Information about Winnie The Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh
First appearance	Winnie-The-Pooh (1926)
Created by	A. A. Milne and Ernest Shepard
Voiced by	Sterling Holloway (1966 - 1979) Hal Smith (1980 - 1988) Jim Cummings (1988 - Current)
Also known as	Pooh, Pooh Bear, Winnie, Edward Bear, Silly Old Bear, Bear Of Very Little Brain

Winnie-the-Pooh, commonly shortened to Pooh and once referred to as Edward Bear, is a bear created by A. A. Milne. The character first appeared in the children books Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included several poems about Winnie-the-Pooh in the children’s poetry books When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard.

The hyphens in the character's name were later dropped when The Walt Disney Company adapted the Pooh stories into a series of Winnie the Pooh featurettes which became one of the company's most successful franchises worldwide.

The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages, notably including Alexander Lenard's Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu, which was first published in 1958, and, in 1960, became the first foreign-language book to be featured on the New York Times Bestseller List, and is the only book in Latin ever to have been featured therein.

History

Origin

Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son, Christopher Robin Milne, who was the basis for the character Christopher Robin. His toys also lent their names to most of the other characters, except for Owl and Rabbit, who were probably based on real animals, and the Gopher character, who was added in the Disney version. Christopher Robin's toy bear is now on display at the Donnell Library Center Central Children's Room in New York.^[1]

Christopher Milne had named his teddy after Winnipeg, a bear which he and his father often saw at London Zoo, and "Pooh", a swan they had met while on holiday. Winnipeg the Bear was puchased from a hunter for $20 by Canadian Lieutenant Harry Colebourne in White River, Ontario, Canada, while en-route to England during WWI. He named the bear "Winnipeg" after his hometown in Winnipeg, Manitoba. "Winnie", as she became known, became the mascot of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, and when the brigade left for France, Colebourne gave Winnie to the London zoo. The bear, called "Winnie", was known as a gentle bear who never attacked anyone, and she was much loved for her playfulness. This is exactly what inspired Milne to write about Pooh Bear.^[2] Pooh the swan appears as a character in its own right in When We Were Very Young.

In the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne offers this explanation of why Winnie-the-Pooh is often called simply "Pooh": "But his arms were so stiff ... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think - but I am not sure - that that is why he is always called Pooh."

The home of the Milnes, Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England, was the basis for the setting of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. The name of the fictional "Hundred Acre Wood" is reminiscent of the Five Hundred Acre Wood, which lies just outside Ashdown Forest and includes some of the locations mentioned in the book, such as the Enchanted Place.

Publication

The first appearance of the bear Pooh was in December 1925, when what became the first chapter of the book Winnie-the-Pooh was commissioned as a Christmas story by London's Evening News. The book was published in October 1926 by Methuen, the London publisher of Milne's earlier children's work When We Were Very Young.^[3] The the illustrator was E.H. Shepard, who had also drawn the pictures for the earlier book.

Disney

Stephen Slesinger acquired US and Canadian merchandising, television, recording and other trade rights to the "Winnie-the-Pooh" from A. A. Milne in the 1930s, and developed "Winnie-the-Pooh" commercializations for more than 20 years. After Slesinger's death in 1953, his wife, Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, continued developing the character herself. In 1961, she licensed rights to Disney in exchange for royalties in the first of two agreements between Stephen Slesinger, Inc. and Disney.^[4] The same year, Daphne Milne also licensed certain rights, including motion picture rights, to Disney.

Since 1966, Disney has released numerous features starring Winnie the Pooh and related characters. Many direct-to-video featurettes have been created, as well as the theatrical feature-length films The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, and Pooh's Heffalump Movie.

In December 2005, Disney announced that the Disney Channel animated television series, My Friends Tigger & Pooh, will focus on adventures had by 6-year-old Darby and the Pooh characters, with the occasional appearance from Christopher Robin.^[5]

The Disney version of Winnie the Pooh was featured in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, the Kingdom Hearts videogames and the TV series House of Mouse

Pooh also appears at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as a meetable character.

