"The name's Bear. Edward Bear."

[nmg]

Seen here on officialgaiman:

I see from USA Today that Christopher Robin is being replaced by a "tomboy girl" in order to appeal to the youth of today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-12-06-winnie-the-pooh_x.htm. Undoubtedly Disney have done lots of marketing research on this. As we learn from the article, "We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide," says Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel.

Whatever next? Antidepressants for Eeyore?

I know that Milne's books aren't perfect. They're a little sugary at the best of times ("Tonstant Weader fwowed up", as Dorothy Parker wrote), but the existing Disneyfication makes my pancreas ache with the way it replaced whimsy with sentimentality. I'm not even going to start the rant about my intense hatred of the Disney illustrations compared to E.H. Shepard's elegant originals, since it's a bit of a long one. Since they're not content with butchering it once, they're going to do it again, except this time they're getting rid of the central character, namely the young boy to whom the stories are being told.

I knew I shouldn't have bothered getting out of bed this morning.

Comments

Even though I'm a cat person, personally I love that dog...

[killtest.livejournal.com]

"I'm not even going to start the rant about my intense hatred of the Disney illustrations compared to E.H. Shepard's elegant originals"

Ditto. And for a LONG time. As a kid I didn't even know there WERE different illustrations to the Disney fodder. I loved them when I found them a few years on. But it is the whole Pooh debacle that FIRMLY put me on an anti-Disney footing; no mercy, no compromise.

The dog in question is from the story a few years ago concerning when the Disney Stormtroopers in grey suits. Having finally got control of the property outright - already in the process of the ethnic cleansing of all imagery in marketing relating to the Shepard drawings as opposed to the Disney version - these filth turned up to claim the original toys the characters were based on, to take them to the Disney Museum in one of their two American coastal abominations. As they were being handed over a dog grabbed Roo and ran off. Into what's left of the Hundred Acre Wood.

No amount of searching, following the dog, bribing the dog analysing the dreams of the dog etc etc would result in the recovery of the original Roo.

So somewhere, there is small stuffed baby kangaroo toy, alone in a damp English wood, probably by now wholly decomposed - but forever beyond the vile satanic claws of the most nauseating superpower on the planet. Free.

I love that dog.



(I should make the admission here to still being very fond of, and being able to sing, the cartoon Tigger song.. I'm sorry.)