Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree is a 1966 animated featurette based on the first two chapters of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. The film was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, produced by Walt Disney Productions, and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution on February 4, 1966 as a double feature with The Ugly Dachshund. It was the last short film produced by Walt Disney, who died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966, eight months after its release. Its songs were written by the Sherman Brothers (Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman) and the score was composed and conducted by Buddy Baker.

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree was the first animated featurette in the Winnie the Pooh film series, in which it was later added as a segment to the 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. 

It featured the voices of Sebastian Cabot as the narrator, Sterling Holloway as Winnie the Pooh, Junius Matthews as Rabbit, Bruce Reitherman as Christopher Robin, Clint Howard as Roo, Barbara Luddy as Kanga, Ralph Wright as Eeyore, Howard Morris as Gopher, and Hal Smith as Owl.

Plot
Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear living in the Hundred Acre Wood, is disappointed to find that he is out of honey. He hears a bee fly by and decides to climb a nearby honey tree, but as he reaches the beehive, a branch he is sitting on breaks, causing him to fall. Pooh's best friend, Christopher Robin, gives Pooh a balloon and he tries to trick the bees by disguising himself as a Little Black Rain Cloud by rolling in a mud puddle and floating up to the beehive. He pulls out some honey and eats it without noticing that it is covered in bees. The bees fly around inside his mouth causing him to spit them out. One of which is the queen whom he kicks into the muddy patch below. Soon, Pooh's disguise starts to drip, to which the bees attack him. The queen sees this and angrily flies up and stings him on the bottom. The sudden hit causes Pooh to swing up and down and get stuck at the beehive, much to the queen bee's laughingstock at his expense, thinking that it's so funny (voiced by James MacDonald). He is then shoved out of the hole by the bees, who proceed to chase him away.

Pooh, still hungry, decides to visit Rabbit's house. Rabbit reluctantly invites Pooh in, and Pooh helps himself to jars and jars of honey until there is none left. He tries to leave, but gets stuck in Rabbit's front door. Rabbit tries to push Pooh through and eventually discovers that not even with Christopher Robin pulling can they get him out. Thus, he is forced to wait until he is thin enough to budge. In the meantime, Rabbit decides to decorate Pooh's bottom so he will not have to face looking at him being stuck for so long when he tickled. While he is doing this, Kanga and Roo visit Pooh and give him some honeysuckle flowers which make Pooh sneeze, completely destroying the decoration. Rabbit is also forced to put up a "Don't feed the bear!" sign after Pooh tries to get honey from Gopher late at night.

Rabbit leans against Pooh one morning and feels him move a bit. Ecstatic, Rabbit and Christopher Robin gather their friends to get Pooh out. Everyone except Rabbit pulls from outside while Rabbit pushes from inside. Rabbit shoves Pooh with a running start, and Pooh is launched free from Rabbit's door and into the air, and is shot into the hole of another honey tree. The gang runs after Pooh and finds him stuck in the tree headfirst. Pooh happily eats inside the tree and tells his friends to take their time to get him out.

Voice cast
Sterling Holloway as Winnie the Pooh, a teddy bear who loves honey
Junius Matthews as Rabbit, a rabbit who is obsessive-compulsive and loves planting his vegetables in his garden
Bruce Reitherman as Christopher Robin, a seven-year-old boy and Pooh's best friend
Hal Smith as Owl, an owl who loves to talk about his family
Howard Morris as Gopher, a hardworking gopher who lives underground and often falls into his hole
Clint Howard as Roo, Kanga's energetic young joey
Barbara Luddy as Kanga, a kangaroo and Roo's mother
Ralph Wright as Eeyore, an old grey donkey who is always losing his tail and talks in a slow, deep, depressed voice
Dallas McKennon, Jimmy MacDonald, and Ginny Tyler as the Bees (uncredited)
Sebastian Cabot as The Narrator

Production
Walt Disney first learned of the Winnie the Pooh books from his daughter, Diane. "Dad would hear me laughing alone in my room and come in to see what I was laughing at," Diane later recalled. "It was usually the gentle, whimsical humor of A. A. Milne's Pooh stories. I read them over and over, and then many years later to my children, and now to my grandchildren." As early as 1938, Disney expressed interest in obtaining the film rights to the Pooh books by first corresponding with the literary agency Curtis Brown. In June 1961, Disney acquired the film rights. By 1964, Disney told his animation staff that he was planning to make a full-length animated feature film based on the books. A meeting was held with senior staff members to discuss the proposed film. However, during the meeting, Disney decided not to make a feature film, but instead a featurette that could be attached to a live-action film.

