- “Heffa nice day.”
- ―Tagline
Pooh's Heffalump Movie is a 2005 American animated film produced by the Disneytoon Studios, and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution on February 11, 2005 and for theaters exactly five years after The Tigger Movie, and for VHS and DVD was released on May 24, 2005.
Plot[]
A few months after the previous film, Winnie the Pooh and his friends hear a strange noise and find a set of large, perfectly circular footprints in the Hundred Acre Wood (and, in Tigger's case, a major earthquake in the middle of the night, causing his family portrait to be severely damaged). They jump to the conclusion that the noise and prints are from a Heffalump, and Rabbit organizes an expedition to go try to catch it; a disappointed Roo is told to stay behind, as everyone believes the expedition is too dangerous for one as young as he.
Roo could not resist to find a Heffalump himself, so he sets out. Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, and Tigger were heading to Heffalump Hallow, and they discovered that it looked different as well. They crossed the fence into the hallow without hesitation, but end up breaking up and getting lost in the woods, leaving Eeyore to catch up with the giant bag of all of their stuff. Roo was alone in the woods as well. The others get suspicious when his food got eaten. He finds a large dark cottage, adjacent to an abandoned water mill, and literally meets a Heffalump named Lumpy. After being convinced that Lumpy was a Heffalump, Roo attempts to capture Lumpy with his rope, but he is too strong for him; Lumpy thinks everything he does is a game. After an awkward ride, Roo discovers that Lumpy is young as him, convinced that growing up takes a very long time. Suddenly, Lumpy hears his mother calling for him to come home. Roo decides to let Lumpy to come with him to meet all of his friends first; they head towards the Hundred Acre Wood by bouncing, and Lumpy had a great idea for a song called "The Name Game", which Roo doesn't understand. Despite Roo hanging around with a Heffalump, Rabbit and Tigger plan an ambush to catch a Heffalump, but they become the intended targets themselves when Pooh and Piglet accidentally snatch Rabbit and Tigger out of hiding.
Meanwhile, Roo and Lumpy tried to get out to the Hundred Acre Wood, but Roo realizes that the Heffalumps are scared of him and what is out there at his home. Roo promises Lumpy that there will be nothing to be afraid of. The only problem was Lumpy trying to get his big body through the fence, but he made it through with Roo's help. Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit still didn't catch a Heffalump yet, but they end up lacking courage after a Heffalump calls out, and failed. Roo and Lumpy go inside Pooh's house, and the latter gets hungry. He consumes a pot of Pooh's honey, but ends up destroying his house. Roo and Lumpy flee to Rabbit's house, but after a bite a watermelon, they wind up playing reckless around the crops, and end up in a terrible mess. Roo talks Lumpy into a fun time swimming in the water and cloud-chasing. Roo and Lumpy soon become great friends after the former finds out that Heffalumps are not mean after all. Meanwhile, Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, and Tigger flee out of Heffalump Hallow, and even though they made it home, they discover that Pooh's house and Rabbit's garden have been wrecked, making them fed up with all the trouble. As they take severe measures in their own ideas, they had set up a bunch of booby traps around their borders. Meanwhile, Roo and Lumpy were having fun until Lumpy's mother started calling him to come home again, they went back to Heffalump Hallow to search for his mother, but it proves difficult. Lumpy uses his trunk to call to her, but it's still not loud enough. After a day of searching, Roo cheers up Lumpy with a song. Afterwards, Roo realized that his mother, Kanga will know what to do to help Lumpy gets back to his mother.
Unfortunately, Kanga went to look for Roo, and ends running in to the rest of the gang. Roo and Lumpy find Kanga, but things went wrong when Roo was found with Lumpy. Rabbit and Tigger think that Roo was in danger, and the chaos starts by them chasing Lumpy around the woods through the traps that were set up earlier, but they end up scaring Lumpy away out of their borders. Roo ends up breaking his promise to Lumpy, and his heart was broken. Roo talks his sense into Lumpy and gets him out the cage.
But Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit were still not convinced, Roo reveals that Lumpy is Roo's best friend, and sets Lumpy free once and for all (much to Rabbit's chargin). Unfortunately, because of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit, Roo gets into more danger alone, as Lumpy starts to fall off the ditch; Roo tries to grab him, but loses his grip and gets stuck into a pile of logs. Lumpy tries to call his mother to save Roo; he may still be young, but regardless, his big heart does not preclude him to save his friend. Lumpy finally lets out a huge call with his trunk, and his mother finally found him. With Mama Heffalump's help, Roo gets saved and finally becomes friends with the Heffalumps. Once Pooh understands about everything that has happened, he and everyone else apologize to both Lumpy and Roo for their prejudices (they allowed their fear to make enemies out of themselves), who forgive them all. With that, the Heffalumps become part of the family. Eeyore finally comes back to his friends. A few days later, the Heffalumps learn about the main borders in the Hundred Acre Wood, and the existence of Christopher Robin, ending the film.
