Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore
VHS cover
Directed by	Rick Reinert
Produced by	Rick Reinert
Written by	Peter Young Steve Hulett Tony L. Marino A. A. Milne
Narrated by	Laurie Main
Starring	Ralph Wright John Danels Paul Winchell Will Ryan Will Smith Kim Christianson Julie McWhirter John Fiedler
Music by	Steve Zuckerman Robert & Richard Sherman (songs)
Distributed by	Buena Vista Distribution
Release date(s)	March 11, 1983 (1983-03-11)
Running time	25 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore is a Disney Winnie the Pooh animated featurette, based on two chapters from the books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, originally released theatrically on March 11, 1983, before the 1983 re-issue of The Sword in the Stone. It is the fourth and final of Disney's original theatrical featurettes adapted from the Pooh books by A. A. Milne.

Produced by Rick Reinert Productions, this was the first Disney animated film since the 1938 Silly Symphonies short Merbabies to be produced by an outside studio.^[1] (The company had also previously produced the educational Disney short Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons in 1981.)

  Plot

The story begins with Pooh taking a walk to a wooden bridge over a river where he likes to do nothing in particular. On this day, though, he finds a fir cone and picks it up. Pooh thinks up a rhyme to go with the fir cone, but he accidentally trips on a tree root and drops it in the river. Noticing that the flow of the river takes the cone under the bridge, Pooh invents a racing game out of it. As the game uses sticks instead of cones, he calls it Poohsticks.

Sometime later, while Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit and Roo are playing Poohsticks, they see Eeyore floating in the river below. After a somewhat successful attempt to get him to shore with a giant stone, he tells them that he fell in due to being bounced from behind. Piglet assumes it was Tigger who bounced Eeyore into the river. When Tigger arrives on the scene, he claims that his bounce was actually a cough, leading to an argument between him and Eeyore, but with some outside help from the narrator, the animals find out that Tigger was lying; he had indeed deliberately bounced Eeyore. Tigger then says it was all a joke, but nobody else feels that way,. Tigger disgustedly says that they have no sense of humor, and bounces away.

As Eeyore seems particularly depressed this day, Pooh follows him to his Gloomy Spot and asks what the problem is. Eeyore says that he is unhappy because it is his birthday, and nobody has taken any notice to celebrate it. Pooh decides to give him a jar of honey, but does not get far before he has a hunger attack and ends up eating the honey. Upon realizing this, he decides to ask Owl for advice. Owl suggests that he writes to Eeyore on the pot so that Eeyore could use it to put things in, making it useful, and Pooh accepts. Owl ends up writing a misspelled greeting (hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy) on the pot and flies off to tell Christopher Robin about the birthday. Piglet, who heard about Eeyore's birthday from Pooh, has planned to give a red balloon to Eeyore, but when Owl greets him from the sky, Piglet is not looking where he is going, and as a result, he falls down and bursts it accidentally.

Piglet is very sad that his gift for Eeyore is spoiled, but he presents it to him anyway, and only a minute later, Pooh brings the empty pot. Eeyore is gladdened, as he can now put the broken red balloon into the pot and remove it again. Pooh and his friends then pitch in and plan a surprise party for their friend.

During the party, Tigger arrives and bounces Rabbit out of his chair. Roo welcomes him to the festivities as Rabbit draws himself up from being bounced on by Tigger, incensed. Rabbit opines that Tigger should leave because of the way he treated Eeyore before. Roo wants Tigger to stay, and Christopher Robin's solution is for everyone to go to the bridge and play Poohsticks. Eeyore, a first-time player, wins the most games, while Tigger does not win at all, causing him to conclude that "Tiggers don't like Poohsticks". Eeyore's secret for winning, as he explains to Tigger afterwards, is to "let his stick drop in a twitchy sort of way." As Tigger bounces Eeyore again, Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet all decide that "Tigger's all right, really."

  Voice cast

• Hal Smith as Winnie the Pooh and Owl
• Ralph Wright as Eeyore
• Hal Smith as Piglet
• Paul Winchell as Tigger
• Will Ryan as Rabbit
• Kim Christianson as Christopher Robin
• Julie McWhirter as Kanga
• Dick Billingsley as Roo
• Narrated by Laurie Main

John Fiedler, Hal Smith and Paul Winchell returned to do the voices for Piglet, Owl, Pooh and Tigger. Will Ryan replaced the late Junius Matthews as Rabbit; Julie McWhirter replaced the late Barbara Luddy as Kanga; Laurie Main replaced the late Sebastian Cabot as the Narrator; Dick Billingsley replaced Clint Howard and Dori Whitaker as Roo; and Kim Christianson replaced Bruce Reitherman, Jon Walmsley and Timothy Turner as Christopher Robin. This would also be Ralph Wright's final role; he died nine months after the film's release. Smith, Ryan, and Main reprised their roles on Welcome to Pooh Corner, where Ryan would also provide the voice for Tigger.

  Home video

The first home video release for Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore was Winnie the Pooh and Friends, released on VHS in 1984, followed by other releases of this film, including the December 28, 1990 Walt Disney Mini-Classics release and the July 11, 2000 Storybook Classics release. It has since been included as a bonus feature on VHS and DVD releases of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

  Winnie the Pooh featurettes

• Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966)
• Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968)
• Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974)
• Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore (1983)

  References

1. ^ http://thisdayindisneyhistory.homestead.com/Mar11.html

  External links

• Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore at the Internet Movie Database