This is drawn from a 1988 episode of the Disney animated series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I enjoy many of the episodes from the series, but the majority of them are pure trash: nonsensical plots stuffed with slapstick.

In this episode, for some unexplained reason, a bath washes away all of Tigger's stripes. Also unexplained is that without the stripes, Pooh, Piglet and Rabbit can no longer recognize Tigger or what creature he might be. They suggest this complete stranger whom they were forcefully bathing mere moments before tries emulating them to see if he is a rabbit, bear or pig. Pratfalls and hijinks fill out Tigger's quest for identity. As the runtime of the episode ticks down, the stripes come back without explanation and the status quo is restored.

I previously read another adaptation of the same episode in a picture book called Stripes. Both books use the same illustrations but this one, being much shorter drops nearly half the pictures. The script here is entirely new at least, though it is severely truncated compared to the 10-minute TV episode. As with the other adaptation, a sequence with Tigger decorated as Christmas tree in the cartoon is substituted with a scene of Tigger trying on Piglet's sweater that is not in the cartoon. I'm guessing the editors wanted to remove the Christmas reference since it makes little sense, what with the story being set in the middle of summer based on the size of Rabbit's tomatoes. (Or maybe the right-wing Disney haters are right and this is more evidence of the war on Christmas.)

FOR REFERENCE:

Picture book adaptation of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh animated segment "Stripes," from Season 1, Episode 8; first aired March 6, 1988; directed by Karl Geurs, David Block and Terence Harrison; story by Terrie Collins and Mark Zaslove; teleplay by Terrie Collins, Mark Zaslove and Bruce Reid Schaefer.

(Pooh Project: Phase 2! I've managed to catalog all the shorter Pooh books my family owns (see the list here). While I work through few remaining longer Pooh books we own, I'm missing my daily dose of Pooh, so I'm going to start seeking out some of the Pooh books I don't own – yet – from libraries IRL and online. See the reviews here.) ( )