A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving (1998) Online

I do also respectfully disagree with the negative reviewer. I am a big fan of anything Winnie the Pooh, and I love the holiday specials. I don't think it is as good as A Very Merry Pooh Year or Boo To You Too! as far as the holiday Winnie the Pooh specials go, but I personally loved it. Not only was it very funny with the droll dialogue and inspired word-play, but the ending was very touching and a good lesson I think to learn from.

The story is simple, not too episodic and lively in pace, and written with heart and charm evident. The animation is nice and colourful, maybe not as elegant as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh or The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh but it is better than the animation of Seasons of Giving. The characters are well drawn, Rabbit is a tad scratchy-looking, but I can forgive that. The music bounces along nicely with some of the more poignant-sounding parts not too schmaltzy.

The characters are still timeless, I've always loved Tigger the most, though Piglet is adorable and Pooh has always been my favourite animated bear because he is so cute and funny. I do think though some people are too hard on Rabbit, sometimes yes he is a grouch but he is a kind soul at heart, plus I am probably not the only person to notice this, but of all the Winnie the Pooh characters he is the only one that actually learns from his mistakes.

Moving away from that, I also thought the voice acting was great, Paul Winchell may have been getting rather long in the tooth as Tigger at this point but the zest and exuberance is still there. Jim Cummings is as solid as ever, likewise with John Fiedler and Peter Cullen. Overall, a very nice Thanksgiving special. 10/10 Bethany Cox

I strongly disagree with the other's person's comment.

He said the plot outline, so I have no need to state that. I have to say it is by far the funniest "Pooh" specials I have ever seen. I grew up in the Winnie the Pooh era, I have seen just about every episode and movie ever to come out. I still think this is the best one. I just wish they would keep airing the seasons, I would wait into the night to see an episode. Looking back, they sent a terrific message to kids and were entertaining.

I don't know what planet this guy came from, but I think it is one of the best laid out and funniest Pooh episodes of all time.

This is okay entertainment for kids. But I do wonder if any adult will bother pointing out to them that these are British characters and would not normally be celebrating Thanksgiving. Entertainment for its own sake is fine but a little educational value is also a good thing. Sadly, most parents plop their kids down in front of the telly and can't be arsed to notice when misinformation is spread about.

It's also sad that the Disney corporation (which acquired the Pooh rights at some point) constantly sees fit to Americanise everything that crosses its path.

What's next: A Harry Potter Thanksgiving special?!

Thanksgiving: a time of being thankful for what you have, and whom you have. A time for getting together and eating. It just so happened that today was Thanksgiving in the Hundred Acre Wood...and everywhere else too for that matter. As you can imagine, Winnie the Pooh and all his friends will be getting together to have their own feast. They sure do, and each brings their own special dish: Pooh brings honey (what else), Piglet brings acorns, Gopher supplies the lemonade, Eeyore brings thistles, Owl brings biscuits, and Tigger's got the chocolate ice cream. I guess Kanga and Roo weren't invited. Well, this is certainly a creative makeshift Thanksgiving dinner, and of course, leave it to Rabbit to rain on their parade and act like an expert. He callously tells them that the food they brought "isn't what Thanksgiving is all about" and proceeds to lecture them on his limited knowledge of the holiday in question, mainly saying that it's about tradition and custom. Rabbit is very conservative, you see, he hates change. Because they're so gullible, everyone believes Rabbit's nonsense, and so he assigns each of them the task of going out to catch a traditional dish. Tigger and Eeyore are tasked with collecting cranberries for the sauce, Gopher is charged with making the pumpkin pie, Owl is given the duty of washing the dishes, Mr. Know-It-All will put up the decorations, and guess who gets to hunt them a turkey? I'll give you a hint: he gobbles too... well, gobbles honey. That's right, Pooh and Piglet get to find the turkey. Hey, what about the mashed potatoes? Well anyway, neither Pooh nor Piglet knows what a turkey is, so Rabbit shows them his very amateurish drawing and says it is the most vital part of Thanksgiving, like the fate of all humanity rests on people eating turkey for the holiday. So they head off into the dark woods, with Piglet scared to death that a turkey may be as fierce as a "jagular", and Pooh describing what he thinks a turkey looks like certainly doesn't help. I'm calling it now, guys, I don't think they're going to find a turkey.

