Christopher Robin's Treehouse

Winnie the Pooh

Released:  February 4, 1966                      

When I first started collecting animation in the late 1980’s, I started a journey into art exploration through a medium familiar to my childhood heartstrings.  I grew up like most American kids with a Mom & Dad who were happily married, a love/hate relationship with my kid sister, my own bedroom, a couple of cats and a backyard full of fun.  I lived an imaginative childhood where I had the chance to pretend I was a superhero with my best friends and got to ride off into the sunset saving the world on our bikes at least until Mom called us home for dinner.  

Animation was a natural part of my childhood rhythm, watching cartoons on Saturday mornings and getting the occasional treat to the theater to see the next Disney feature.  I always loved to escape to those imaginative places and later pretend with friends that we went there.  It was just plain fun.

Not long after Sleeping Beauty was released in 1959, Disney took advantage of the latest reproduction technology developed by Xerox with the first Winnie the Pooh featurette.  This setup combines traditional watercolor techniques with a xerographic overlay cel of the original layout drawing.  The new effect to incorporate the artist’s drawing works well at bringing to life on the screen, E.L. Shephard’s artistic style from the original books. 

Original production cel setup with master background, gouache on trimmed celluloid, xerographic line overlay on celluloid, watercolor on paper

Artist: Various Studio, unknown

Sequence 1, Scene 2.01

This production background showcases Disney’s interpretation of A.A. Milne’s stories of the Pooh Bear from 1926.  Trimmed productions cels of Pooh Bear and Kanga were placed in the scene to create additional interest.  Purchased at an animation sale from Christies in New York, this background beautifully represents the innocence of Christopher Robin’s world, much like one of my own imaginative childhood places.