The Tigger Movie

This is what happens when the Bear of Very Little Brain meets the Mouse of Extensively Developed Greed.

Animated films require a lead time of two or three times that of live-action movies, which means it can be more difficult for the studio to set a release date very far in advance. So when Disney found itself with a gap in the schedule between the wonderful Toy Story 2 and the supposed-to-be Dinosaur, they wanted to drop in something to keep the coffers warm, but all they had was a mediocre video-quality chapter in the Winnie the Pooh series. Ergo, what we get are lackluster, unremarkable songs (a further indication Tigger must have been rushed, since the team that did the music wrote one of the best movie songs ever, “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book), and flat animation, especially compared to such recent Disney hits as Mulan and Tarzan. Even the character voices, which through time and attrition have passed on to other actors, leave something to be desired, with the exception of comfortably familiar veteran John Fiedler continuing as Piglet, and Jim Cummings, who reads Tigger in exactly the same voice as its originator, ventriloquist Paul Winchell, as well as doing a pretty good approximation of Sterling Holloway for the voice of Pooh.

The story is an odd blend of stuffed-family values and natural disaster. Tigger gets lost while looking for his roots, and when the others go searching for him in the middle of a blizzard, they almost get blown off a mountain (who knew the Hundred Acre Wood had a Ten Thousand Foot Cliff?). Actually, that whole imperilment plot could have been interesting if they’d gotten hungry and, like soccer-team Andes plane-crash survivors, started eating each other. Can’t you see Pooh getting a crazed look in his eye and imagining his friends are jars of honey? “I’m so rumbly, in my tumbly...stand still, Eeyore – oh, bother...”

Other than one cute bit portraying Tiggers down through history, set to “Around My Family Tree,” The Tigger Movie will be more trying for adults to sit through than most Disney offerings. But it’s only 76 minutes long, and you’ve probably sat that long at the intersection of 291 and E. North St. in rush-hour traffic, so suck it up and take ‘em out to something they’ll enjoy... C

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