TV Show Info
TV Show Name: A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving
Studio: Walt Disney Home Video
Genre(s): Animated/Seasonal
Release Date(s): November 22, 1998
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Trust me, this will be nice!
Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends are getting ready for Thanksgiving. As they plan a nice dinner, Rabbit comes up with how Thanksgiving is truly to be celebrated and the Hundred Acre Woods is getting ready to one of the biggest celebrations ever. Unfortunately, Rabbit’s plan might ruin Thanksgiving for everyone.
Directed by Jun Falkenstein, A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving was a Thanksgiving special that first aired on Thanksgiving in 1988. The special was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program. It currently is available only as part of Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving which edits in part of other holiday celebrations from other shows.
Well, this is typical…
The nice thing about the Winnie the Pooh cartoons are that they capture the essence of A.A. Milne’s characters. A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving follows this path and like many of the holiday specials places these characters in a story which illustrates the ideas of the holidays.
The odd thing about A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving is that Pooh isn’t primary foil (generally Pooh screws up and humor ensues). Here, we have Rabbit making a mess of things. Rabbit always is high strung, but usually his foolishness doesn’t cause problems. In this special, his quest for the “perfect” Thanksgiving nearly ruins the holiday for everyone.
I’m not a huge Rabbit fan in the Winnie the Pooh lexicon. Of the characters, he is probably my least favorite of the main characters since he pretty much feels like Felix Unger of The Odd Couple. I do like however that this isn’t just a Pooh or Tigger story again.
Happy Thanksgiving…even if Rabbit almost jacked it up!
Visually, I always liked the traditional Winnie-the-Pooh art better than Disney’s art. The books captured the idea that these characters were toys much better than Disney…the originals didn’t necessary match up stylistically since they were all made by different people. Disney’s version is too clean and finished, but in the world of cartoon specials, it is quite good.
A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving is a nice addition for a holiday that is often overlooked. I never have been that big of a fan of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and believe Pooh is probably a bit better. Despite this, Winnie the Pooh rarely makes an appearance around Thanksgiving…and we even sometimes get Rudolph before Thanksgiving.
