Looking back at the last scene of Pooh (Winnie, that is)
My two year old son has a fever, and so I’m up with him this morning as he watches TV and I work quietly at our dining room table. These days, he’s obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, but I thought he might enjoy a little variety so I put on “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” This is the classic Disney movie from 1977. (Check out this Mahalo guide for more info.)
Those of you with clear Pooh memories — or who are currently or were recently the parents of young children — will remember the last scene of the movie when Christopher Robin bids Pooh goodbye before leaving for school… undoubtedly boarding school as the original Milne Pooh stories were British and the upper-middle class Brits still have their odd tradition of shipping their kids off as soon as they can.
Thinking about this scene afresh, I marvel at how much things have changed since 1977. Today, Disney would never dream of closing down a line-extension or marketing opportunity in that way, and in fact the company has blithely ignored the continuity in that last scene by creating other movies and TV series about the characters.
Sure, the small fry want more Pooh Bear, but there’s a delightfully charming quality to a story that closes itself down because it’s good for the STORY rather than paying attention to what’s good for merchandising.
There aren’t a lot of such stories, these days, certainly not the animated ones… with the exception of Brad Bird’s movies (Iron Giant, Incredibles, Ratatouille) which seem truly to end when they end.
In fact, one of my favorite paternal memories is watching Iron Giant with my brother and my then 3 year old daughter.
(Spoiler Alert for the end of this movie.)
The last scenes of Iron Giant are very moving, very sad, and pretty dire for the Giant. My brother, daughter and I were all sobbing on the couch, whereupon my daughter turned to me and demanded that we go to the video store right that very moment to buy “Iron Giant 2.” When I explained that there is no sequel to Iron Giant, she started sobbing even harder because she knew that the Giant’s fate was sealed.
And speaking of my daughter, it’s time I got her up to go to school.
One Response to “Looking back at the last scene of Pooh (Winnie, that is)”
1 Robin 26 September 2007 @ 11:18 am
I’m pretty sure that in the books, Christopher Robin was at day school, not boarding school. I remember mentions of things he was doing at school, and that he’d be home in the afternoons.
But generally, I like your idea. (And am glad that I waited on Iron Giant.)
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