Well, This is not Christmas related but it will spark one of my wonderful rants. It seems the 100 acre woods will be gettign a new visitor to them. A tomboyish 6-year-old girl will join Tigger, Piglet and Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood in 2007. As part of many of the Winnie the Pooh anniversary events, Disney is working on a new animated series that will replace Christopher Robin with a 6-year-old girl.

I think Disney has gone too far this time. Okay making direct to DVD sequels that are destroying classic features Walt created, making Mickey and Friend CGI, even putting Stitch in Tomorrowland where an excellent attraction once sat. But WHY mess with a CLASSIC that has set the standard for Pooh in the books waaaaay before Walt even had Pooh? Details are sketchy on the as-yet-nameless new arrival, who will make her debut in the 2007 computer-generated series My Friends Tigger and Pooh. Disney execs say the idea is to bring an older audience to an iconic franchise born when British author A.A. Milne began musing about the imaginary world of his son, Christopher Robin.

Here is a quote from Disney Channel Execs courtesy of USA Today: “We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide,” says Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel.

I think is is complete horrififc and wrong to tamper with things like that. And overall, the whole - we need a breath of something new - is garbage since they just introduced a new character in the Heffalump film and in the most recent Halloween DVD as well. I have accepted this new addition but to replace Christopher seems uttery wrong to me. Christopher is to Pooh what Minnie is to Mickey. Let’s replace Minnie since Mickey needs some new life. THat’s how stupid it sounds. Sorry for ranting but I am against this totally.

Here is a quote from one of our local residents in my state courtesy of USA Today: “But some fans no doubt will feel that Winnie’s world was fine just the way it was. “This strikes me as a step too far away from the vision of the original books,” says Kathleen Horning, who trains children’s book librarians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Besides, growing up, I had no problem relating to Christopher Robin. He almost had a non-specific gender.”

Disney’s Kanter says the new cartoon represents not an abandonment of an old, familiar world, but rather an alternate universe for Pooh and his crew. And once again we resort to CGI. I LOVE CGI…do not get me wrong, but CGI isn’t important and the only way to animate. Sometime CGI gets in the way of what a true animator could do. I do embrace CGI and love Monster’s Inc. and many of the films, but for everything to be CGI is rediculous….now Pooh too.

USA Today stated from this quote from Disney: “Christopher Robin is still out there in the woods, playing,” she says. “We hope people will fall for this new tomboyish girl. The last thing we want to be is the ones who brought the franchise down.”

What do you all think?