Ownership controversy

Pooh videos, teddy bears, and other merchandise generate substantial annual revenues for Disney. The size of Pooh stuffed toys ranges from Beanie and miniature to human-sized. In addition to the stylized Disney Pooh, Disney markets Classic Pooh merchandise which more closely resembles E.H. Shepard’s illustrations. It is estimated that Winnie the Pooh features and merchandise generate as much revenue as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto combined.^[6]

In 1991, Stephen Slesinger, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Disney which alleged that Disney had breached their 1983 agreement by again failing to accurately report revenue from Winnie the Pooh sales. Under this agreement, Disney was to retain approximately 98% of gross worldwide revenues while the remaining 2% was to be paid to Slesinger. In addition, the suit alleged that Disney had failed to pay required royalties on all commercial exploitation of the product name.^[7] Though the Disney corporation was sanctioned by a judge for destroying millions of pages of evidence,^[8] the suit was later terminated by another judge when it was discovered that Slesinger's investigator had rummaged through Disney's garbage in order to retrieve the discarded evidence.^[9] Slesinger appealed the termination, and on September 26, 2007, a three-judge panel upheld the lawsuit dismissal.^[10]

After the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Clare Milne, Christopher Milne's daughter, attempted to terminate any future U.S. copyrights for Stephen Slesinger, Inc.^[11] After a series of legal hearings, the United States District Court found in favor of Stephen Slesinger, Inc., as did the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On Monday, June 26, 2006, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus sustaining the Appeals Court ruling and ensuring the defeat of the suit.^[12]

On February 19, 2007, it was reported Disney lost a court case in Los Angeles which ruled their "misguided claims" to dispute the licensing agreements with Slesinger, Inc. were unjustified.^[13]

In doing so, the claims by Slesinger, Inc. can now be tackled without any argument over who owns the rights. Though the ruling was downplayed by a Disney attorney, the outcome of the case should prove a significant blow to Disney's revenue, since Pooh-related merchandise has been reported to bring the Walt Disney Company approximately 1 billion dollars a year.^[14]

Adaptations

Radio

Pooh made his radio debut in 1930 in New York. Readings of various Winnie-the-Pooh stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom with narration by Alan Bennett and also have been released as recordings.

Broadway

Pooh debuted on Broadway with Sue Hastings' Marionettes in the 1930s.

Peek-a-poohs

A Peek-a-pooh is a small plastic toy in a removable rubber costume. Costumes might include various land, jungle and sea creatures not to mention holiday themed outfits for Halloween or Christmas. More than ten different series of these have been produced and are available from vending machines for $1.00 in the United States, £1 in the UK, $2.00 in Canada and ¥100 in Japan. There is also a larger form made of plastic, sold for $4 in Canada. In Australia they are marketed as "Pooh Animal Wear" and cost $2.

Many children and teenagers collect Peek-A-Poohs and exchange them for others or for money.

Disney media

Featurettes

• 1966: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
• 1968: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
• 1974: Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too!
• 1983: Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore

Full-length features

• 1977: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (trilogy of the Honey Tree, Blustery Day, and Tigger Too!)
• 1985: Winnie the Pooh and Friends (re-release of Day for Eeyore with additional shorts)
• 1997: ^†
• 1999: *^†
• 2000: The Tigger Movie
• 2002: *^† Winnie the Pooh's Camping Trip Adventure
• 2003: Piglet's Big Movie
• 2004: ^†
• 2005: Pooh's Heffalump Movie
• 2005: Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie*^†

*These features integrate stories from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and/or holiday specials with new footage.
^†These features were Direct-to-video.



Television shows

• Welcome to Pooh Corner (Disney Channel, 1983-1995)
• The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (American Broadcasting Company, 1988-1991)
• The Book of Pooh (Disney Channel, 2001-2002)
• My Friends Tigger & Pooh (Disney Channel, 2007-)

Holiday TV specials

• 1991: Winnie the Pooh & Christmas Too!
• 1996: Boo! To You Too! Winnie the Pooh
• 1998: A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving
• 1998: Winnie the Pooh, A Valentine For You

Video games

• Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood
• Winnie the Pooh Adventures
• Pooh & Tigger's Hunny Safari
• Winnie the Pooh Pre-School
• Winnie the Pooh Kindergarten
• Piglet's Big Game
• Winnie the Pooh's Rumbly Tumbly Adventure
• Ready To Read With Pooh
• Kingdom Hearts (series) series

Other cartoons

In the Soviet Union, three Winnie-the-Pooh, or "Vinni Puh" (Russian language: Винни-Пух) stories were made into a celebrated trilogy^[15] of short films by Soyuzmultfilm (directed by Fedor Khitruk) from 1969 to 1972. Pooh was voiced by Yevgeny Leonov, looking distinctly different from both the yellow-and-red Disney incarnation and Shepard's illustrations.

