Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

One of the best shorts ever, it marked my childhood a lot. Highly recommend.

The "Winnie the Pooh" cartoons from Disney are classics. This is the quality program that you would want your children to see. And it makes you glad you have children so that you have an excuse to see it too.

They did a wonderful job of adapting the A. A. Milne stories to the screen. It's good clean fun with no "undesirable" elements such as violence or bathroom humor. All the characters are brought to life faithfully and their casting of the voices is perfect. Sterling Holloway IS Winnie.

The story line of this cartoon revolves around Winnie, the honey-loving bear trying various schemes to get his golden delight. He is so funny, stopping at nothing to get some honey, regardless of the practicality of the effort. He uses a toy balloon to float to the bees' nest high up in a tree, but is foiled by the bees.

Each different character has a unique trait. Eeyore shows the depressed side of human nature, always finding the down side of anything. The other characters succeed in cheering him up. Owl is the "educated" one who loves to hear himself talk. Tigger, happy-go-lucky tiger bounces around exuberantly on his coil-spring tail, greeting everyone, and sometimes accidentally knocking them over. The cartoons say a lot about friendship -- friends helping friends.

Very enjoyable -- worth seeing, whether you're a child of 3 or 93.

This is Pooh's first adventure. It is in my opinion, the best of the Pooh offerings. Excellent songs with wonderful animation. It is great for people of all ages. Each character is introduced nicely, and the ideas are fresh and clever. Join Pooh and his friends here for a lot of adventure, involving his love for honey, where he tries to get it from the tree, to when he eats at Rabbit's, and to the end, when he gets all the3 honey he will want. This story is great for everyone. Kids will love it, and will want to see it over and over. A real winner!

Like the other three Pooh shorts that made up the feature film of the Many Adventures released in 1977 and on video in the 80s, the Honey Tree short was one of those works I've watched countless times. It does have its 'valuable lesson' for the kids, but it's also just very silly, cute entertainment that ranges from jokes so absurd they work for some adults ("You messed up my moose" is a line I still quote today, the Gopher material is also rather off-key for a children's short), to the suspenseful moments that, for lack of a better description, capture kid's imaginations. And the whole structure of it being a book-as-animated short give it an inventiveness that don't come with other adaptations of books to Disney animation. Here, Rabbit becomes irate and near impatient as Pooh gets stuck in his rabbit-hole after consuming more honey than needed. Pooh then is stuck for a week until he can loose the excess baggage, where a very climactic and momentous pull of Pooh is lead in song and action. All of this is very clever, and even for little kids its got nothing at all complicated about it- even if all the points and little jokes aren't caught the thrust of the storytelling and joyous nature even in the safer moments are near-perfect. And unlike what apparently is meant for current pre-K programming today (Teletubbies aren't on anymore at least), the whole mood is very pure without being pandering. There's no overt vulgarity, and the over-the-top moments don't get old ("Don't feed the bear" is another quotable phrase). Highly recommended.

'Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966)' was the first animated adaptation of A.A. Milne's children stories, and presents itself rather charmingly as a moving picture-book depicting the imaginary adventures of Christopher Robin and his favourite toys. In this first episode, directed by Wolfgang Reitherman (future director of 'The Aristocats (1970)'), Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Sterling Holloyway) attempts rather unsuccessfully to steal honey from a bee-hive in the uppermost branches of a tree, before getting himself stuck in the front-door burrow of an increasingly-exasperated Rabbit.

The film seems to have been rather influential in the Soviet Union. The first Russian Winnie the Pooh cartoon, released as 'Vinni-Pukh (1969)', uses the same storyline. 'The Fox and the Hare (1974),' from my favourite animator Yuri Norstein, similarly uses the stylistic device of animating its characters as figures in a moving storybook. Here, I was slightly disappointed by the absence of Piglet. He appears for a moment in here, but doesn't say anything. John Fiedler, who subsequently voiced the character in 'Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968),' would continue to do so until his death in 2005, and his voice is quite unmistakable.