WINNIE THE POOH

1977

Based on the stories by Alan Milne, Winnie the Pooh is Disney's 22nd animated feature. Even though now it is considered a feature film (since it has been released as a single movie) the original version was divided three separate short films, Winnie the Pooh and the honey tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Winnie the Pooh and the Tigger Too, released from 1966.

Pooh was created by AA Milne based on his son (Christopher Robin) favourite stuffed animal, and named after the bear Winnipeg from the London Zoo. The various stories of Pooh and his friends started as bedtime stories for Christopher, but soon where compiled in a book called "When we were very young". Accompanied by the beautiful illustrations by EH Shepard, the book has a huge success in the UK.

ROBIN HOOD

1973

Based on the XIII century legend, usually told over ballads, Robin Hood is Disney's 21st animated feature. The story was originally proposed as an animated version of Reynard the Fox by Ken Anderson, but Walt thought it wouldn't be good to portray Reynard as a hero. The same character design was used as reference years later.

Ken was the main person responsible for the use of the Xerox process in Disney's previous animated features, and was also one of the main character designers from the studio, and even though Walt hated the aesthetics of the Xerox movies, the studio continued to use this process due to the low budget that was needed to produce them.

ARISTOCATS

1970

The Aristocats is Disney's 20th animated feature film, and the first one entirely produced after Walt Disney's death in 1966. Since the 50's, Walt had started working on other projects like amusement parks and tv programs, so the animation team was used to his absence (which grew bigger with each year), and had learned to think like Walt, so when he was gone, they could still work on a new feature that Walt would be proud of.

 But Walt wasn't completely unaware of what the studio's next feature would be. He actually gave the thumbs up to the team to start work on the Aristocats story.
The film was originally intended as a 2-part live-action film for Disney's weekly tv programme, but Walt decided it would be better as an animated feature.