Published by Parker Brothers in 1964, the Winnie the Pooh Game was a child-friendly board game that saw Pooh and friends trek to the North Pole.
Written by A. A. Milne and illustrated by E. H. Shepard, the character of Winnie the Pooh first appeared in London’s Evening News newspaper on Christmas Eve 1925. Children’s books featuring the honey-loving bear and his friends were then produced by the duo beginning in 1926. The Walt Disney Company acquired the rights to Winnie the Pooh in 1961 and went on to create the franchise we know today.
Using Disney-style character illustrations, the Parker Brothers board game calls upon a premise introduced in Chapter 8 of A. A. Milne’s The Complete Tales & Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh where the friends embark on an expedition to the North Pole.
GAMEPLAY
The game used coloured discs to progress the characters along the path to the North Pole. There was no dice required, making the game easy for young players who had yet to learn to count.
The discs were placed in a opaque grab bag. Players took turns taking a disc from the bag and moving their characters along the path to the next available square that matched the colour of their selected disc. Events occurred along the way. Players who landed on special stops could have their positions advanced or regressed. There were stops that named specific characters for action, making the luck of the draw an important element.
The first player to land at the North Pole won the game. A bit of grace was given here: the North Pole was marked by two spots, meaning players could pull either a red or blue disc to win the game.
IN THE BOX
A complete game included a game board, four character pawns (Pooh, Piglet, Christopher Robin, and Rabbit), coloured discs (green, red, blue, yellow, purple, orange, and black), and a grab bag for the discs. Instructions were printed on a platform inside the box.
COLLECTOR CONSIDERATIONS
Winnie the Pooh has grown to become a multi-generational franchise thanks to the many books, stage productions, movies, featurettes, games, and toys produced over the decades. Enthusiasts and collectors gather at the annual Poohfest celebration in White River, Ontario (birthplace of the real-life bear that helped inspire the stories) to honour the legacy of the franchise. While The Walt Disney Company still holds the licensing to the franchise, the 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh book entered the public domain in 2022, making it legal for anyone to use elements contained within the book.
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