Cast[]
- Nikita Hopkins as Roo
- Kyle Stanger as Lumpy
- Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh & Tigger
- John Fiedler as Piglet
- Kath Soucie as Kanga
- Peter Cullen as Eeyore
- Ken Sansom as Rabbit
- Brenda Blethyn as Mama Heffalump
Trivia[]
- The film completely ignores previous interactions with the Heffalumps in the TV series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. There it has already been shown that Heffalumps are real creatures and not all of them are so scary. Earlier Heffalumps are bipeds, they wear clothes, and are of a different color to the ones in the movie, which are purple and are quadrupeds.
- There are many call-backs to previous Winnie-the-Pooh films:
- One of the traits Heffalumps were said to have is that they love to eat and steal honey. In the film, Lumpy is seen taking some of Pooh's honey.
- Tigger has a family portrait consisting of him and his parents, despite it being confirmed he is the one and only tigger in the woods.
- Roo calls catching a Heffalump an "expedition", which is a word used in not just The Tigger Movie, but in the original stories by A.A. Milne (An Expedition to the North Pole).
- During the end credits:
- Lumpy is seen flying Piglet like he is a kite. This is a reference to the short, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, where Piglet is flying through the air on a string like a kite.
- Lumpy appears stuck in a hole, and the others are trying to pull him out, which is what happened to Pooh in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. Unlike the short, they successfully pull Lumpy out.
- Christopher Robin makes a silent cameo.
- Owl and Gopher didn't appear in this movie nor did they get mentioned. This is the only theatrical Winnie The Pooh movie not to feature Owl.
- It was the last traditionally animated film to be released in theaters worldwide until The Princess and the Frog. And it was the last Disneytoon Studios theatrical film worldwide until Planes.
- Eeyore would never have been able to get the grandfather clock through the fence.
- At first, Rabbit had the net, but after a while, Piglet somehow got the net.
- This is the second Winnie the Pooh film not to feature a narrator. However, Pooh does fill in for the narrator at the beginning and end of the film.
- The DVD came out on May 24, 2005. However, the DVD was discontinued.
- The way Roo said "WOW!" at the end of the film was recycled from The Tigger Movie after Tigger demonstrated the Whoopty-Dooper-Loopty-Looper-Alley-Ooper bounce the second time in that film.
- Despite the film's title, Roo is actually the main protagonist of the film, with Lumpy as the deuteragonist, Kanga as the tritagonist, Rabbit as the main antagonist of the film and Pooh (Alongside Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore) reduced to the subtagonist in the film.
- This is John Fiedler's final theatrical role of Piglet. While he returned to voice Piglet in Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie, he died before the film was released. The rest of his scenes, and the role of Piglet in general, would be voiced by Travis Oates.
- This is the first DisneyToon Studios movie to feature the company's closing logo after the end credits, but just before the 1990 Walt Disney Pictures closing logo, which would continue to be seen for the rest of the studio's movies until its defunct in 2018. This logo contains a brief piece of animation of Mickey Mouse writing the company's logo with a paintbrush to form the company's logo.
- This is the only DisneyToon Studios movie to feature the company's closing logo while logos of Sony Dynamic Digital Sound and DTS Digital Sound were seen during the end credits.
- The film runs at 68 minutes, which makes this the first and only shortest feature length Winnie the Pooh movie to be released theatrically until the 2011 Winnie the Pooh (film), which ran at 63 minutes.
- First involvement of Usher, D12, and OutKast in a Disney soundtrack.
- Despite all the characters who had main roles and dialogue, this is the first and the only theatrical Winnie the Pooh feature film where Eeyore has a minor role with only three lines.
- Although the teaser trailer was released in 2004, its copyright year is 2003. That means this teaser trailer was produced in 2003.
- Although the theatrical trailer was released in 2005, its copyright year is 2004. That means this trailer was produced in 2004.
- This is the last theatrically released Winnie the Pooh film by DisneyToon Studios.
Reception[]
The film was not very successful at the American box office, making just $5,805,559 in its opening weekend for an average of only $2,296 from 2,529 theaters, The film ended up with a final gross of $18,098,433 in North America, which is the worst for all the 4 Pooh movies that went to theaters, even adjusting for inflation. However, the film did much better in foreign markets, managing to make $34,760,000 internationally, bringing the total worldwide gross to $52,858,433, thereby making the film a giant success, since the film took just $20 million to make. Despite the tepid box office numbers, reviews were generally positive, resulting in a "Certified Fresh" rating of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, 68% by the audience, and a 6.4 (out of 10) on the Internet Movie Database.
Gallery[]
External links[]
- Pooh's Heffalump Movie on Wikipedia
- Pooh's Heffalump Movie on Winniepedia
- Pooh's Heffalump Movie on Disney.com
- Pooh's Heffalump Movie at the Big Cartoon DataBase
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