# Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin is a 1997 American direct-to-video animated musical adventure comedy-drama film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Karl Geurs. The film follows Winnie the Pooh and his friends on a journey to find and rescue their friend Christopher Robin from the "Skull". Along the way, the group confront their own insecurities throughout the search, facing and conquering them in a series of events where they are forced to act beyond their own known limits, thus discovering their true potential. Unlike the film's predecessors, this film is an entirely original story, not based on any of A. A. Milne's classic stories.

## Plot

On the last day of Summer, Christopher Robin spends time with his best friend Winnie the Pooh while unsuccessfully attempting to tell him some bad news. At the end of the day, Christopher Robin leaves Pooh with the advice, "You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think" and assures the bear that even if there is a time where they are apart, they will always be together.
Autumn arrives the next day, when Pooh finds a honey pot with a note attached to it. Not knowing who the pot belongs to, Pooh decides to ask Christopher Robin about its owner, but he fails to find him. Pooh then visits his friend, Owl, who reads the honey pot's note and erroneously concludes that Christopher Robin has gone to a distant cave called "Skull", where a creature called the "Skullasaurus" supposedly resides, before sending Pooh and his other friends, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit and Eeyore on a journey to travel to Skull and rescue Christopher Robin.
Throughout the group's journey, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit each face a particular trial that causes the three them to lose their self-confidence; Piglet is abducted by a swarm of playful butterflies in a tranquil field; Tigger falls into a deep gorge and is unable to bounce out to safety, eventually causing the others to dive in with him; and Rabbit continuously makes bad leadership decisions following Owl's inaccurate map. Pooh tries to comfort them each with the advice Christopher Robin had given him but fails due to his inability to remember exactly what he said. Wracked with despair, the five take refuge in a cave for the night, where Pooh expresses his sorrow over losing Christopher Robin.
The group wake up the next morning to discover that they had actually spent the night in the Skull Cave. Exploring the cave, the friends split up to search the entire cave for Christopher Robin, but while Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, and Eeyore eventually reunite, Pooh ends up trapped in a narrow crevasse and his cries cause his friends to believe that he has been killed by the Skullasaurus.
Continuing on without Pooh, the group find the "Eye of the Skull", where Christopher Robin is supposedly trapped. Overcoming their self-doubts, Rabbit, Tigger, and Piglet come up with a plan to help everyone reach the Eye, which succeeds. Meanwhile, Pooh, observing his friends' actions, excitedly frees himself from the tight gap, only to slip down a long descent and fall into a deep pit that he is unable to escape. While there, Pooh remembers Christopher Robin's words and realizes that Christopher is still with him in his heart, even when they are not together.
Upon entering the Eye of the Skull, Tigger, Piglet, Rabbit, and Eeyore reunite with Christopher Robin, who had also been searching for them and reveals that the real location that he went to was school, which is what he had tried to tell Pooh earlier, before rescuing Pooh from the pit. The group then return home, finding the journey that they had taken to the Skull Cave less frightening. That evening, Christopher Robin informs Pooh that he will be going to school again tomorrow and the two promise to remain friends forever.

## Voice cast

* Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh, Tigger (singing voice), and The Skullasaurus.
* Paul Winchell as Tigger (speaking voice)
* John Fiedler as Piglet (speaking voice)
** Steve Schatzberg as Piglet (singing voice)
* Peter Cullen as Eeyore
* Ken Sansom as Rabbit
* Brady Bluhm as Christopher Robin (speaking voice)
** Frankie J. Galasso as Christopher Robin (singing voice)
* Andre Stojka as Owl
* David Warner as The Narrator

## Reception and legacy

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes assessed an approval rating of 38% based on 8 reviews and an average score of 4.3/10.
George Blooston of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C grade, calling it "treacly" and criticized its lack of "grown up-wit [and] child psychology" from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews called the film "tedious", and Alex Sandell of Juicy Cerebellum felt that Disney "always sucked with Pooh."
Jane Louise Boursaw of Kaboose praised the film's songwriting and animation. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up" on their review show as well.
In a 2023 interview, cartoonist and animation producer ND Stevenson (Nimona) said that the film was existential, stuck with him, and made him think about "things that I wasn't ready to think about yet, or I didn't even really know the ways in which it was going to help me process things and come to terms with things as an adult".
The song "Forever and Ever" was remixed by plunderphonics musician Pogo as "Boy & Bear" on his 2018 Ascend.

## Home video

The film was released on VHS in the United States on August 5, 1997. It was later issued on VHS in the United Kingdom on October 13, 1997. The 1997 VHS release has the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection logo, despite being a direct-to-video film.
It was released for the first time on "Special Edition" DVD on April 11, 2006, with digitally remastered picture and sound quality. It includes a featurette "Pooh's Symphony" and the 1968 film, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
The film, alongside Piglet's Big Movie, was released on Blu-ray for the first time as a Disney Movie Club exclusive on July 17, 2018 to coincide with its belated 20th anniversary and the live-action Christopher Robin film, released over two weeks later.

## Video games

Elements of the plot – such as the skull, and the mis-read map – were used in the 2001 video game Party Time with Winnie the Pooh and in the 2006 video game Kingdom Hearts II.

## Sources

The film's plot is based primarily on two A. A. Milne stories from The House at Pooh Corner: "In which Rabbit has a busy day and we learn what Christopher Robin does in the mornings," and "In which Christopher Robin and Pooh come to an Enchanted Place and we leave them there".

## Songs

All tracks are written by Michael Abbot and Sarah Weeks