The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is an American Saturday morning original animated black comedy television series produced by Walt Disney Television that ran from January 17, 1988 to October 26, 1991, inspired by A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

Summary
The series depicts the everyday lives of Christopher Robin and his companions Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Rabbit, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo. Rather than a straightforward adaptation, the show was more Americanized than previous Pooh efforts. Episodes dealt with strong messages about honesty, responsibility, persistence, cooperative effort, friendship, and caring. Many stories are designed to help young children distinguish between fantasy and reality and overcome common childhood fears.

Why It's Sweet As Honey

 * 1) It was Disney's very first Pooh media officially aimed to older audiences.
 * 2) An extremely enjoyable concept of the all-American, modernized version of the Hundred Acre Wood, in a favor of the success of the animated movie, Oliver & Company, and Disney did this, so good.
 * 3) It helped made the popularity of Winnie the Pooh in the United States, quickly increased, thanks to Disney.
 * 4) Great and memorable characters, such as Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Gopher, Eeyore and Owl.
 * 5) Decent voice acting, as the Pooh, along with the stuffed animals, has very good New York City accents.
 * 6) Unlike most of the Pooh media, it had surprised darker tone, thanks to the TV-Y7 rating.
 * 7) Catchy and iconic theme song.
 * 8) * The theme song became even better, when it was performed by Jim Cummings, the voice of Pooh and Tigger.
 * 9) Excellent Hanna-Barbera-esque humor, and of course, the outrageous dark humor (like the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) for the Disney standards.
 * 10) Decent animation.
 * 11) The character designs that proudly fits the style of the Pooh featurettes.
 * 12) It helped prove that high quality TV animation was worth investing in, and helped put Disney on the TV animation map after years of only being a hit in terms of movies. Gummi Bears also helped by doing the same thing.
 * 13) * To help make Disney Television increase its huge popularity, ABC airing this show and Gummi Bears in a 60-minute program, entitled The Winnie the Pooh and Gummi Bears Hour.
 * 14) One of the very good ways to end Hal Smith's career in the extremely high note.
 * 15) Excellent and exciting storylines for the episodes, with examples of the best:
 * 16) * "Donkey for a Day" (its most-watched episode)
 * 17) * “The Monster FrankenPooh”
 * 18) * “Fish Out of Water”
 * 19) * “All’s Well That Ends Wishing Well”
 * 20) * “Rabbit Takes a Holiday”
 * 21) * “The Wishing Bear”
 * 22) * “Pooh Day Afternoon”
 * 23) * “Rabbit Marks the Spot”
 * 24) * “King of the Beasties”
 * 25) * “To Dream the Impossible Scheme”
 * 26) * “Sorry, Wrong Slusher”
 * 27) * “Find Her, Keep Her”

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Two episodes Bubble Trouble and Oh, Bottle are terrible.
 * 2) Rabbit can be sometimes extremely unlikable. For example, in "Un-Valentine's Day", he rudely cancelled Valentine's Day, due to the fact that Pooh delivered too much valentines.
 * 3) It's surprised grasp of the source material tends to slip at times:
 * 4) *An example of this would be Christopher Robin having an American voice which is inaccurate because the real life Christopher Robin is from England.

Reception
Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times called the show "the best made-for-TV cartoon show in several seasons". Months later, he claimed it as "not only the classiest new show of the season, but also one of the best-looking series ever animated for television", and gave an similarly positive review the next year. The Atlanta Journal Constitution said it "contained much more detailed and lively animation than the usual kidvid". TV Guide said the show had "theatrical-grade animation, sprightly stories, conscientious eschewing of laugh tracks and best of all, the willingness to let the visual jokes speak for themselves". Entertainment Weekly gave the show an "A" saying "there's enough excitement, including lots of slapstick and bad guys, to keep '90s adventurers happy". The New York Times called the show "lovingly faithful" to the original Milne books. Lee Winfrey of Knight-Ridder says the writers successfully maintained the integrity of Milnes's characters and praised the animators for Ernest H. Shepard's illustrations. The Milwaukee Journal said the show will "offer children and probably their parents, a gentle walk through Pooh Corner". Gene Seymour of Knight-Ridder called the best animation on weekly television outside of the General Mills Commercials. The Dayton Daily News called the program one of the best on television writing "The animation of this offering from the Disney's studios is not as sumptuous as the company's feature films, but it is miles above the television norm". Charles Witback praised the show claiming that "Milne [came] out on top" and they remain unique to the flashy, noisy Hollywood. The San Bernardino Sun wrote "if kids like the verbal wit of the other shows, they'll tackle the rich sophistication of Winnie the Pooh".

Good Housekeeping wrote that the show was "sweet and endearing, though its educational value is essentially limited to a kid-tailored 'I'm okay, you're okay' theme". Common Sense Media gave the show 4 stars, saying "the lessons are just as classic and time-tested as the characters". Hal Erickson, writing in his book Television Cartoon Shows, called the show a delightful eye of calm in "the hurricane of hectic Saturday morning slapstick". DVDizzy.com praised the show calling it "true both to the spirit of Milne's creation and the animation of Disney's terrific short films". DVDVerdict.com called the show "perfectly respectable imitations that still rank as stellar, sweet-natured children's entertainment", going on to write "Kids should enjoy this stuff and adults should feel comfortable leaving their young ones in the care of this of this good-hearted programming for an hour". AnimatedViews called the show "a well-remembered if not exceptional series that slotted into the kind of programming that filled the Disney Afternoons." David Perlmutter, in his book America Toons In, called the longevity of the show "a testament to the enduring appeal of the beloved characters".

Not all reviews have been positive. Evan Levine, writing for the Philadelphia Daily News, gave the program a mixed review, saying "the characters are all true to form, but the colors are overly bright, and the whole look is harsh" but adding "this series is certainly better than a lot of other cartoons that we've seen". Jan Crain Rudeen, writing for the Scripps Howard News Service, described the series and the resulting video releases as "awful", which he felt lacked imagination. Desson Howe of The Washington Post described the series as "cheaply sweetened fare". One particular episode has been a source of controversy. "Sorry Wrong Slusher", in which the characters stay up late, order pizza, and watch a late night "slusher film", has been called violent.

Trivia

 * It was the second series produced by Disney Television Animation, featuring the major Disney cartoon characters. The first being DuckTales, in 1987.
 * Early seasons have the original intro with a synthesized theme song and later seasons have the intro with different clips and a calypso version of the theme song. The opening credits consisted of clips from various episodes.
 * This is the last Winnie the Pooh media with the involvement of Hal Smith (who voiced Owl since the character's debut in Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree) before his eventual death in 1994.
 * This marks the debut of Jim Cummings, Ken Sansom, Peter Cullen, and Michael Gough providing the voices of Pooh (and Tigger in some episodes), Rabbit, Eeyore, and Gopher respectively.
 * As of 2018, Jim Cummings (and probably Peter Cullen) remains the only cast member from the series to still provide the voices of his characters (both Pooh and Tigger) for various Pooh-related media that followed (especially the 2011 film Winnie the Pooh and the 2018 live-action film, Christopher Robin), considering most of cast members either retired from their characters or have passed away, and, as a result, have new actors succeeding them.
 * This is so far the only Pooh series where Christopher Robin is a regularly-recurring character. He was absent in the previous Pooh series, Welcome to Pooh Corner (though he was mentioned in the special, Pooh's Great School Bus Adventure) and only made either small or rare appearances in The Book of Pooh and My Friends Tigger and Pooh.