About
Winnie the Pooh’s Home Run Derby is a flash game produced by Disney, in which the player controlls Winnie the Poo and tries to hit a home run in various levels. It became viral for its difficulty in 2013.
Origin
This flash game[1] was released circa 2008. It’s confirmed that the Japanese language version (Japanese: くまのプーさんのホームランダービー) was uploaded to Yahoo! Kids on July 28th of that year.
The notable feature of this game is the extreme hardcore gameplay unimaginable from its innocent looks.
Spread
3 and a half years after, some of internet users in both /livejupiter/ board in 2channel and /may/ (equivalent to 4chan’s /b/) board in Futaba Channel (2chan) found this game in the new year holidays of 2012.[2] They launched a wiki page for this game on January 2nd, 2012[3], and spent their holidays to beat that devilish forest animals.
In new year holidays season of 2013, it became to a topic again on both forums. The different point from the last season was that many affiliate blogs reprinting threads in both boards had been launched during the year. “Winnie the Pooh’s Home Run Derby” got a lot of visibility on the web by those blogs. And in that time, it was finally imported to 4chan.
This flash game was posted on a 4chan thread and on reddit afterwards by user Joelsaurus[4]. The post received 5193 upvotes as of January 4th, 2013. The post had several comments about the game difficulty and poor gameplay. Several reddit comments were featured in NBC Sports’ Off The Bench[5].
The game was featured on several sites and forums such as With Leather[6], Kotaku[7], Hupit Gaming forums[8], K94.5FM[9], and news website The Daily Dot[10].
Artwork
Artwork and photoshops are mainly based on the game’s difficutly in the later levels. Christopher Robin makes a common recurrance in these, as he is the pitches for Winnie the Poo in the final and hardest level.
Search Interest
External References
[1]Flashrelax – Winnie The Pooh’s Home Run Derby
[2]logsoku.com – プーさんの野球ゲームｗｗｗｗｗｗ | ログ速@なんでも実況J / Posted on 01-01-2012 (2ch’s thread archive, Japanese)
[3]@Wiki – くまのプーさんのホームランダービー！ (Japanese)
[4]reddit – 4chan discovered this kids game last night, called Winnie the Pooh Home Run Derby. No one has been able to beat the game completely. Give it a try if you want, but be prepared to rage quit. / Submitted on 01-03-2013
[5]NBC Sports’ Off the Bench – Reddit users are hilariously unnerved by a flash game called Winnie the Pooh Home Run Derby / Posted on 01-04-2013
[6]With Leather – Web Game 'Winnie The Pooh Home Run Derby' Declared QWOP Of 2013 / Posted on 01-04-2013
[7]Kotaku – This Winnie The Pooh Game Is Way Too Difficult For Kids / Posted on 01-04-2013
[8]Hupit Gaming – TOPIC: Winnie the Pooh Home Run Derby Challenge / Posted on 01-03-2013
[9]K94.5FM – Winnie The Pooh’s Home Run Derby Might Drive You Crazy / Posted on 01-04-2013
[10]The Daily Dot – Forget QWOP: 4chan discovers the most frustrating kids’ game ever / Posted on 01-03-2013