So while the bear of very little brain and the pig with very little courage go combing the woods for a turkey, Gopher goes about his duty of baking the pies by way of blowing them up with TNT and trashing the kitchen. While that's going on, Tigger and Eeyore are off picking berries, and because Tigger doesn't know what a cranberry is, he just picks any berries he sees, even painting them red if he has to. Yeah, that ploy didn't work for the Queen of Heart's rose bushes and it won't work for cranberry sauce either. Once they gather their weight in berries, they head back to Rabbit's house, neglecting to notice the hole in the bag through which the berries are spilling. Uh oh. Bouncing back over to Pooh and Piglet, the former hits upon a brilliant idea to set a turkey trap, so they dig a hole... and find that it's too deep for them to climb back out. Oh bother. Eventually, they rescue themselves from the trap and try to find bait. They come across the berry trail left by Tigger and decide to use them. It's about now the striped one realizes their berries had flown the coop, and was all about to give up hope until he saw the trail they had left, so, back they go, as the trail predictably leads them to Pooh and Piglet's turkey trap. With Tigger and Eeyore in a sack, they think it's a turkey and bring it back to Rabbit's house, just as Gopher's pie is on the table and Owl's carrying a nice, tall stack of washed dishes. And now, my friends, witness as this whole fiasco crashes and burns before their very eyes: they tip up the table, sending the pie flying through the sky, and when Rabbit catches it, he falls in face-first (talk about getting your justdesserts), Owl trips and breaks all the dishes, just as Pooh and Piglet accidentally tear down all the decorations. As he stared at the mess HE created, Rabbit sighs and sinks into a deep depression. There's nothing to be thankful for. Thanksgiving is ruined... forever. So one by one, everyone goes home to pout and feel sorry for themselves. But all is not lost, for leave it to Pooh Bear to stumble upon the true meaning of Thanksgiving: sharing what you have with others, and so he rounds up the gang and they go back to try again, bringing their personal dishes (honey, acorns, ice cream, thistles, etc.). This time Christopher Robin joins them and they make Rabbit the guest of honor, and this time tradition seems to mean nothing to him. Maybe if they had just done it this way in the first place, they might have saved a lot of trouble. So, there you have it: the TRUE meaning of Thanksgiving: it's not WHAT you eat, it's WHO you eat it with.

There you have it, friends. Winnie the Pooh and Thanksgiving Too. Aside from Charlie Brown, there aren't very many noteworthy Thanksgiving specials out there, mainly because I guess unlike Halloween and Christmas, not much can be made out of a Thanksgiving story. Similarly to Charlie Brown, Pooh and his friends create a makeshift dinner using what they have, and the stuck-up know-it-all of the group has point out that it isn't a TRUE Thanksgiving dinner without turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes (again, Rabbit forgot those) and pumpkin pie. It's only later that this stubborn individual gets a swift lesson in what the holiday is truly about. They usually wait until the end of the special to do that, or else it will be very short. I remember Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving used to air after Charlie Brown, but not lately. There's not much else I can except it's your typical Winnie the Pooh fair, and I'm glad they included Gopher, as he seems to be becoming more and more scarce in recent franchise projects. This special was really good, predictable, but nothing too over-the-top. Again, it's Winnie the Pooh, so it's extremely innocent. If you can find it, I do recommend it. There isn't really anything about it I would change, and for the most part, I'm glad they didn't go the route of Pooh and Piglet actually meeting a live turkey and saying, "we'd like to have you for dinner." I guess, if they did that, the extremely dark prospect of Pooh characters actually killing someone would be instantly realized, and that's absolutely something they would want to avoid at all costs.

Well the title says it perfectly already, "A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving", and you will hardly find a holiday or celebration time of the year that does not have their very own Winnie the Pooh tribute and this one here is of course all about Thanksgiving. This one is from 1998, so it will have its 20th anniversary next year and it was directed by Jun Falkenstein. She may not have been super experienced at that point, but it is pretty obvious she wasn't a rookie as the way they included some old successful Pooh formulas like the page-turning or Christopher Robin's appearance at the very end and the general harmlessness of it all. Yes they were looking for a turkey, but there was no way they'd ever end up eating one eventually, not even Tigger. And the happy ending showing us that it's not about what you eat, but who you are with while eating was very well done too. I am generally not too sure if I am a great Winnie the Pooh fan, but this one here left a positive impression on me, also because of all the other characters here. Rabbit is a bit more in the center of it all than usual and that's another traditional Pooh film approach that one character has a bit more focus on him than the others. Anyway, I liked it and I wonder why this has gone so much under the radar, even if it has an Emmy nomination. Maybe because the concept of Thanksgiving is irrelevant outside the United States. Anyway, thee slightly over 20 minutes certainly deserve to be more seen. Check this one out if you find it. You won't regret it, especially if you like Pooh and the gang. I give it a thumbs-up.

Here is another Thanksgiving TV special I really love featuring Winnie the Pooh and his friends. I was lucky to watch it online, because apparently there is not a video release for it, though I really wish it was on DVD. I saw the middle and ending of this special when it was put into the direct-to-video movie "Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving."

As for the story, Pooh and his friends were preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for Christopher Robin. Pooh brings honey, Piglet brings haycorns, Owl brings biscuits; Eeyore brings thistles and Tigger brings chocolate ice-cream. But Rabbit thinks a Thanksgiving dinner should have special items: turkey, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. So with a "plan," Rabbit splits the gang into teams: Owl & Gopher on kitchen duties with Gopher to bake the pie, Tigger & Eeyore to gather cranberries and Pooh & Piglet to get a turkey. Will things go right? Well you folks will have to watch on Dailymotion to see for yourselves - spoilers you know.

So anyway, this is another Thanksgiving favorite. I thought the animation was decent and the story perfect. I still would wish it would be on DVD.