Pooh's Heffalump Movie

Pooh's Heffalump Movie is a 2005 animated film produced by DisneyToon Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures, featuring characters from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories. This film features songs by Carly Simon. It was the final Pooh film released in John Fiedler's lifetime.

Plot
Winnie the Pooh and his friends hear a strange noise and find a set of large, perfectly circular footprints in the Hundred Acre Wood (and, in Tigger's case, a major earthquake in the middle of the night, causing his house to be severely damaged). They jump to the conclusion that the noise and prints are from a heffalump. After they describe heffalumps in a song to Roo, Rabbit organizes an expedition to go try to catch it; a disappointed Roo is told to stay behind, as everyone believes the expedition is too dangerous for one as young as he. Roo slips out on his own in search of the heffalump, and soon finds one; a playful young four-footed creature named Heffridge Trumpler Brompet Heffalump IV (nicknamed "Lumpy"), coloured lavender and having a British accent and a trunk like an elephant, but being not much larger than Roo. Roo is afraid at first, but the two quickly become friends and play.

After a while, Lumpy hears his mother calling for him to come home. Roo wants Lumpy to come home with him to meet all of his friends first, and they head towards the Hundred Acre Wood. When they get to the fence, Lumpy suddenly stops; thinking that the "creatures" that live there are scary. Roo reassures him and they return to the Hundred Acre Wood, which is deserted, as everyone else is still out searching for the heffalump. Roo and Lumpy soon become great friends and find that they're not so different after all. While playing (and making a mess of Pooh's house and Rabbit's garden), the two friends hear Lumpy's mother calling him to come home again. Lumpy and Roo search for his mother, but she is nowhere to be seen. Lumpy uses his trunk to call to her, but doesn't work. After hours of searching, Lumpy assumes that they will never find her, and starts to cry. Roo sings a part of a song to Lumpy, that his mother sang to him earlier in the film; which gives Roo an idea, they could go find his mother, and see if she can help Lumpy.

Meanwhile, the others have returned home only to notice that Pooh's house and Rabbit's garden were messy and they think they're invaded by the heffalump. They soon find Kanga and the rest of the gang. Rabbit thinks that Lumpy has captured Roo, and the gang starts to chase Lumpy through the traps that were set up earlier in the film. All fails as Lumpy escapes through all the traps that they set up. Running after Lumpy, Roo gets caught in the last trap. A frightened Lumpy keeps on running, and escapes into the woods. Roo manages to get out of the trap, and runs to find Lumpy, but quickly sees that he is trapped in a giant cage (which is one of the traps they lost earlier). Lumpy madly and sadly tells his friend that he had broke his promise; as Roo had said before that his friends wouldn't be scary. Roo makes many attempts to break the cage, but all fails to work. He apologizes for everything, and explains that it is all his fault. Roo looks up at the cage, and soon sees that the only way to free his friend, is to untie the rope holding the cage together. He climbs all the way to the top, unties the rope, and frees Lumpy, who is very happy that Roo had rescued him, and Lumpy and Roo hug. Kanga, who had saw the whole thing, peeks from behind a tree, and is amazed what Roo had done, and on how much they see each other as friends.

Then Rabbit, Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet come running around the corner, still thinking that Lumpy has captured Roo, and they all lasso Lumpy. Roo jumps on Lumpy's head, and yells at them to stop, and explains (with some help from Kanga) to his friends that Heffalumps aren't scary nor are they mean. While Roo is explaining this (making the others to start feeling emotional for what they're doing), Lumpy (who's still scared) starts to fall down a ditch, and sends Roo flying in the air and lands into a pile of giant logs, reaching down to 50 feet.

Everyone, including Lumpy, try to save him, but nothing works due to the log's weight. Lumpy then gets an idea, and tries to use his call to get his mother to come and save Roo. After a few tries, he finally gets his call right, and his mother comes and saves Roo by throwing some of the logs aside. Lumpy's mother is very proud that he found his call, and they both reconcile. Pooh then explains to Rabbit why the heffalump was in The Hundred Acre Wood; she was looking for her baby. Rabbit then apologizes to Lumpy for his behavior, and he forgives him, making Tigger like Lumpy already for calling Rabbit Long Ears. Lumpy's mother tells him it's time to go home. Lumpy says goodbye to his friend, but Roo has a better idea; He pleads to his mom to play with Lumpy a bit more and the movie is ended with Roo and Lumpy playing together, and toward the sky showing cloud formations of Roo and Lumpy. The end credits show that Lumpy, Roo, Tigger, Rabbit, Eeyore, Piglet, Pooh, and even Christopher Robin are best friends now.

Background
Although heffalumps (elephant-like, assumingly predatory characters that were created for the Winnie-the-Pooh children's book series) have appeared briefly in past Pooh films and programs in recent years prior to 2005, Pooh's Heffalump Movie served to be the definitive on-screen follow-up and response to 1968's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day in regards to Pooh's nightmare about heffalumps and woozles. This is clearly indicated by the visual depiction of heffalumps in the vignette that accompanies the song "(The Dreadfully-Dreaded, Thoroughly Three-Headed) Horribly Hazardous Heffalumps", which is kept in the same musical style as the song "Heffalumps And Woozles" that accompanies Pooh's nightmare from 1968.

Cast

 * Jim Cummings as Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger
 * Nikita Hopkins as Roo
 * Kyle Stanger as Lumpy the Heffalump
 * Peter Cullen as Eeyore
 * Kath Soucie as Kanga
 * John Fiedler as Piglet
 * Ken Sansom as Rabbit
 * Brenda Blethyn as Mama Heffalump

Reception
The film made $5,805,559 in its opening weekend for an average of $2,296 from 2,529 theaters, The film ended up with a final gross of $18,098,433 in North America. The film made $34,760,000 internationally, bringing the total worldwide gross to $52,858,433. Reviews were generally positive, resulting in a "Certified Fresh" rating of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sequel
A sequel, Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie, was released direct-to-video on September 13, 2005.