When I was a kid I grew up watching what is now known as Disney Animation’s “golden age.” I was spoiled rotten by the animation section from the House of Mouse by classics like “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “The Lion King,” etc. Each one of those films had a rich story, wonderful characters, gorgeous hand-drawn animation and, oh my, I better stop myself now before I gush another couple of paragraphs more about why they’re so great.
Clearly one of the most memorable aspects with all of those movies was the story. Barry Mattinson, who serves as the story supervisor on Walt Disney Pictures’ “Winnie the Pooh,” is a man who’s been working for the House of Mouse for years. He’s worked on the story for several of their more well-known features of recent years and is still keeping his hand in the animated “hunny” pot with “Winnie.”
One of the first people we went into “roundtable” mode with was Mr. Mattinson himself, accompanied by his the old but still cuddly-looking Winnie the Pooh plushie. He begins talking to us about how “Winnie the Pooh” has kept above ground for so many years, which of the original shorts he loved the most and how all the characters are some-what similar to ones in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.”
ShockYa: How was this different than the other versions of Winnie the Pooh?
Burny Mattinson: This was one the very easiest projects to work on. From day one it was like a dream come true because everyone knew what they wanted to do, and it just kept getting better and better. The story went fast, we had had the story and comps in less than a year, and for animation that’s very fast.
ShockYa: Do you think that’s because it’s a well known property already?
Burny Mattinson: A little of that, the characters are established and that’s helps a lot, so we had to find a Milne story, but we added our own version with the Backson. We had a story called “Rabbit’s Busy Day” and it was really a dry story, it didn’t have much going for it, but the confusion of the note found on Rabbit’s door “busy, back soon,” and then let’s have Owl interpret that the Backson has captured Christopher Robin, and then what do the characters do? That opened up a door for us, and became the backbone of the story, so it was marvelous – we played with Milne’s story.
ShockYa: Is that one yours? (points to old Pooh bear with him)
Burny Mattinson: Yes, this is the one that’s in the movie, of course. The story behind it is that I worked on the originals, we did the three segments, and in about 1973 or so the decision was to put it together as a movie called “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” We didn’t have any way of introducing it, so we shot a live action introduction for it, but it looked very cheesy – like it was done for television. It was really just a set with two corners and then they had the Pooh character standing there, and they lit it with bright lights. In this one they decided to do it with the actual replica of Christopher Robin’s room. In the first one I told my wife about it, and she was making dolls for our kids, and she was really good at it, and she was my assistant while we were animating it, so she knew the business. So I brought the mouse sheets home, and she built it, and I brought it to Wooly (Wolfgang Reitherson) who was our director, and I showed it to him and he said “I love it, this is great, but I contracted with Karen Johnson in the ink and paint department who used to do Walt’s dolls” – which he would give to celebrities. So she had done the doll already and he said “jeez, I can’t use it but I love the doll, can I put it in my office?” I said okay and it sat in his office and six months came by and he reluctantly gave it back to me. So I took it home, my kids played with it, their kids played with it, it ended up in the attic, and then we did this picture thirty or forty years later and I brought this guy in and they said “that’s the doll” so that’s what we used in the picture.
ShockYa: That’s a pretty sturdy doll, I’m surprised it isn’t missing an arm.
Burny Mattinson: It’s kinda neat. Winnie the sturdy pooh. So that’s how come he got in.
ShockYa: How do you feel the character has been received over the years?
Burny Mattinson: I think they love it, they really enjoyed it. Any time we’ve screened it it’s really popular. We recently did some screenings with college people, and it sold out, they’re around the block waiting to get in. The first ones we did were going to be done as a feature, Walt wanted to do it as a feature, but he got concerned and wanted to put it out as a featurette first to test the waters because the humor was so mild. It went out and did very well, and then we did a second one, “A Blustery Day” and that won an academy award and so we wound up doing the third and final one, and we put it together as a feature. Over the years it’s done very well, but Sears and Roebuck put it in their catalog I can’t remember when, and it shot through the roof. It’s been a great franchise in a way.
ShockYa: What is it about Winnie the Pooh that people cling on to, is it the pure innocence?
Burny Mattinson: I think it’s a lot of that. He has a very simple approach, and it’s easy going. And with Pooh it’s all about the tummy.
ShockYa: Was there anything new you discovered on this? As we get older we see different things in them.
Burny Mattinson: I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if I should say this. Early on we treated these characters very reverently, but someone said “these guys are a little bit like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” They’re a little zany, they’re a little nutty, and I think once we got that, we looked at it differently “let’s have more fun with this.” They’re a little loony in a way.
ShockYa: I have a horrible impression in my head of Winnie the Pooh smothering Tigger.
Burny Mattinson: (Laughs)
ShockYa: Winnie’s the Indian. That’s terrible.
Burny Mattinson: In our story meetings we start talking about things like that, and terrible jokes like that, but sometimes when we get there, we find funny jokes that we try to incorporate into the picture, but not as crude.
ShockYa: Cookie monster came under fire for his appetite, did Winnie ever get in trouble for his addiction to honey?
Burny Mattinson: I don’t think so, I think everyone thought “that’s pretty good stuff.”
ShockYa: There is that part where he’s got lines under his eyes, and he asking “I just need a little bit, a tiny bit, please.”
Burny Mattinson: That’s what I mean, they’re just fun characters, you just like being with them.
ShockYa: Out of the three original ones, what is your favorite?
Burny Mattinson: The Honey Tree because that was the first one and we really worked on that. We had a lot of extra stuff from that, and we cut it down to twenty minutes from an hour and a half. I had Owl come down and sing a song to Pooh while he’s stuck in the hole. He walks up to him and says “would you like me to sing you a song to pass the time?” And Pooh says “that would be lovely, Owl.” And he (clears throat) sings “It’s a fine thing to be feasting, but feasting to doesn’t pay, for you have feasted and increased in a most obese-ly way.” (laughs) So I loved that little song, and we had to lose it, unfortunately.
ShockYa: What’s the challenge of working on something so long ago and then now working with new people?
Burny Mattinson: That gave me a lot of concern because I didn’t know how the new people would think about this. But they had better ideas than we had thought about, and they were wonderful. Everyone in our story crew – there must have been about five – they were new and they did a wonderful job. Our directors were pro-story, and they knew their business there, and I had a chance to kibitz, and put my thoughts in too, but those guys were aces with great lines and ideas.
Make sure you take another trip back down to the Hundred Acre Woods to see “Winnie the Pooh,” out in theaters everywhere this July 15th.