Springtime with Roo
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Springtime with Roo | |
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Directed by | Elliot M. Bour Saul Andrew Blinkoff |
Written by | Tom Rogers |
Starring | Jim Cummings Jimmy Bennett John Fiedler Ken Sansom Kath Soucie Peter Cullen |
Narrated by | David Ogden Stiers |
Music by | Mark Watters |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Walt Disney Home Entertainment |
Release date |
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Running time | 65 minutes (USA) |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Springtime with Roo is a 2004 American direct-to-video animated musical adventure film, featuring characters from Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh franchise. Unlike A Very Merry Pooh Year and Seasons of Giving, Springtime with Roo does not reuse episodes from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. It is based on the A. A. Milne treasured stories.
Plot
It is Easter, and Roo, Tigger, Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore head to Rabbit's house for an Easter egg hunt. However, much to their surprise, Rabbit has organized a "Spring cleaning day" instead. He orders the gang to clean his house while he tidies up in his garden. Initially dejected, the gang, not wanting to let Rabbit down, proceed to carry out Rabbit's orders. While dusting, Pooh sneezes violently, cluttering the house. A large trunk falls out of Rabbit's closet, revealing Easter eggs and decorations. Assuming Rabbit had forgotten about Easter, the gang decide to surprise Rabbit by decorating the house. Furious at his friends for disobeying him, Rabbit throws them out.
Tigger returns to Rabbit's house and tries to persuade him, but Rabbit refuses and declares that the Hundred Acre Wood will never celebrate Easter again. Tigger and the narrator tell Rabbit that he used to love Easter, but Rabbit does not believe them, so Tigger takes him back through the book to last year's Easter celebration.
The gang prepare for Easter, painting Easter eggs and making decorations. Rabbit, the "Easter Bunny", wants everything to be as organized and orderly as possible, treating Easter as a professional occasion rather than a fun holiday. The others grow tired of Rabbit's bossiness, and sneak off with the Easter eggs. Rabbit goes after them and finds them having the Easter egg hunt without him. The gang agree that Tigger is "the best Easter Bunny ever". Rabbit sadly leaves.
Outside the book, Rabbit says being the Easter Bunny was what he looked forward to most. Tigger says that it was not his intention to leave him out, but Rabbit, still bitter, continues to refuse the Hundred Acre Wood Easter. Tigger returns to the present and delivers the bad news, while Rabbit makes his way back home. The narrator purposely stops on the wrong page, at Roo's house, where Roo says he wishes he could make things up to Rabbit. Rabbit remains unswayed and returns home. He puts away Piglet's pink Easter basket, Pooh's honey pot, Eeyore's bunny ears and Tigger's striped Easter egg in the trunk, before going to sleep.
The narrator wakes Rabbit up, startling him by speaking in a ghost-like voice, before transporting him forward in time to unwritten pages of the book. On one page it is Spring Cleaning Day and everything is organized exactly as Rabbit wants. Initially delighted, he asks where everyone is, thinking that they're late. The narrator tells him that everyone has moved away. Rabbit does not believe this and goes to his friends' houses to find them, but to no avail. While he is at Tigger's house, Roo's drawing of him and Rabbit is blown in by the wind, and he rushes to Kanga and Roo's house, which is also empty. So confused Rabbit says, "I don't understand, Roo was so looking forward to..," and the narrator asks, "Spring Cleaning Day, was it?" But Rabbit says "No, Easter. What have I done? Where are all my friends?". The narrator laughs at the word 'Friends' and says that Rabbit certainly didn't treat them like friends (in which Rabbit responses with an annoyed look), and shows him the way that he was acting, telling him that he never thought about what the others wanted and was only thinking of himself the whole time. Rabbit finally realizes that he was wrong to try to control something that everyone shares and loves and make it so it would be his way only, so he decides to change the future by changing his attitude to everyone else. However, he learns that the Easter supplies were taken with his friends when they moved, and he finds out that he is already too late. Until the very next morning, he wakes up on Easter day finding out he still has a chance to change the future when he sees the Easter supplies are back in the box and immediately begins to plan the grandest Easter the Hundred Acre Wood has ever had.
