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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/951214-The-Dark-Side-of-Winnie-the-Pooh
Rated: 13+ · Other · Comedy · #951214
A cynical teenager's retrospect on a childhood classic. May necesitate therapy
This is something that's been kicking around in my head for a while. I'm guessing that the audience for this item will be sharply divided into two groups, those who think it's hysterical, those who hate it, and those who can't count.
Have you ever gone back and watched old videos or TV shows that you enjoyed as a young child, but have outgrown? Of course you have, let's be honest. Well, some of those old stupid jokes, which were previously funny just because Bugs Bunny said them, are now funny on a whole higher level that is not appreciated at the age of six.
Of course, on the other hand there are the things that made perfect sense when you were six that, in retrospect, are just wrong.
Case in point: Winnie the Pooh. (Apologies in advance to Disney and A.A. Milne)
The entire population of the Hundred-Acre-Wood seems to have some debilitating social or medical handicap.
Pooh's is obvious. He's a honey addict. There was this one time where he ran out of honey in his own house, so he had to go over to get some from Rabbit, who is apparently a dealer. After all, what is a rabbit doing with honey in his house if not to sell it to a honey-crazed, very desperate Pooh-Bear? Anyway Pooh comes over and begs and begs Rabbit for a small smackeral of honey. This is obviously a euphemism for a junkie going and begging for extra from his smack dealer.
Thankfully, there was a positive message illustrating the self-destructive consequences of an addiction, as Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's doorway as a result of eating to much. I suppose having him OD and die would have been a little traumatic, though I think he did get a stomach ache. Of course, he did not learn his lesson, there was no intervention from his friends, and his problem just faded into the background of a dysfunctional society, overlooked by the successful, detatched upper class.
As for Rabbit, besides being Pooh's dealer, he clearly has some intense issues with obsesive compulsive disorder. He's an extreme perfectionist. I seem to remember him wanting his burrow to be clean, and prestine, and being upset when Pooh came in and indulged in his honey bender, making quite a mess. How clean can a dirt burrow really be anyway?
Gopher (not in the book) is a social outcast, possibly because he whistles when he talks. He lives underground, and is constantly being stepped on, (seemingly unintentionally) and forced back into his hole by random characters' feet.
Eeyore (sp?) obviously has chronic depression (though if your tailbone had a nail permanently affixed to it, I suppose you would too). Thankfully he is a hoofed animal, as opposable thumbs might allow for him to become self-destructive. He should seriously invest in lots and lots of Zoloft. Or possibly lay off the sauce. Whichever.
Piglet is some kind of nervous wreck. Extreme paranoia would be my diagnosis if I were at all qualified to make such observations (just to clarify--I'm not).It's a good thing he lives in a forest, because I would bet he'd become a conspiracy-theorist the second he heard of Roswell. I can clearly imagine him in a bunker wearing a helmet made of aluminum foil, mapping out the movements of aliens and governments like a small, pink John Nash.
Tigger has severe ADHD (attention defecit hyper-active disorder) and is by far the most unstable character in the Hundred-Acre-Wood. I would guess he's a speed addict and should be locked up before he kills somebody by bouncing on them.
Kanga and Roo are a single-parent family, obviously without a father figure. The less said about that, the better.
Owl is a recluse, literally living above the others, and constantly flaunting his vast knowledge of everything, though said knowledge is often inaccurate (He spelled school with a "K" if I remember correctly.) He is just like a pompous politician, living in his own little reality, pretending to know everything, and leading astray those who look up to him.
Finally, Christopher Robin in the schitzophrenic who talks to all his stuffed animals.
Personally, I think a good movie would be an "R" rated Winnie the Pooh that ends with the revelation that Christopher Robin is a patient in the Hundre-Acre-Insane Asylum, but I'm weird.
I apologize if this column has sent you into therapy, and hope that somebody, somewhere, is as cynical as I, and finds this funny. If the latter is so, I've done my job right.
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