References in other media

• Pooh is a frequent villain in International Moron Patrol, where he is depicted as being pure evil and having a deep, booming voice.
• Winnie-the-Pooh is such a popular character in Poland that a Warsaw street is named after him, Polish: "Ulica Kubusia Puchatka."
• In The Simpsons episode The Fat and the Furriest, Pooh appears as one of the bears scaring Homer Simpson.
• In a Dudley Do-Right cartoon, in which Snidely Whiplash reports himself to be Dudley's kid brother, Dudley, upon discovering this, becomes Snidely's "big brother" and, with parental authority warns Snidely not to associate with Homer or else Snidely will have to remain indoors for a while... and no "Winnie-the-Pooh".
• In Ghostbusters 2, baby Oscar is seen wearing a Pooh shirt while being possessed by Vigo the Carpathian
• In The Hums of Pooh, Harold Fraser-Simson set to music several of Milne’s poems and the verses sung by Pooh in the original books.
• Kenny Loggins's 1969 song "House at Pooh Corner" is based on the story of Christopher Robin and Winnie The Pooh. In 1994, he recorded a reworking of the song titled "Return to Pooh Corner" for a children's album bearing the same name.
• Pooh, along with many other Disney characters, appears in a double-length episode of the TV series Roseanne in 1996, in which the Conners raise enough money to buy a Walt Disney World vacation.
• In Family Guy episode Holy Crap, Stewie starts reading the bible and quotes "You won't find that in Winnie the Pooh." Then, Chris asks Stewie, "Please don't mention Pooh," due to being constipated.
• In Family Guy episode Screwed the Pooch, the Griffins go to the zoo at the beginning of the episode. When they reach the kangaroo exhibit, Peter lures a joey out of the pouch and climbs in himself. When the family finds him, he is too big for the pouch and says, "Look Lois, I'm Roo! Hey ma, let's watch Pooh drink honey while pretending he's in rain clouds."
• In the "sport" of Poohsticks, competitors drop sticks into a stream from a bridge and then wait to see whose stick will cross the finish line first. Though it began as a game played by Pooh and his friends in the stories, it has crossed over into the real world: a World Championship Poohsticks race takes place in Oxfordshire each year.
• The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff use Milne's characters in an effort to explain Taoism in an accessible way
• Frederick Crews' "The Pooh Perplex" and Postmodern Pooh both poke fun at literary theory.
• In December 2000, a Canadian medical journal jokingly "diagnosed" characters in the books and films with various mental illnesses, e.g. Winnie the Pooh shows signs of obsessive compulsive disorder, Tigger shows signs of ADHD etc.^[16]
• Possibly the strangest incarnation of Winnie the Pooh is in Peter David's novel Q-Squared. The child-Q Trelane brings some Winnie the Pooh characters (Pooh, Owl and Rabbit) to life to entertain a group of primary school children in one of the Enterprise's classrooms. Pandemonium results, with Rabbit and Owl (under Trelane's guidance) harmlessly physically attacking several security guards who are attempting to control the situation. Pooh says his trademark phrase "Oh, bother." when he appears and is the only one of the three who does not "attack" the guards, as "The bear, for no discernable reason, was performing mild calisthenics and muttering to himself."
• An episode of the British SciFi/Comedy Red Dwarf saw several of history's most famous figures reincarnated as robots made of wax. Two vast opposing armies are formed, with history's most celebrated figures on the good side, and the most reviled on the bad. The bad side happens to take one of the good side prisoner; none other than Winnie the Pooh. Although we don't actually see it (the character 'Lister' views from a window), the honey loving bear is led out and tied to a stake (and refuses the blindfold), before being shot by a firing squad. Lister is left in shock, stating "That is something no one should ever have to see!"
• A Bathing Ape recently made a plush toy of Winnie the Pooh with their popular Bape camo.
• Pooh and his friends are a part of the Kingdom Hearts series, the Square Enix game that combines characters from Final Fantasy and characters from Disney.
• In Rocky II, Rocky Jr. can be seen wrapped into a Winnie the Pooh blanket when Rocky Balboa and Adrian first see him.
• In one skit on Saturday Night Live, there is a game show, and one question is, "What is the name of Winnie the Pooh's feline friend?" When the contestant answers, a censor sign goes up. The host, played by Bernie Mac, is then seen attacking the contestant, who is saying, "I said Tigger, with a T!"
• In the 2001 movie Dr. Dolittle 2, Dr. Dolittle and the bear, Archie are making a deal for Archie to be in the wild to save animals from their home. Archie asks the doctor if he'll be bigger than Pooh and Dr. Dolittle claims that people will start calling Pooh Bear "Winnie the Who?" if Archie agrees.
• On Red Eye, a sketch on the Palestinian Tomorrow's Pioneers children show provides fake 'sneak peeks' at the replacement characters for Farfour, a plagiarised version of Mickey Mouse. One of these is 'Winnie the Jew', a bearded kippah-wearing Winnie described as 'an evil character who steals honey from poor Palestinian children.'^[17]
• Jethro Tull's song Up The 'Pool includes the line "The politicians there who've come to take the air - while posing for the daily press - will look around and blame the mess on Edward Bear."
• In the Polish translation, by Irena Tuwim, Pooh was called Kubuś Puchatek (Jacob the Pooh), because using a woman's name for a male bear would have been too controversial.
• A number of philosophical books have been written about Winnie the Pooh - Postmodern Pooh and The Pooh Perplex by Frederick Crews rewrite stories from Pooh's world in abtruse academic jargon (from a number of sources including postmodernism, psychoanalysis and so on) for the purpose of satire http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DB0F.htm. Pooh and the Philosophers by John T. Williams uses Winnie the Pooh as a backdrop to illustrate the works of philosophers including Descartes, Kant, Plato and Nietzsche http://www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/poohandphilosophers.html.
• In the song "Erosion", found on the album Learning to Breathe by the Christian rock band Switchfoot, the lyrics utilize one of Pooh's favorite sayings: "Tut, tut it looks like rain."
• Not everyone was a fan of the original stories. Dorothy Parker in particular was critical of what she considered A. A. Milne's "dumbing down of English for children", a criticism she had for many other children's book authors as well. In her pseudonym as Constant Reader in the New Yorker magazine she made one of her most famous barbs when she, while reviewing one of the stories, wrote, "and it is precisely at that word, 'hummy' that Tonstant Weader fwowed up."

