Sears Build A Winnie the Pooh Bear: Hundred Acre Wood Works

Once upon a time, there was a retail giant called Sears.  Sears was well known for selling hardware and appliances.  But there was also a softer side to Sears.  In 1965, Sears began an alliance with Disney to exclusively sell Winnie the Pooh merchandise.  In the 1970s and 1980s, Pooh and his friends were essentially mascots for the children's section of Sears.  Among the clothing and toys sold at Sears were Bucilla Stitchery Kits.  If produced, these were probably the best looking plush representations of the characters that Sears designed.

The kits were not simply patterns.  They contained the materials to make the characters.  While they were sort of early versions of the Build A Bear concept, these look to be a lot more work, and curiously, some include wooden dowels.  So they were not exactly cuddly plush toys.  They were craft projects.

Winnie the Pooh seems to be the easiest of these kits to find.  Pooh's kit includes a Chenille Bee--these Bees are pretty common even today in craft stores.  And a cuddly wooden stick.

Eeyore is also a kit that seems to be easy to find.  Eeyore is made using a denim material.

Eeyore features printed eyes, nostrils, and other facial features.  They did the main detail work for you on these projects.

Eeyore doesn't include a wooden dowel rod.

Stuffing is also not included with these kits.  I can't remember if Sears sold stuffing.

Kanga and Roo are kind of difficult to find, and are generally a bit more expensive.

Kanga and Roo seem to be made of the same thick, furry material as the Winnie the Pooh project.

No Wooden dowel for Kanga and Roo.  This project seems like a lot of work, considering it is two characters.

The toughest character to find in this series is Tigger.

This project is my favorite by far, and easily the best Tigger item Sears ever did.

Tigger is made from a chic Tiger print material.  Perfect for a Jersey Shore housewife's coat, or a toy tiger!

Like Pooh, the towering, tall Tigger requires a wooden dowel rod for his construction.

I'm not sure if there were any more characters in this set, but so far I've only encountered these four.

Disney's Monkey King At Sears: A King Louie Jungle Book Mystery

The jungle is full of mystery.  Just like the curiosity that is Disney's Monkey King, a plush version of King Louie that appeared in a late 1980s Sears Catalog Wishbook.

n the 2016 movie version of Disney's The Jungle Book, King Louie is re-imagined as a King-Kong type Gigantopithecus ape---a large creature that used to exist in India.  The King Louie character was a Disney creation not featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book---orangutans are not native to India.

The introduction to Disney's Monkey King in the Sears catalog stood out to me for a few reasons.

Why did King Louie get a name change for this toy?  If you want to get technical, apes are not "monkeys".  So that drove me crazy.

Another big question:  Why was the Monkey King so off-model?  This does not look much like King Louie from the animated movie.

If anything, The Monkey King from Sears looks like a relative of Donkey Kong.

The Monkey King was part of a larger Disney collection of toys sold at Sears during the 1980s.

Of course, there was also a Baloo plush toy as part of this collection.

Baloo's name was not changed to "Bare Necessities Bear" or anything like that for the Sears toy.

The folks responsible for the Sears Jungle Book plush was the TCA Group Inc.

The Sears Baloo plush is really interesting, too.

While a lot of plush Baloo toys tend to stick pretty close to the character design in the movie, this one goes for the cuddle factor instead.

The Sears Baloo actually looks like a sloth bear (what Baloo is).

Sears made a point of making a big deal out of Baloo's tongue, which you don't typically see.

Shere Khan also appeared as part of the Jungle Book plush collection from Sears.

This is among the best plush toys I've seen of Shere Khan.

The Sears Shere Khan has some nice glass tiger eyes.  Glass Tiger was big in the 1980s (Google it).

I really like the Sears Jungle Book plush toys.  It seems like they predicted the future of the characters for the 2016 version of The Jungle Book.

Maybe Jon Favreau (director of the 2016 Jungle Book) saw or owned these toys at some point and thought of them when he was making his movie.

The Dawn Of Donkey Kong And Mario

It seems like every kid that I know is obsessed with Mario and Donkey Kong.  My niece, my nephew, and the kids that my friends have all share the same interest in the little Italian plumber and the lumbering gorilla.  I get it, of course, because I remember when those particular Nintendo characters first took the world by storm way back in 1981.

The version of Donkey Kong we had was made by Coleco and could be played on the Atari Video Computer System and the Sears Video Arcade.  This game was very, very primitive.

I think Mario has been popular for so many years because kids feel like they actually participate in his adventures.

Are you ready to play Donkey Kong?  There's a bit of prep work you need to do first.

You need access to a really old TV to play this game.  It is OK if the TV is a black and white set.

Familiarize yourself with the game controls.  Be careful not to break them when you get frustrated.

