Tigger Movie, The [14]

The Tigger Movie is a bit of a mixed up movie, much like Tigger himself. Tigger now has a problem with the fact that “He is the only one”. We always thought that Tigger was extraordinarily happy with his lot in life and was proud of the fact that the most wonderful thing about Tiggers was that he was the only one. I guess, as Tigger got older, that philosophy did not hold water. Now he wants a family. The problem is, he has a family. He lives as the adopted son of single mom Kanga and little stepbrother Roo. Roo really admires Tigger much like we all did, and wants to be like him.

The characters are essentially the same ones drawn for the Disney shorts from the 1960s that originated with Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. The Tigger Movie demonstrates what 30 years of progress have brought in the field of animation, plus clearly it had a bigger budget than its predecessors. Tigger had been introduced to us in the follow up short film, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. Paul Winchell supplied the personality of Tigger, and the current voice talent really has to work within that framework. . This includes trying to emulate Paul’s characteristic Whoohoohoo hooo laugh for Tigger. Apparently the studio felt that Paul was too old to provide the voice. Tigger stole the show in Blustery day, even over the Heffalump and Woozle dream sequence.

Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman returned to a Disney animated feature to provide the music. They extended their Tigger theme song “The Wonderful thing about Tiggers”, and gave Tigger a new Busby Berkeley style dance number “Round my Family Tree”. Two other numbers are memorable hits, “The Whoope Da Dooper Bounce”, and “Pooh’s Lullabee.”

The movie went off the rails for me early. I could live with the voice talents changing and trying to emulate the original Disney voices. But the personalities of the characters have changed. In the books, their quirks made them all lovable. After all, they were based upon Christopher Milne’s stuffed animals. A.A. Milne assigned them their personalities and made stories about them. Well now, they are no longer cute quirks. They are full-blown personality disorders. This movie seems to place the characters in an adult context. Rabbit is now a vain, frazzled, effeminate, confirmed bachelor. Pooh now seems to have an all-consuming eating disorder, instead of merely a fondness for honey. Piglet is a passive mousey little weed, with no ambition in life. Eeyore’s gloomyness and pathos is now full blown depression. Tigger is now a bipolar or manic-depressive. Tigger goes around trashing his friend’s houses in a quest for attention. His own house is somewhat of a garbage pit. The final straw was when Piglet told Tigger that he was too busy and needed to gather firewood. Tigger responds by throwing Piglet’s wooden chair in the fire. What the hell?

The climax of the movie takes place in a mountainous region quite far from the calm and quaint Hundred Acre Wood. All the characters are in mortal peril and are only saved by an act of super heroism.

Keep this away from the younger children and bring it out for the 8 year olds and up. This movie was one “Oh Shit” away from a PG rating. It seems like the writers sat around and said, "What if Tigger really was hitting the crack pipe?" {BB}

Added: May 5th 2005
Reviewer: BB
29 Point Scale Score:    [14]

Related Link (IMDB): IMDB
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Language: english