Fast Friends

The gang are having a fire drill... Tigger is playing the big bad fire and Piglet has to jump... He can't act any more scared, as they fumble around with Gopher's ladder... and now the net... But Piglet bounces off. Pooh Bear is late to the drill and the gang are angry that he's late again. Pooh never knows which is the last minute. Gopher plans to get the Bear movin' begins construction of... something. Rabbit gives Pooh a schedule that blows away. Piglet advises him to take shortcuts, but it confuses Pooh... Oh dear... Tigger gives Pooh racin' stripes. Gopher ties a pillow to Pooh and a helmet with a spring on his head... and Sets him off... Ohh boooooother!!!! Pooh speeds all over the 100 Aker Wood... but on the other hand... The fast Pooh Bear rockets through the 100 Aker Wood. Gopher tries a stop sign, a rickety bridge... a mattress blockade. Beautiful day, says Eeyore, birds, flowers. Pooh crashed into Eeyore. He stops and the fast stuff comes off him and Pooh apologizes for being Late. Eeyore says the sooner you arrive at a place, the sooner they ask you to leave. Gopher's plan is to speed the others up, triple time! Rabbit rushes his harvest, Piglet, his spring cleaning, Gopher, his tunnel digging and Tigger says he'd have to bounce his tail off to be as fast as Pooh. They discover that they don't have to speed up because Pooh has slowed down to his normal self. Not being on time is being on time for a Pooh Bear, as long as he's not late for breakfast...

Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit, Gopher

For its second season, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was combined with Gummi Bears in the show Disney's Gummi Bears/Winnie the Pooh Hour. The series returned to a stand-alone show in its third season.

Welcome to Pooh Corner...

Winnie the Pooh, prized playmate of human boy Christopher Robin, has also become one of the most beloved honey-eating, life-pondering cartoon bears of all time. Pooh lived in the Hundred Acre Woods along with Christopher Robin's other stuffed animals, who all had lives of their own with or without the boy.

Pooh's best friend was little Piglet, who was the worrier and the conscience of the two. They would often head over to the overly chatty Rabbit's for tea, usually with disastrous results (e.g. - Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's narrow doorway and had to sleep there overnight until the gang could push him out. Silly old bear...)

Wise old Owl and motherly Kanga were the mature ones of the group, while rambunctious little Roo and bouncy Tigger were clearly the more hyperactive members. The lisping Gopher was the sarcastic one, while Eeyore, a donkey who was constantly losing his tail, was easily the most depressed.

Pooh and company started off as characters in a series of 1920's children's books by British author A.A. Milne. In the mid-sixties, Walt Disney created a series of theatrical featurettes featuring the Milne creations (later packaged into the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), and by 1970, the Pooh crew had a series of primetime TV specials. It wasn't until 1983 that the animals got their own series, with the characters played by actors in costumes on the Disney Channel's Welcome to Pooh Corner.

In 1988, the gang returned to cartoon format in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. After a year, the show was combined with Gummi Bears, then continued for three more years of new episodes (the last two as a stand-alone program... again!). This new Pooh made a few changes (most notably, Christopher Robin now spoke with an American accent), but the sweet-natured spirit of Milne's original remained intact. A hit with young Pooh fans, the show was also appreciated by older viewers, who rewarded The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh with two Emmy Awards for Best Children's Program.

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh left the air after the 1992-93 season, but the show returned later in the decade as part of Disney's One Saturday Morning lineup.