson and tries to teach Eeyore how to fight. Eeyore manages to escape from Tigger and hides underwater where he discovers an anchor.

After a failed attempt to get honey from a bee hive, Pooh's imagination combined with his hunger get the better of him ("Everything is Honey"), and he ends up accidentally eating some mud and falling into the pit meant for the Backson. Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Piglet and Eeyore (using the anchor he found as a replacement tail) try to get him out, but fall in themselves. Piglet, who did not fall in, attempts to get Pooh and friends out of the trap (though continuously irritating Rabbit with over-interpretations of his instructions), but runs into Tigger, who is still in his Backson outfit, and mistakes him for the actual monster. Piglet escapes from Tigger on a red balloon, which knocks some of the storybook's letters into the pit.

After the chase, Tigger and Piglet fall into the trap as well where Eeyore reminds Tigger that he, being "the only one," is "the most wonderful thing about Tiggers." Eventually, Pooh figures out how to use the fallen letters to form a ladder and his friends are able to escape the pit. They soon find Christopher Robin, and tell him about the Backson, but he clarifies by saying that he meant to be "back soon." The honey pot prize is given to the red balloon from earlier, much to Pooh's dismay.

Later, Pooh visits Owl only to find that Owl is the one that has taken Eeyore's tail, not realizing that it belongs to Eeyore. Owl has been using Eeyore's tail as a bell-pull for his door. Pooh chooses to leave and return the tail to Eeyore, instead of sharing a pot of honey with Owl. Christopher Robin is proud of Pooh's selflessness and rewards him with a large pot of honey. ("Pooh's Finale")

In a post-credits scene, the Backson is revealed to really exist, but is actually very nice and gentle. He finds the items left for him, including the chalk drawing of himself to which he calls it a "scary looking fella." Assuming the items belong to "him," he starts picking them up but ends up falling into the pit.

• Jim Cummings as:
  • Winnie the Pooh, a bear who loves honey. Mark Henn served as the supervising animator for Pooh.
  • Tigger, an energetic tiger who loves bouncing. Andreas Deja served as the supervising animator for Tigger.
• Bud Luckey as Eeyore, an old grey donkey who always seems depressed and lost his tail. Randy Haycock served as the supervising animator for Eeyore.
• Craig Ferguson as Owl, an owl who's not as wise as he says. Dale Baer served as the supervising animator for Owl.
• Jack Boulter as Christopher Robin, a seven-year-old boy and one of Pooh's best friends. Mark Henn served as the supervising animator for Christopher Robin.
• Travis Oates as Piglet, a small pig who's afraid of almost everything, and one of Pooh's best friends. Bruce W. Smith served as the supervising animator for Piglet.
• Tom Kenny as Rabbit, a rabbit who is obsessive-compulsive and loves planting vegetables in his garden. Eric Goldberg served as the supervising animator for Rabbit.
• Kristen Anderson-Lopez as Kanga, a sweet kangaroo and Roo's mother. Bruce W. Smith served as the supervising animator for Kanga.
• Wyatt Hall as Roo, Kanga's energetic young kangaroo. Smith also served as the supervising animator for Roo.
• Huell Howser as the Backson, the mysterious creature who was thought to kidnap Christopher Robin. Eric Goldberg served as the supervising animator for the Backson.
• John Cleese as the Narrator a narrator

John Lasseter first approached Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall in November 2008 about making a new Winnie the Pooh feature film, with the two becoming enthusiastic at the idea and accepting the project.[10][11] In 2009, Lasseter, Anderson and Hall viewed the classic Winnie the Pooh feature shorts and films to figure out how to make the title character culturally relevant.[12] Anderson is best known for his effort on Meet the Robinsons, Journey Beneath the Sea, Brother Bear, The Emperor's New Groove and Bolt. Hall also has veteran status at Walt Disney Animation Studios, significantly contributing to The Princess and the Frog, Meet the Robinsons, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, The Emperor's New Groove and Tarzan.[13]

Following a trip to Ashdown Forest in Sussex, South East England to explore the location of A. A. Milne's original stories, the filmmakers enlisted Burny Mattinson, a Disney veteran who worked as the key animator on the 1974 short Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, to serve as lead storyboard artist for the film, with Anderson and Hall directing.[13] Many of the animation staff from The Princess and the Frog were brought in to work on Winnie the Pooh, as the two films involved traditional animation.[11] The production would also use the same software utilized for The Princess and the Frog, Toon Boom Animation's Harmony, to digitally ink and paint the drawings.[14]

