| Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore | |
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VHS cover |
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| Directed by | Rick Reinert |
| Produced by | Rick Reinert |
| Written by | Peter Young Steve Hulett Tony L. Marino A. A. Milne |
| Narrated by | Laurie Main |
| Starring | Hal Smith Ralph Wright John Fiedler Paul Winchell Will Ryan Kim Christianson Julie McWhirter Dick Billingsley |
| Music by | Steve Zuckerman Robert & Richard Sherman (songs) |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
| Release date(s) | March 11, 1983 |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore is a Disney Winnie the Pooh animated featurette, based on two chapters from the books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, originally released theatrically on March 11, 1983, before the 1983 re-issue of The Sword in the Stone. It is the fourth and final of Disney's original theatrical featurettes adapted from the Pooh books by A. A. Milne.
Produced by Rick Reinert Productions, this was the first Disney animated film since the 1938 Silly Symphonies short Merbabies to be produced by an outside studio.[1] (The company had also previously produced the educational Disney short Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons in 1981.)
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The story begins with Pooh taking a walk to a wooden bridge over a river where he likes to do nothing in particular. On this day, though, he finds a fir cone and drops it in the river. Noticing that the flow of the river takes the cone under the bridge, Pooh invents a racing game out of it. As the game uses sticks instead of cones, he calls it Poohsticks.
Sometime later, while Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit and Roo are playing Poohsticks, they see Eeyore floating in the river below. After a somewhat successful attempt to get him to shore with a giant stone, he tells them that he fell in due to being bounced from behind. Piglet assumes it was Tigger who bounced Eeyore into the river. When Tigger arrives on the scene, he claims that his bounce was actually a cough, but with some outside help from the narrator, the animals find out that Tigger had indeed deliberately bounced Eeyore. Tigger thinks it is all a joke, but nobody else feels that way. Tigger disgustedly says that they have no sense of humor, and bounces away.
As Eeyore seems particularly depressed this day, Pooh follows him to his gloomy spot and asks what the problem is. Eeyore says that he is unhappy because it is his birthday, and nobody has taken any notice to celebrate it. Pooh decides to give him a jar of honey, but does not get far before he has a hunger attack and ends up eating the honey. Upon realizing this, he decides to ask Owl for help. Owl writes a misspelled greeting (hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy) on the pot and flies off to tell Christopher Robin about the birthday. Piglet has planned to give a red balloon to Eeyore, but falls down and bursts it accidentally.
Piglet is very sad that his gift for Eeyore is spoiled, but he presents it to him anyway, and only a minute later, Pooh brings the empty pot. Eeyore is gladdened, as he can now put the broken red balloon into the pot and remove it again. Pooh and his friends then pitch in and plan a surprise party for their friend.
During the party, Tigger arrives and bounces Rabbit, who is then scared out of his wits as Tigger bounces Rabbit out of his chair. Roo welcomes him to the festivities as Rabbit draws himself up from being bounced on by Tigger, incensed. Rabbit opines that Tigger should leave because of the way he treated Eeyore before. Roo wants Tigger to stay, and Christopher Robin's solution is for everyone to go to the bridge and play Poohsticks. Eeyore, a first-time player, wins the most games, while Tigger does not win at all. Eeyore's secret for winning, as he explains to Tigger afterwards, is to "let [his] stick drop in a twitchy sort of way." As Tigger bounces Eeyore into the river the same time as he did to him earlier before offscreen, Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet all decide that "Tigger's all right, really."
Hal Smith, who voiced Owl, also provided the voice of Winnie the Pooh after Sterling Holloway gave up the role. Will Ryan replaced the late Junius Matthews as Rabbit, Julie McWhirter replaced the late Barbara Luddy as Kanga, and Laurie Main replaced the late Sebastian Cabot as the Narrator. This would also be Ralph Wright's final role, for he passed nine months after its release. Smith, Ryan, and Main reprised their roles on Welcome to Pooh Corner, where Ryan also provided the voice of Tigger.
For the 2007 version featured on the Friendship Edition of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Disney redubbed some of the voices.
The first home video release for Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore was Winnie the Pooh and Friends, released on VHS in 1984, followed by other releases of this film, including the December 28, 1990 Walt Disney Mini-Classics release and the July 11, 2000 Storybook Classics release. It has since been included as a bonus feature on VHS and DVD releases of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
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