Winnie-the-Pooh (1969)

The greatest movie ever made..!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Unless you've read any of A.A. Milne's original works, then your image of Winnie the Pooh is the treacly cartoons released by Disney. But there was another set of cartoons depicting the honey-obsessed bear. This set got produced by Soyuzmultfilm, a studio in the Soviet Union, and their Pooh looks more ursine than the Disney one. The first one was "Vinni-Pukh" (the Russian pronunciation of the bear's name). In this one, Pooh wants to get some honey out of a beehive, and so he enlists Piglet's help (Piglet is called Pyatachok in Russian). Naturally there are a few snags. I particularly liked Pooh's nonsense singing. This particular cartoon doesn't include the rest of the characters. It's all about Pooh, Piglet, and the bees. Anyone interested in the history of animation can't afford to miss this short.

I can't really compare this to any other version of Winnie the Pooh, simply because I haven't seen any of them, except for maybe a few prints on some of my mother's tea mugs...But Vinni-Pukh is just wonderful, as a cartoon and as a character. He is an energetic little bear with nothing between his torso and feet, who sturdily chants his songs (still in the making, a lot of the time) while skipping through the woods, getting into small adventures. I've seen three episodes, and I'm afraid there aren't any more. Vinni-Pukh's close friend Pyatachok is a great character also, the rabbit and donkey Eeyore. The owl was my least favorite, but since she brought back Eeyore's tail...The animations are colorful, fresh and invigorating, the story lines simple, but with plenty of room for melancholy and clever musings. I'd say it's suitable for children anyway, because these more mature elements never predominate.Recommended for anyone! A big 8 out of 10.

Having just read Amid on Cartoon Brew about this Russian animated version of Winnie the Pooh, I just had to click on the YouTube link to see if Woolie Reitherman was right about this one being better than his for Disney. It certainly is! While I was often charmed by Sterling Holloway's voice in the Disney version, hearing the lines spoken from the former Soviet Republic and listening to the original songs from the old country brings such an otherworld feeling that I can't help thinking how livelier the Russian version was compared to the conventional American take of an English author's tale. Only Pooh and Piglet are in this story of the bear flying in a balloon with Piglet trying to get him down with his pop rifle while bees surround the stuck-in-the-air bear! No Christopher Robin which makes the story better! And great abstract-like drawings gives this short more individual personality than the more faithful-to-original-drawings one from Disney (though the Disney shorts have their own charm). Well worth seeing for international animation buffs.

I remember one day, at my local Library and while I was looking for some foreign cult titles in the Video/DVD section, I came across some anthology of animated titles from Russia and former Soviet Countries and one of them, were three "Winnie the Pooh" titles. I had to check them out, to see what they were like.And to my surprise, most of the stories in these three animated shorts, are closely based off the original A.A. Milne books. The only thing missing was the Christopher Robin character (rumor has it by request that the real life Chris Milne, whom this character was based on, was uncomfortable with his fame and thus, wanted the studio to exclude Christopher Robin). But it is very good and nice details in the drawings and animation. I was rather pleased.But I just wish that all three of the Russian "Winnie the Pooh" films would be more available to the public outside of Russia and the former Soviet countries. That would be sooooo nice!