Heffalumps and Woozles

"Heffalumps and Woozles" is a song from the 1968 Walt Disney musical film featurette Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. It was written by the Sherman Brothers, and performed by The Mellomen. It is also in the 1977 full-length feature film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

The song is about phantasmagoria elephants (heffalumps) and weasels (woozles) becoming a threat to Pooh and his food source (honey). The song serves as a soundtrack to the iconic, psychedelic "Pooh Nightmare" sequence where Pooh subconsciously deals with the theft of his all-too-precious honey. The sequence is generally considered by audiences to be quite eerie for a children's film. Elements from this song are played when Pooh can hear growling and banging noises from outside his house, which turn out to be Tigger.

It was shown in A Disney Halloween which aired every year from 1983 to the late 1990s.

Despite the song not being featured in the 2005 feature, Pooh's Heffalump Movie, it is generally accepted that the song and accompanying visual montage serves as the inspiration of the Heffalump film. Such is more definitively the case with the relationship between the Sherman Brothers' song, The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers and the 2000 release of The Tigger Movie.

The song bears a strong resemblance to the Pink Elephants on Parade animated sequence from the 1941 film Dumbo, which likewise features nightmarish visions of elephants. Part of the melody is highly reminiscent of the chorus of the traditional Scottish song Charlie Is My Darling.

The song is the main theme in dream scenes of the Winnie the Pooh series of rides at the Disney Parks. Part of the song is played as part of the soundtrack of HalloWishes, a Halloween-themed fireworks display held during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom and Halloween Screams, a similar-themed show at Disneyland during Mickey's Halloween Party.

Covers

 * The song was covered by synthpop group Information Society, along with guest artist Ayria, on their 2016 album Orders of Magnitude. The cover is in the style of industrial music, and is sometimes played in the band's live sets.

Literary sources

 * Sherman, Robert B. Walt's Time: from before to beyond. Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998.
 * Peterson, Monique. Disney's The Little Big Book of Pooh. New York: Disney Editions, 2002.