Oh, Bother

[filkertom]

Disney to give Pooh an "extreme makeover", including getting rid of Christopher Robin in favor of a tomboyish girl.

Coming soon: Disney's Inferno. Or maybe Poohnatics.

Thanks to kender42 for the heads-up.

Comments

[alymid.livejournal.com]

Poohnatics - sounds like some awful porntastic kind of thing- I can just see the video box . . .I will spare you the visions I am getting in my head

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Ian mentioned this to me last night. I'm not a Pooh fan but this seems wrong to me. Christopher Robin as a tomboyish girl? My brain implodes. WOnder what they'll do to pooh?

[chirosinger.livejournal.com]

Sacralige! Scandal! Just plain wrong! I'm big fan of the more classic Pooh characters so I thought it was bad enough when they "Disneyfied" Pooh. I understand that things need to change and evolve (I mean why would they think that kids now would still like what kids for generations have liked?) so if they want to add a new tom-boyish character, then fine. But why should Christopher Robin be banished? Horror!

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

Neil Gaiman's response (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/12/skippy-show.asp)

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Considering the eternal struggle Disney has been in with the estate of A.A. Milne over copyrights and money, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out later this was all a legal stunt so they could claim 100% ownership over the "New & Improved" Pooh II. Considering what Disney has been coming out with the past several years, I also wouldn't be surprised if "Pooh© 2®: The New Beginning™" is so lame babies first steps come from trying to walk to the TV to turn it off.

"Luke-atics: Un-Ski-ied"?

[lukeski.livejournal.com]

Dude, Tom, I actually gave the show "Loonatics Unleashed" a chance. I TiVoed it and watched for 5 or 6 weeks. Recently I removed it. It's just... Looney Tunes crossed with Batman Beyond/X-Men? And, the point wasn't to be funny, they were doing this seriously? Something has to suck a lot for me to give up on it completely like that. I was hoping it was going to get better or reveal a point to it at some time, but it never did. It was crappy and pointless. Obvious corporate thinking kids-show creation. Ugh.

Warner Brothers, just give me a DVD box set of "Duck Dodgers: Seasons 1 & 2" right now before I slap you, and get to work on Season 3 while you're at it. Dammit.

[anneb.livejournal.com]

Never let it be said that Disney let the real source material from anything get in the way of making a buck or two, but this just furthers my thesis that everything that is not a video game out there is really only marketed to girls.

Bleh.

[delayra.livejournal.com]

Actually, quite a few Disney video games are, as well

[foenix.livejournal.com]

"We got raised eyebrows even in house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide," Disney Channel spokeswoman Nancy Kanter told USA Today.

But...but...by definition, timeless characters shouldn't need breaths of fresh air, they're timeless!

ah, memories

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

A few years back at a Soonercon, while we were deranged with hunger waiting for the pizza to arrive, some friends and I worked up an idea for a Disney production much like this. Disney's Lizzie Borden, with (of course) Angela Landsbury as the voice of Chop-Chop the Axe.

Chop-Chop the Axe.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

*coffeenose*

Re: ah, memories

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

You want to know what the worst of it is? I can clearly see it in my mind's eye. Ooog. That'll haunt me clear up through at least Groundhog Day.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Y'know Tom, I'll bet you could do a *dandy* Disney's Inferno. What d'ya think? Jimminy Cricket takes the place of Virgil, right?

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

The scary thing is, that part's right.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

See, sadly, what I end up thinking about everytime I hear this is not 'Oh, horrors.' It's 'I wonder if the real Christopher Robin will be happy now.' Because apparently he /hated/ that his father had used his name and his stuffed animals for the stories. He was actually quoted at one point as saying that he felt like his father had taken his childhood from him and given it away to other people.

Which never actually stopped me from loving the books or the illustrations or even the Disney illustrations/character designs. But then pretty much anything where Disney is creating new sequels to old material I just kind of ignore. Because.. well... the writers they get for the new stuff are never as good as the writers for the original things.

[adamselzer.livejournal.com]

No more of a travesty than anything else they've done with Pooh over the years.



On the plus side, I'll bet Christopher Robin Milne would have been THRILLED.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

In the news story, they quoted his daughter saying something to that effect. My understanding is that Christopher Robin spent his childhood being bullied by his schoolmates about the Winnie-the-Pooh connection, and often felt he was given new toys only because of their potential literary value. He grew up... umm... kinda bitter.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

Oops, not his daughter, his widow.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

From ten years in the future, I present a review of Disney's 1984:

"I thought Julia's impassioned plea to Big Brother to mend his evil ways was overdone, but the dancing rats in Room 101 were cute."

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Oh, lordy... I read 1984 once or twice a year, and I already know that the next time I read it, I won't be able to do it without reference to this one little post.

Disney's "Moby Dick"

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

Along the same lines...

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/96/Aug/melville.html

[delayra.livejournal.com]

From what I can dig up, it's just the one show that's planned that Christopher Robin won't be on ==

"He'll still be out there in the woods, playing"

So they're not giving him the axe, just adding a castmember, and only to the one show -- there is yet hope

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

I sense a song... or two coming out of this. Shouldn't be too hard to come up with a whole album worth of Disney parodies. No, wait, that would be horror, and not comedy...