Originally, the film was supposed to feature five stories from the A. A. Milne books,[15] but the final cut ended up drawing inspiration from three stories.[16][17] Executive producer John Lasseter had also announced that Rabbit's friends and relatives would be in the film, but their scene was ultimately deleted.[18][19]

The film was released on Wednesday, April 6, 2011[20] in Belgium; April 11 in Germany; and on April 15 in the United Kingdom[21] It was released on July 15, 2011 in the United States.[20]

Winnie the Pooh
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released	July 12, 2011 (2011-07-12)
Recorded	2011
Genre	Soundtrack
Label	Walt Disney
Producer	Kristen Anderson-Lopez Robert Lopez Henry Jackman
Walt Disney Animation Studios chronology
Tangled (2010) Winnie the Pooh (2011) Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Hoping to find the right songwriters for their film, Winnie the Pooh directors Anderson and Hall sent visuals to five songwriting teams. The duo instantly fell in love with the demos returned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez,[36] who had previously worked with executive producer Lasseter and Disney music executive Chris Montan on the theme park musical version of Finding Nemo.[37] The first song which the songwriting candidates were asked to write was the one which became "Everything Is Honey," in which Pooh undergoes a wild hallucination in his desperate hunger for honey.[38] The Lopezes' inspiration for writing their successful demo was their desperate lack of sleep at the time because of the restlessness of their then-newborn younger daughter, Annie.[38] The Lopezes wrote seven songs for the film, including "The Tummy Song," "A Very Important Thing to Do," "Everything Is Honey," "The Winner Song," "The Backson Song," "Pooh's Finale," and "It's Gonna Be Great."[39] "The Backson Song" was also inspired, again, by the Lopezes' ongoing issues with their younger daughter's difficulty with sleeping through the night, as well as the fact that Disney's request for the song came in while they were on "the vacation from hell" on Fire Island (in Anderson-Lopez's words) and they had to borrow a piano at a local church to compose it.[38] In the song, Kanga (voiced by Anderson-Lopez herself) mentions that one thing that Backsons do is "wake up babies at one and three." Zooey Deschanel performed three songs for the film, including a take on the Winnie the Pooh theme song, "A Very Important Thing to Do" and an original end-credit song "So Long," which was written by Deschanel and performed with She & Him bandmate M. Ward.[9]

The film was scored by Henry Jackman, with additional music by Christopher Willis.[40]

In the trailer, the song "Somewhere Only We Know" by English alternative rock band Keane was used instead of the music written by Jackman.[41] The song by Keane is not included on the soundtrack.

The song "So Long" was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2012 ceremony.[42] The film's acclaimed track "The Backson Song," along with "So Long," were part of the pre-nominees for the Academy Award for Best Original Song,[43] and Henry Jackman for the Best Original Score category list.[44] However, none of them received the nominations.

Although Winnie the Pooh did not do as well as hoped because it opened against the last film of the Harry Potter series, it was while working on the film that Disney executives started to really notice the Lopezes' "instinct for storytelling with music."[37] In turn, they did not have to audition for their next Disney project; instead, Disney pitched Frozen to them.[37]

All music is composed by Henry Jackman (with additional music by Christopher Willis), except as noted.

A musical theatre adaptation, titled Disney's Winnie the Pooh KIDS, uses additional music from Will Van Dyke and additional lyrics and scenes by Cheryl Davies.[45]

The Walt Disney Company released five versions,[46][47] for the song "Welcome to my world" featuring Edyta Bartosiewicz for the Polish version, Witaj w moim świecie (Welcome to my world),[48][49] Anca Sigartău for the Romanian version, Bun Venit în Lumea mea (Welcome to My World),[50][51] Zséda for the Hungarian version, Az én világom (My world),[52][53] Evgenia Vlasova for the Ukrainian version, Мій світ (My world),[54][55] and Beloslava for the Bulgarian version, Добре дошъл в моя свят (Dobre doshŭl v moya svyat).[56][57]

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• Official website
• Winnie the Pooh on IMDb
• Winnie the Pooh at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Winnie the Pooh at Box Office Mojo
• Winnie the Pooh at Rotten Tomatoes
• Winnie the Pooh at Metacritic
• Winnie the Pooh at Walt Disney Animation Studios