Facts and figures

• Pooh's official birthdate is August 21 1921, the day Christopher Robin received him as a present on his first birthday.
• The sign over the door to Pooh's house says "Mr Sanders." This is because it is mentioned in the original book that Pooh lived under the name of "Sanders" (that meant that he had the name on a sign above his door, and he lived underneath it).
• Pooh's obsession with honey is based on a misconception about bear behavior. While bears are major predators of beehives, they are seeking the brood (larva and pupa).^[18]
• On April 11, 2006, Winnie the Pooh was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard.^[19]
• It is revealed near the end of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh that Pooh is one year younger than Christopher Robin, which is obviously because he is "born" on Christopher's first birthday.

See also

• Sterling Holloway – the original voice of Disney's Winnie the Pooh
• Hal Smith – the voice of Winnie the Pooh in Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore and Welcome to Pooh Corner
• Jim Cummings – the current voice of Winnie the Pooh
• Sherman Brothers – songwriters of the majority of "Winnie the Pooh" music
• The Fort Garry Horse is the Canadian Militia armored regiment based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, whose regimental mascot was the inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh.
• Harry Colebourn - the Canadian Lieutenant and veterinarian who brought the mascot from Canada to Salisbury Plain.

References

External links

• Disney's Winnie the Pooh site
• Winnie-the-Pooh at the New York Public Library