I'd like to mention here that there was actually a Donkey Kong Cereal sold around this time (It had "Crunchy Barrels of Fun For Breakfast").  It was tasty (kind of like Cap'n Crunch)---and healthy (nothing says "nutrition" like frosted pieces of cereal shaped like barrels).

The levels in the game all looked very similar.

Donkey Kong was so popular that a spin-off called "Donkey Kong Jr." debuted in 1982.  Donkey Kong had to save his son from Mario (the villain in this game).  Yes, there was a Donkey Kong Jr. Cereal, too (it had marshmallow fruit pieces).

I no longer have the game system to play this version of Donkey Kong, but the Game Cartridge and Instructions somehow survived.

By 1983, Donkey Kong, Mario and Donkey Kong Jr. starred in the animated TV series "Saturday Supercade" on CBS.

For more fun, check out Q*bert and Saturday Supercade.

Of course, everyone knows that Donkey Kong and Mario went on to star in many popular Nintendo games, including "Chiropractor Mario" and "Donkey Kong's Frozen Banana Cart Race."

Walt Disney World At Sears

For many years, Winnie the Pooh was the mascot for the children's section at the Sears retail chain. In 1988, the Disney presence was expanded at Sears, including merchandise based on Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Main Street was meticulously constructed with plastic and fiberboard, and visitors and characters were brought to life as tiny PVC figures. The Walt Disney World Railroad was an electric train, naturally.

I never saw this set in person, but I do have the Winnie the Pooh character figures, which I call the Mini Winnie the Pooh Zoo Crew .



You can have Walt Disney World at Christmas everyday with this set. Not included are PVC figures of Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa to host Mickey's Very Merry Christmas parade.

This set also features Snow White and three of the Seven Dwarfs. Amazingly, they chose not to feature Dopey.

It would have been nice to see Mickey Mouse balloons as an accessory. And maybe a churro cart.

The set only has a backdrop for Cinderella Castle, but Sears did offer that landmark as another toy.

This fun set even has the parking lot tram. Kewl!

What's this? Why, it's an educational Magic Kingdom toy.

I thought Epcot Center was the place for all the learnin'.


For more fun times, there's the Magic Kingdom Bagatelle game, featuring Big Thunder Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's A Small World, the Carousel, the Mad Tea Party and Cinderella Castle. I never knew this type of game had a name.

Who will win the Race to Pooh Corner Game? Not Mr. Toad from Disney's version of Wind in the Willows, that's for sure.

Then there's a Winnie the Pooh version of Tic-Tac-Toss. This high-tech game involves players throwing small beanbags at a board.

It's Disney and Nintendo games at Sears!

Technology has come a long way. I think McDonald's had Happy Meals with games like these a few years ago.

Sears also featured plush toys of some popular (for 1988) Disney characters.

Elliott the dragon from Pete's Dragon was seen by few humans in the film's story and is seen by few people in toy form these days.

The newest animated Disney characters in 1988 were the dogs and cat featured in "Oliver and Company." The film was inspired by the story of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, and set in 1980s New York City.

Kitten Oliver was voiced by Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel sang and spoke as Dodger the dog, Cheech Marin played Tito the Chihuahua, and Roscoe Lee Browne was Francis the bulldog.

Sears sold the closest thing to Oliver and Company action figures. These fragile, flocked, hollow vinyl figures with limited motion were not really built to withstand much play.


Somehow, Disney has not yet unleashed a toy line called "Disney's Kennel Club," featuring small collectible figures and play sets representing all its canine and feline stars. Wouldn't that make a fortune? I sure think it would. There'd be the Aristocats Cat Show set, the Lady and the Tramp Dog Park set, the 101 Dalmatians Fire Station, and more sets with all sorts of character mixes.

Of all the Disney characters, Winnie the Pooh was the biggest ever at Sears. The Pooh Train set was one of the neatest items, as it featured the characters on rides. A Mickey Mouse "Disneyland" version of this toy was sold at other retail chains.


The Winnie the Pooh Train was relaunched many years later and sold in the Disney Catalog.

The newer Train set features a different paint scheme and new sculpts of the characters. I prefer the older version.

The next time you go get a washing machine or power tools at Sears, you can remember back to the good old days when "The Softer Side of Sears" included Disney and its popular overweight British plaything.

Mini Winnie the Pooh Zoo Crew

These little articulated rubbery PVC figures of the old school Winnie the Pooh costume characters were part of a Magic Kingdom playset collection at Sears in the late 1980s. These figures are small (about 2 inches tall) and rather cheaply made, but the likenesses of the characters is pretty much spot-on. This set was only available through the Sears Catalog, and included Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, and Cinderella. There was a big Main Street set you could get with Mickey and Minnie, too. This collection, like many Sears items at the time, was not very popular and not made very well.

But I love these little figures, and the costumes they are based on.