|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
CONTENTS
Winnie
the Pooh
Daisy
Duck
Donald
Duck Comics
Disney's version of the well loved tales of A.A. Milne hit the silver screen for the first time in February 1966.Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Treewas the first of a series of four featurettes and an educational short which would be released between 1966 and 1983. Of these, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too were released in March 1977 as a composite feature film.The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
The educational short, released in 1981, was titled Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons and Winnie the Pooh and Friends was aired in December 1982 as Pooh's first television appearance. A fourth short was released in 1983 titled Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. Generally speaking the films were well received. The Disney versions matched the original illustrations quite closely and the stories stayed reasonably close to the books as well. The films were all well animated though the fourth one was not quite up to Disney excellence. This was probably due to the fact that it was done by Rick Reinert Productions and only released under the Disney name. With the success of the films, Winnie the Pooh merchandising became very big as well. Many a nursery is decorated with Pooh wallpaper, has Pooh lamps shades and babes in Pooh 'jammies. Winnie the Pooh also appeared in his own comic book starting in 1977 and has graced the cover of many colouring books and other literature. In 1988 the Disney people began a new Pooh adventure by introducing 'the bear with little brain' to Saturday morning cartoons. At first Pooh appeared on ABC opposite those other popular Disney bears, the Gummis on NBC. The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was originally an hour long show made up of three shorts. In the 1989 season Pooh moved to a half hour slot teamed up with the Gummi Bears (now on ABC) and starred in another series of shorts. Over fifty of these cartoons have been released so far and while they are designed for a younger audience than the original Pooh films, they are well animated (by Saturday morning standards) and enjoyable. Though Pooh is the main character in these shorts he is often upstaged by his fellow critters, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Eeyore, Christopher Robin and Gopher. The latter being the only one invented by Disney for the films and not appearing in any of the books. Another educational film was released in 1990 titled Winnie the Pooh's ABC of Me and in 1991 the television television special Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too was aired followed a few years later by an Easter special. This year, 2000, another feature length Pooh film has appeared, The Tigger Movie starring Pooh's bouncy sidekick. Between films Pooh and his friends serve as welcomers in the Disney theme parks and word has it that in 2001 a new attraction called Pooh's Hunny Hunt will debut in Tokyo Disneyland with guests floating about in hunny pots in the Hundred Acre Wood. (Originally published in Disnemation #14 and updated in 2000)
Mickey had Minnie, Donald had Daisy. Unlike Mickey, however, who was with Minnie from the start, it was sometime after his first appearance in 1934 that Donald acquired girlfriend. In 1937, a certain Donna Duck appeared in Don Donald. A vain capricious forerunner of Daisy she was ousted when Daisy appeared in Mr. Duck Steps Out in 1940. Daisy would remain Donald's main squeeze though her roles in his shorts were not very frequent. In 1945 she attempted to make a new man of Donald by insisting he control his temper in Cured Duck, then in 1946 she worked on his jealousy in Donald's Double Trouble. Daisy co-starred again in Sleepy Time Donald and Donald's Dilemma in 1947, Donald's Dream Voice in 1948 and Crazy Over Daisy in 1950. In all she was in only 14 cartoons. Throughout it all she remained faithfully in the role of Donald's girlfriend, (they never married) and she never developed on her own. It was the comic strips which saw her become more like the typical scatter- brained girlfriend of the popular 1950's TV sitcoms. In 1953 her three nieces, April, May and June arrived on the scene in an edition of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Daisy was used sparingly in the comics at first but her main claim to fame lay in this media where for a time (1954-1962) she had her own comic book titled Daisy Duck's Diary and appeared in two specials with Uncle Scrooge in 1960 and 1961. A new series. Donald and Daisy, began in 1973. Although retired from films she had a brief baton twirling part in the opening number of the Mickey Mouse Club. More recently she played the part of Ebenezeer Scrooge's lost love Isabel in the 1983 release of Mickey's Christmas Carol and made a cameo appearance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988. (Originally published in Disnemation #1 and updated in 2000)
Many of the stamps issued to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Donald Duck in 1984 featured artwork taken from comic book covers. The stamps from Antigua and Barbuda are an excellent example of this. All denominations, except the 10c, feature covers from Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. The 10c is from Walt Disney's Donald Duck comic. The dates and artists of the covers are as follows: 1c - WDC&S - July 1959 - Carl Barks; 2c - WDC&S - August 1949 - Carl Barks; 3c - WDC&S - June 1951 - Al Taliaferro; 4c - WDC&S - June 1955 - Carl Barks; 5c - WDC&S - April 1959 - Carl Barks; 10c - WDDD - Nov-Dec 1957 - Tony Strobl; $1 - WDC&S - August 1952 - Tony Strobl; $5 - WDC&S - July 1951 - Carl Barks; souvenir sheets - $5 - s/s with lemonade stand - WDC&S - July 1949 - Walt Kelly. The $5 s/s showing the evolution of Donald Duck was drawn by various artists. Donald as he appeared in 1934 is from the short Wise Little Hen; as drawn by Al Taliaferro for comic strips in 1936; as Don Donald, 1936; from the feature film Saludos Amigos, 1941; as drawn for comic books by Carl Barks in 1946; and as drawn by Jack Hannah for movie and TV in the 1950s. The $2 sheetlet of 8 has tabs around it featuring black and white drawings from scrap in the Disney Archives showing Donald in various water sports. The Cachet on the First Day Cover is from the cover of 4-color #408 Donald Duck and the Golden Helmet, art by Carl Barks. (Excerpt adapted from The Handbook of Disney Philately)