For the first film, Walt and his collaborators turned to the first two chapters of the first book, "In which we are introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and some honey Bees, and the stories Begin", and "In which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets into a Tight Place". The scene where Rabbit deals with Pooh's being part of the "decor of his home", was not from the original book, and was reportedly contemplated by Disney when he first read the book. Following the mixed reception of Alice in Wonderland (1951), he turned the project over to staff members who were nonchalant with the original stories. He selected Wolfgang Reitherman to direct the project in hopes of Americanizing the characters and including more humor. Reitherman cast his son, Bruce, to voice Christopher Robin and the character of Gopher, who does not appear in the original stories, was added to the cast. Because other "Nine Old Men" animators were working on The Jungle Book (1967), only Eric Larson and John Lounsbery were assigned to animate the characters. Other character animators such as Hal King, John Sibley, and Eric Cleworth were brought onto the project.

Music

All songs were written by Robert and Richard Sherman, who wrote most of the music for the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise over the years, subsequently incorporated into the 1977 musical film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh which is an amalgamation of the three previous Winnie-the-Pooh featurettes including "Honey Tree". The score, which was composed by Buddy Baker, drew inspiration from Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and had different instruments represent the characters: baritone horn for Pooh, bass clarinet for Eeyore, flute for Kanga, piccolo for Roo, clarinet for Rabbit, oboe for Piglet, French horn and ocarina for Owl, and bass harmonica for Gopher.

The insight and inspiration for the Pooh songs came from an unlikely source, as is explained in the Sherman Brothers' joint autobiography, Walt's Time:

In advance of the featurette's theatrical release, Disneyland Records released several LP albums accompanied with a read-along book. The first one, titled Walt Disney's Story of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, also known as the "Storyteller" version, was released in May 1965. It contained a narration of the story from Sebastian Cabot along with dialogue and sound effects from the featurette itself along with the songs. A second double-sided album was released which featured a soundtrack of the featurette's songs. Among those listed was "Mind over Matter" in which the characters encourage Pooh to think about getting thinner again. The song was later reworked into the "Heave Ho" song in the final film. Another song titled "Kanga's Lullaby" is sung by B.J. Baker, but according to historian Dave Smith, the song was added as extra material for the album.

Release
The film was released on February 4, 1966 in the United States, as a supplement to Disney's live-action feature The Ugly Dachshund. It would later be included as a segment in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which included the two further Pooh featurettes, released on March 11, 1977.

The film was released on April 18, 1966 in the United Kingdom, as a double feature with Peter Pan (1953).

The film had its television premiere on March 10, 1970, as a special on the NBC television network. The special was sponsored by Sears, who was then the exclusive provider of Pooh merchandise.

Reception
The short initially received mixed reception. Howard Thompson of The New York Times said that "[t]he Disney technicians responsible for this beguiling miniature have had the wisdom to dip right into the Milne pages, just the way Pooh paws after honey...The flavoring, with some nice tunes stirred in, is exactly right—wistful, sprightly and often hilarious. English critic Felix Barker strongly disliked it. E. H. Shepard called the short a travesty. A. A. Milne's widow, Daphne, is said to have liked it.

See also
List of American films of 1966

References

Bibliography

External links

Category:1966 films
Category:1966 short films
Category:1966 animated films
Category:1965 soundtracks
Category:1960s American animated films
Category:1960s musical films
Category:1960s comedy films
Category:Disney animated short films, 1960s
Category:Winnie-the-Pooh featurettes
Category:Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
Category:Short films with live action and animation
Category:Films set in England
Category:Musicals by the Sherman Brothers
Category:Animated musical films
Category:Short films directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
Category:Films produced by Walt Disney
Category:Winnie the Pooh (franchise)
Category:Films scored by Buddy Baker (composer)
Category:American animated featurettes