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My Friends Tigger and Pooh is the latest installment
in the ever-growing Disney Winnie the Pooh franchise. Voice
talents here include Jim Cummings (Animaniacs, Lion King),
Peter Cullen (Transformers), Kath Soucie (Rugrats, Tiny
Toon Adventures), Dee Bradley Baker (Legends of the Hidden
Temple, American Dad), Tara Strong (Rocko's Modern Life,
Teen Titans), and Mark Hamill (Star Wars Episodes IV-VI,
Batman animated series.) Disney's latest take on the Winnie
the Pooh is a preschooler-friendly series revolving around
Pooh and his friends solving mysteries. The show breaks
from the 2D animation of older Pooh material released by
Disney, opting for a 3D look. New characters and old alike
appear in the series, clearly intended for younger audiences.
*** This show is a far cry from Disney's glory days with
the Pooh series. There are some terrific elements here that
will make it a great show for younger children (pre-school
and kindergarten-aged), though it's not likely this take
on Pooh and company is going to appeal to anyone else. ***
The basic premise of this series is Pooh and his friends
solving mysteries by finding clues and the like, and piecing
the information together to ultimately solve the case. But
most of the time, a side-story gets thrown into things as
well, keeping things entertaining and educational. Essentially,
what it boils down to is a Blue's Clues clone that uses
Winnie the Pooh characters. ***
The biggest issues with the show are the character
necessity (or lack thereof), and the animation quality.
While everyone loves Winnie the Pooh and his pals, were
they really needed here? It really makes you wonder why
Disney didn't just make up new characters and throw them
into a similar plotline - after all, they've had no problem
doing this in the past, and the results usually result in
new popular characters for a franchise that will never stop
growing. My other issue is with the animation, which features
Disney going from the traditional 2D hand-drawn animation
from Pooh's days of old, to 3D. The problem is it's second-rate
3D that can't compete with a lot of the stuff out there
these days. But when you consider that the show's primary
audience will be infants and toddlers, are they really going
to complain? ***
The DVD features 3 episodes of the series, each one
having 2 segments. Episodes included are Darby Super Sleuth,
Doggone Buster, Darby's Tail, Tigger's Delivery Service,
Pooh-Rates of the Hundred Acre Wood, and Tigger's Hiccup
Pickup. ---
Image And Sound:
The image and sound quality on the disc are fantastic.
The bright and clear image quality, though, can't compensate
for the weak animation quality. Still, the disc was produced
well, so I won't complain.
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