At the same time, Roo and the others (unaware that Rabbit has changed) come up with another idea in hopes of cheering Rabbit up, and while they are busy working, Rabbit, feeling as "giddy as a jackrabbit" (also pretending to be his mean usual self at first), brings out all of the Easter decorations (along with a new bunny tail for Eeyore) and starts happily preparing a big surprise for his friends, which everyone is very happy to see. Roo gives Rabbit a surprise as well, his Easter Bunny hat fixed, after being crushed by Rabbit earlier in the story. And the story ends with the annual Easter celebration proceeding as planned, and Roo popping out of the book for a bit saying, "BBFN, Bye-Bye For Now!"
Cast
- Jimmy Bennett as Roo
- Ken Sansom as Rabbit
- Jim Cummings as Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger
- John Fiedler as Piglet
- Peter Cullen as Eeyore
- Tom Wheatley as Christopher Robin
- Kath Soucie as Kanga
- David Ogden Stiers as The Narrator
Home media
The film was released direct-to-DVD on March 9, 2004. It included the theatrical trailer for Pooh's Heffalump Movie and the two episodes from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (Honey for a Bunny and Trap as Trap Can). The film was later released on Blu-ray on March 11, 2014 as a Hippity-Hoppity Roo edition. It is also a part of Disney Movies Anywhere program.[3]
Songs
- "We're Huntin' Eggs Today" - Tigger, Roo, Piglet, Pooh, Eeyore
- "Sniffly Sniff" - Pooh
- "Easter Day with You" - Tigger, Roo, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore
- "The Way It Must Be Done" - Rabbit, Tigger, Roo, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore
- "Easter Day with You (reprise)" - Roo
- "The Grandest Easter of Them All" - Rabbit
- "Easter Day with You (finale)" - Rabbit, Roo, Tigger, Piglet, Pooh, Eeyore
Christmas Carol
- The story's climax resolves in a direct homage to A Christmas Carol, with the Narrator speaking to Rabbit about his poor behavior and showing him a dark future in which Rabbit lives alone in the Hundred Acre Wood. The similarity is noted by Tigger in when he asks Rabbit, "What the Dickens-and I do mean 'Dickens'-is going on here?", during which he turns and winks at the audience (and breaks the fourth wall).
- Like A Christmas Carol, Tigger takes on the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Narrator takes the roles of the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Yet to Come/Future.
- This is the second time an A Christmas Carol adaption is about Easter and not Christmas. The first adaptation was Veggietales's episode An Easter Carol where Ebenezer Nezzar believes from his dead grandma's final words that as long as he makes Easter eggs every day she'll live forever even in the dead.
- Christopher Robin doesn't appear during the whole film, but appears at the end of the film where Pooh and his friends celebrate Easter and it's the second time since The Tigger Movie that Christopher Robin appeared at the end of a film.
- Owl, and Gopher never appear at all.
References
- ^ http://www.ultimatedisney.com/springtime.html retrieved 4 February 2009
- ^ http://disneydvd.disney.go.com/winnie-the-pooh-springtime-with-roo.html retrieved 4 February 2009
- ^ "Winnie The Pooh: Springtime With Roo: David Ogden Stiers, Jim Cummings, Jimmy Bennett, John Fielder: Amazon Digital Services LLC". Amazon.com. retrieved 11 February 2015
External links
- 2004 films
- Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh
- 2004 animated films
- 2004 direct-to-video films
- 2000s American animated films
- 2000s adventure films
- 2000s musical films
- American animated films
- Animated comedy films
- Animated musical films
- Films about animals
- Easter fiction
- Winnie-the-Pooh films
- American adventure films
- 2000s musical comedy films
- Animated adventure films
- Disney direct-to-video animated films
- Musical comedy films
- Adventure comedy films
- Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
- American children's films
- Films based on A Christmas Carol
- Films with live action and animation
- Direct-to-video sequel films
- American films
- DisneyToon Studios animated films