{"id":646,"date":"2005-12-09T00:08:12","date_gmt":"2005-12-09T05:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=646"},"modified":"2015-03-29T15:55:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T15:55:35","slug":"britain-uk-news-from-the-times-and-the-sunday-times-times-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=646","title":{"rendered":"On the Hundred-Acre Woods’ New Resident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disney is making some changes to the Winnie-the-Pooh format for its upcoming My Friends Tigger and Pooh<\/i> animated television series — goodbye Christopher Robin, hello tomboyish six year-old girl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First thought? They’re doing what<\/i> to Winnie-the-Pooh?<\/p>\n

Second thought after considered reflection? It’s not the first<\/i> time Disney’s made changes to the Pooh format.<\/p>\n

Disney has added characters to the Hundred-Acre-Woods before–Gopher (“I’m not in the book, you know”) first appeared in The Many Adventures<\/i>, and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie<\/i><\/a> added Lumpy, Roo’s Heffalump playmate. At the same time, characters from Milne’s work have been downplayed over the years — Owl rarely appears, and Christopher Robin himself almost never appears in Pooh productions. Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel was quoted as saying, “We got raised eyebrows, even in-house, but the feeling was that these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide.”<\/p>\n

But it’s not so much “fresh air” that Disney needs for their new Pooh project — it’s differentiation<\/i> that they need. Welcome to Pooh Corner<\/i> (puppets), The Book of Pooh<\/i> (animatronic puppets), even animated films like Pooh’s Halloween Heffalump Movie<\/i> (cel-animation) show different approaches to the world of Pooh, and My Friends Tigger and Pooh<\/i> will, despite being different from these other Pooh projects by virtue of its CGI computer animation, need a shorthand way of marking itself as different from any other Pooh project. Introducing a new character for Tigger and Pooh to react to and interact with, a character that the young audiences Disney wants to ensnare with their program, provides that necessary shorthand and offers a hook to the audience onto which they can latch.<\/p>\n

I admit, I’m mildly curious who this tomboyish girl will be — Christopher Robin’s American cousin? Losing Christopher Robin, at least in My Friends Tigger and Pooh<\/i>, isn’t the end of the world for the Hundred-Acre-Woods. Rather, it’s a new beginning, for a show with a new approach. That initial squick<\/i> feeling was entirely premature. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disney is making some changes to the Winnie-the-Pooh format for its upcoming My Friends Tigger and Pooh animated television series — goodbye Christopher Robin, hello tomboyish six year-old girl. First thought? They’re doing what to Winnie-the-Pooh? Second thought after considered reflection? It’s not the first time Disney’s made changes to the Pooh format. Disney hasContinue reading “On the Hundred-Acre Woods’ New Resident”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[217],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","tag-winnie-the-pooh","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}