After an unusual amount of great Winnie the Pooh projects, My Friends Tigger and Pooh is where Disney managed to make a Winnie the Pooh project specifically for a much younger audience. Yes Winnie the Pooh has been seen on diapers and baby toys for decades so I'm not going to pretend it wasn't a popular IP to toddlers before, but the thing is, it had a type of magic that still appealed to all ages.
Winnie the Pooh is by far Disney's most unique franchise in their animated work that I truly loved as a child and even admire as an adult today. The reasons are because it's about mental disorders, showing others how friends can have a great impact on your life, and how some people who seem angry or bossy aren't always bad people and are simply misunderstood. This series takes away the majority of what I just mentioned and makes it a cheap Scooby Doo clone about solving mysteries. A lot of things about this show doesn't even feel like Winnie the Pooh in regards to Disney and the original books by A. A. Milne. Since it's watered down to preschoolers it has a lot of tedious fourth wall breaks by a female character named Darby and it treats its audience like it's too dumb to understand anything that's happening.
Most of the characters are very out of character as they feel more like they were slapped into this misguided idea. Darby is basically an American version of Dora the Explorer who is really annoying and childish which is basically the problem with how this show is treated. Without Darby I feel like this show could've been as good as The Book of Pooh atleast. Pooh and friends are mostly just plot devices who agree with everything Darby says as they go on their pointless super-sleuth adventures. They don't learn anything that isn't related to solving mysteries and a bit of science. The message about friendship and what it's like with mental disorders is absent entirely. Owl is also missing for unknown reasons and all the new characters are very dull and uninspired. We only see Christopher Robin about 2-3 times in this series overall. The voice acting is mostly passable. Travis Oates sounds a lot more raspy compared to the late John Fielder as Piglet for some reason, not sure why.
The CG animation looks very mistranslated. Winnie the Pooh isn't something that can look good computerized. The characters look uncomfortable in these cheap 3D models and have a very jarring movement. Some of the backgrounds look okay but sometimes they don't look finished either.
I'll admit this is definitely better than shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but it still misses the entire point of Winnie the Pooh. Go watch The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh instead, it perfectly captures Winnie the Pooh compared to this crap.
