| Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons | |
| Director: | Rick Reinert |
| Producer: | Rick Reinert |
| Narrator: | Laurie Main |
| Starring: | Hal Smith Kim Christianson Ray Erlenborn John Fiedler Ron Feinberg |
| Music: | Steve Zuckerman Robert & Richard Sherman |
| Studio: | Walt Disney Productions Rick Reinert Productions |
| Distributor: | Walt Disney Educational Media Company[1] |
| Runtime: | 9 minutes 28 seconds |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons is an educational short film produced by Rick Reinert Productions for Walt Disney Productions' educational media division and released in September 1981.[2] [3]
Christopher Robin presents Pooh with an interesting new gift—a calendar. Pooh has never seen one before, and Christopher Robin explains that it is a way of keeping track of the days, weeks, months and seasons. The calendar stops at each season, as we watch Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit and Owl in the Hundred Acre Wood exploring the world around them and noticing the changes. Among them: the water in the pond becomes hard and slick when it gets cold in the winter and becomes refreshing and fun to swim in when it gets warm in the summer.
This was the first time that Hal Smith voiced Winnie the Pooh.[4] Smith would voice the character until 1988 when Jim Cummings took over the role for The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The short's director, Rick Reinert, had previously directed A Nutrition Adventure, another Walt Disney Educational short. Disney contracted the work on this short out to Reinert's production company, Rick Reinert Productions, in lieu of producing it in-house.[5] Reinert would go on to direct 1983's Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore.