Pooh Has Gone Straight to Video Too

The “silly old bear” and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood return in Walt Disney Home Video’s new “Pooh’s Grand Adventure--The Search for Christopher Robin” ($25), the first full-length Winnie the Pooh movie in 20 years.

Like “The Return of Jafar” and “Aladdin and the King of Thieves”--the popular sequels to “Aladdin”--this animated family film is making its premiere on home video, not in the theaters.

In November, Disney will release the made-for-video animated feature “Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.”

Dennis Rice, senior vice president of marketing for Buena Vista Home Video, says Pooh was a natural choice to star in a direct-to-video movie.

“It’s very rare you have something that is so perfect for a new movie,” he says. “He is one of our most popular Disney characters.”

The 1977 feature “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” also performed well for Disney on video last year. “We have a tremendous following for this franchise regardless of what product it comes in and the most perfect form is as a movie,” Rice says. “We have a lot of stories which have yet to be put into movies from the original A.A. Milne series.”

Two years in production at Disney’s animation studios worldwide, “Pooh’s Grand Adventure” finds Christopher Robin having a difficult time telling his “willy-nilly-silly ol’ bear” that he is going to school. So he ends up leaving a note for Pooh that Owl misreads.

Thinking that Christopher Robin has gone to a “skull,” rather than a school, Pooh, Owl, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore set out in the Hundred Acre Wood to find their friend.

Director-producer-co-writer Karl Geurs is an unabashed Pooh fan. An Emmy Award- and Humanitas Prize-winning filmmaker, he developed and produced the TV series “The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” and wrote the special “Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too.”

“Pooh’s Grand Adventure,” Geurs says, is inspired by a Milne story in which Christopher Robin goes to school for the first time.

“What is this going to mean if Christopher Robin, who is the center of Pooh’s life, all of a sudden leaves?” Geurs says. “We, the audience, have seen the same best friend broach the subject with Pooh. But the poor bear of very little brain just doesn’t get it, can’t conceive of such a thing. I think [the film] speaks to a lot of kids these days, latchkey kids and kids with working parents and kids suffering losses, who have to deal on their own.”

“Pooh’s Grand Adventure” also includes five new songs penned by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Michael Abbot and Sarah Weeks.

“They are great Pooh fans,” Geurs says, “and got into the story and retold the key moments of the story in the form of song.”

The film features such Pooh voice veterans as John Fiedler as Piglet and Paul Winchell as Tigger. Jim Cummings, who has been the voice of Pooh for the past 10 years, assumed the role from the late actor Sterling Holloway. Cummings has won two Emmys for his work on “The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.”

“I call him Papa Pooh Bear,” Geurs says. “There is this blend of Pooh, Sterling and him that has expanded the character.”

Young actor Brady Bluhm, the voice of Christopher Robin, was discovered in a nationwide search. “As the Christopher Robinses of the world grow up and become, no longer boys, but men,” Geurs says, “they leave their childhood voices behind to be picked up by another boy.”

Geurs believes Pooh is beloved by all age groups, genders and nationalities because his “strength comes from his simplicity, his innocence and his heart. Pooh speaks to us simply, directly and very charmingly. Pooh is heart and tummy.”