The Book of Pooh

The Book of Pooh is a preschool educational series that aired on the Playhouse Disney block of the Disney Channel. It is the third TV show to use characters from the Disney version of A. A. Milne’s stories, after the live-action *Welcome to Pooh Corner* (which it somewhat resembles) and the animated *The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh* (which ran from 1988 to 1991). The series first aired on January 22, 2001, and ended on July 7, 2003. It was made by Shadow Projects and ABC Cable Networks Group.

The show breaks from several established facts of the Disney Pooh franchise. For instance, Tigger lives in the Hundred Acre Wood from the beginning, while Kanga and Roo are introduced later as newcomers. Neither Christopher Robin nor his mother speaks with a British accent—Christopher has an American one, as he did in *The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh*. Kessie, the bluebird from that earlier show’s episodes “Find Her, Keep Her” and “A Bird in the Hand,” appears in only two episodes. Each episode starts with Christopher Robin in his bedroom, hearing his mother say, “Christopher, time for school.” He replies, “Okay, mom!”, closes his book, grabs his backpack, and leaves. Then the book with Pooh and his friends opens, and the theme song plays. The series can be seen as non-canonical in other ways: Tigger can climb up and down trees, Christopher Robin and his mother’s faces are never shown, and Rabbit lives in a tree instead of a burrow.

Characters regularly sing and dance to help tell the story. Many episodes have little connection to A. A. Milne’s original stories beyond the characters. The production design was done by Chris Renaud, who later co-directed the 2010 film *Despicable Me*. Regular characters and their voice actors include: Winnie the Pooh and Tigger (Jim Cummings), Piglet (John Fiedler speaking, Jeff Bennett singing), Rabbit (Ken Sansom), Eeyore (Peter Cullen), Owl (Andre Stojka), Kanga (Kath Soucie), Roo (Nikita Hopkins), Christopher Robin (Paul Tiesler), Christopher Robin’s Mother (Vicki Eibner), and Mr. Narrator (Roger L. Jackson). The show’s versions of Tigger and Pooh later appeared in a music video by the We Are Family Foundation.

The opening theme is “Everyone Knows He’s Winnie the Pooh” by Brian Woodbury, and the closing theme is “Goodbye for Now” by Brian Woodbury and Mitchell Kriegman.