Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(2001)

Ah, the original Toy Story. I love poo. I also love Winnie the Pooh… 

For those who don’t know, a Pooh Bear is a particular bear characterized by a propensity for wearing shirts but not pants and maintaining a simplistic Pooh-centric worldview.

There’s a lot of Pooh out there. Some of it is more Poohier than other examples. I feel like most examples do Pooh wrong. I’ve ranted a bit about this before and ironically don’t feel compelled to get into it right now. I’ll save that for Pooh’s Grand Adventure, my nemesis. Oh, I hate Pooh’s Grand Adventure so much! So so much!

The Book of Pooh is a puppet performance which was charming enough. It reminded me of Pooh’s Corner which I think was by people in costumes in front of keyed-out blue screens. They did a similar thing with Dumbo’s Circus which I watched religiously as a child.

This Book of Pooh was a series of which I had in my possession only two episodes. It kind of throws out a lot of original canon but who really cares about Whinnie the Pooh canon? Nobody. The only reason I even wrote this paragraph is so I could have a legitimate reason to write the words “Pooh canon”. Comedy!

I think the spirit of the original Pooh is here and even though this incarnation is still trying to impart valuable lessons about friendship and whatnot, it’s not at all heavy-handed as some other Pooh venues that I shall not name again. (*author expectorates*)

In fact, the lessons our characters learn are imparted quite gently by their usual brand of silly misinterpretations and unlikely resolutions. I was pleasantly surprised. Or I’m biased in favor of puppets. Either way, I liked these episodes and wouldn’t complain if I was tied to a chair and forced to watch more. If someone could feed me pizza during, that’d be nice too.