Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (also known as Winnie the Pooh's Most Grand Adventure in some countries) is a 1997 direct-to-video animated movie.  It is a sequel to Walt Disney's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

The movie follows Pooh and his friends on a trip to find and rescue their friend Christopher Robin from the "Skull".

Because of the movie's dark themes and pictures, it had mixed to negative reviews.  It was the first Disney direct-to-video movie. It is also the first Winnie the Pooh movie ever to have its own special edition.

Plot
On the last day of summer, Christopher Robin attempts to tell his friend Winnie-the-Pooh some unpleasant news, but Pooh is disinterested and continuously changes the subject. After spending the day playing, Christopher Robin leaves Pooh with the advice, "You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think," but the drowsy Pooh does not clearly understand. Autumn arrives the next morning, and Pooh awakes to find a pot of honey at his doorstep, failing to notice a note attached to it. After eating the contents and staining the note in honey, Pooh searches for Christopher Robin to ask about the honey pot, but discovers that he is missing. Pooh's friends – Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, and Eeyore – have not seen Christopher Robin either and cannot decipher the note attached to the pot, so they go to Owl for assistance. Although he is able to remove some of the honey from the note, Owl misinterprets it as a request for help from Christopher Robin. Further mispronouncing the word "school" as "skull", he deduces that Christopher Robin has been taken to a distant and dangerous place called "Skull", a cave where the monstrous "Skullasaurus" resides. Owl equips the group with a map and sends them into the "Great Unknown" of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Throughout their journey through the Great Unknown, the group hears strange noises behind them, which they assume is the Skullasaurus. The group slowly begins to realize just how helpless they are without Christopher Robin in the outside world. Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit come to believe they do not have the courage, strength, or intelligence respectively to go on; Piglet is abducted by a swarm of butterflies in a tranquil field, leaving him feeling scared and powerless, Tigger plummets into a deep gorge and is unable to bounce out to safety, eventually causing the others to fall in with him, and Rabbit continuously makes poor 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. When Rabbit finally breaks down and admits he has no idea where they are going, the group comes to terms with their failure and take shelter in a nearby cave. While everyone is asleep, Pooh laments on getting no closer to finding Christopher Robin.

The next morning, the five friends realize they had spent the night in the Skull Cave. The group enters and splits up to find Christopher Robin, and though Rabbit, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet eventually reunite, they are scared away by Pooh's distorted reflection as he walks towards them from behind a crystal wall, mistaking him for the Skullasaurus. As Pooh winds up stuck in a small crevasse, his friends believe that he has been eaten. They discover the "Eye of the Skull" where Christopher Robin is supposedly trapped, and overcome their fears and doubts to reach it. Observing his friends' bravery, Pooh 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, he realizes that Christopher Robin is still with him in his heart, even when they are not together, just as Christopher Robin had promised. As Piglet, Rabbit, Tigger, and Eeyore enter the Eye, they are found by Christopher Robin, who has been searching for them as well. He clears up Owl's misunderstanding of the note, explaining that he wanted Pooh to "help [him]self" to the honey pot he gave him. The roars of the Skullasaurus they have been plagued by were actually the noises of Pooh's stomach growling.

After Christopher Robin rescues Pooh from the pit, the group exits the cave, only to discover that from the outside, it and the other places they have crossed are not nearly as big and scary as they seemed when Christopher Robin was not with them. That evening, Christopher Robin says he will be returning to school the next day, but Pooh declares that he will always be waiting for him, and the two happily watch the sunset, knowing they will always have each other in the sanctuary of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Cast
Jim Cummings as Winnie-the-Pooh / Tigger's singing voice / Skullasaurus
John Fiedler as Piglet
Steve Schatzberg as Piglet's singing voice
Peter Cullen as Eeyore
Paul Winchell as Tigger
Ken Sansom - Rabbit
Andre Stojka - Owl
Brady Bluhm - Christopher Robin
Frankie J. Galasso - Christopher Robin's singing voice
David Warner as the Narrator

Songs
 "Forever and Ever", Performed by Jim Cummings and Frankie J. Galasso
 "Adventure is a Wonderful Thing", Performed by Andre Stojka
 "If It Says So, So It Is", Performed by Ken Sansom
 "Wherever You Are", Performed by Jim Cummings
 "Everything is Right", Performed by Jim Cummings  Peter Cullen (uncredited), Ken Sansom, John Fiedler, Jess Harnell, and Frankie J. Galasso.
 "Wherever You Are" [Reprise] (End Title) Performed by Barry Coffing and Vonda Shepard

References

Other websites

 
 
 Pooh's Grand Adventure DVD Review and Pictures at UltimateDisney.com

1997 movies
1990s fantasy movies
Disney animated movies
Disney direct-to-video movies
Movies about bears
Sequel movies
Winnie the Pooh