Winnie-the-Pooh
|
Winnie-the-Pooh (Disney version) |
Winnie-the-Pooh is a
fictional bear created by
A. A. Milne. He appears in the books
Winnie-the-Pooh (published
October 14,
1926) and
The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also wrote two books of children's
poetry,
When We Were Very Young and
Now We Are Six, which include several poems about Winnie-the-Pooh. All four volumes were
illustrated by
E. H. Shepard.The setting of the stories is based on the
Ashdown Forest in
East Sussex,
England. The name "Winnie" was inspired by a pet bear of a Canadian soldier, named after his hometown,
Winnipeg [http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10193].
Some of Pooh Bear's friends include
Piglet,
Tigger,
Eeyore,
Rabbit,
Roo,
Kanga,
Owl,
Gopher,
Christopher Robin, and many other friends that the gang makes on their journeys.
The Pooh stories were later made into a series of
Winnie the Pooh (without
hyphens) featurettes by
Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the company's most successful franchises.
|
Original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals |
The character was named after a stuffed bear owned by Milne's son,
Christopher Robin Milne. Most of the other characters are also named after toys belonging to Christopher Milne, the exceptions being
Christopher Robin himself, and also
Owl and
Rabbit who are presumably based on real life animals, judging by their appearance in illustrations. Christopher Milne had named his toy after a real bear called
Winnipeg, brought to Britain from Canada and whom Milne and his son often saw at
London Zoo, and "Pooh", a swan they had met on a holiday (and who appears in
When We Were Very Young).
Winnipeg the bear was discovered at a stop in
White River, Ontario, by members of
The Fort Garry Horse Canadian regiment of
cavalry, en route to the battlefields of France during
World War I. The bear was smuggled to Britain as the unofficial regimental mascot. Winnie's first owner was Lt. Harry Colebourn. He was the regiment's
veterinarian, responsible for their horses. Winnie's eventual destination was to be the
Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, but at the end of the War, the officers of the Fort Garry Horse decided to allow her to remain in the
London Zoo, where she was much loved for her playfulness. She was known as a kind bear and never attacked anyone. This is exactly what inspired Milne to write about Pooh Bear.
Christopher Robin's toy bear is now on display at the Donnell Library Center Central Children's Room in
New York [http://www.nypl.org/branch/central/dlc/dch/].
The forest in which the stories are set is based on the
Ashdown Forest in which the Milnes lived. The fictional "Hundred Acre wood" is a named location in the stories. The form of the name appears to follow that of the Five Hundred Acre Wood, which lies just outside of the Ashdown Forest, and includes some of the locations mentioned in the book, such as the Enchanted Place.
Between
1929 and
1932,
A.A. Milne contractually assigned the Pooh merchandising rights for the US and Canada to an American literary agent named Stephen Slesinger. It was only one of many assets Slesinger managed during his lifetime, and not even the biggestâ€"that would probably be the
Red Ryder comic strip, which he placed in movies, on radio and other media. Slesinger died in
1953, and his widow inherited the operation.
In
1961,
Walt Disney Productions bought film and other rights to the character and made a series of cartoon films about him. (Note that Winnie-the-Pooh's name was hyphenated in the Milne books, but lost its hyphens in the Disney incarnation.) The early cartoons were based on several of the original stories. However this is not true of the more recent films and television series which Disney has made.
Disney's storytelling style and characterisation have little in common with Milne's tales, and were greatly disliked by the Milne family. The appearance of the cartoons derives from Shepard's illustrations but the style of drawing is simplified and the characters are given exaggerated features. Alongside the cartoon versions, merchandise using the Shepard drawings is now marketed under the description "Classic Pooh".
In
1977, Disney released the animated feature
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, introducing a new character named Gopher, which Disney acknowledged by having Gopher proclaim, "I'm not in the book, you know!" This movie features three segments that were originally released separately as featurettes:
Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966),
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and
Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974). This feature version featured new bridging material and a new ending, as it had been
Walt Disney's original intention to make a feature. In
1983, a fourth featurette,
Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, was released.
Pooh has become one of the most lucrative literary franchises in history. Today, Pooh videos,
teddy bears, and other merchandise generate $1 billion in annual revenues for Disneyâ€"as much as is earned by
Mickey Mouse,
Minnie Mouse,
Donald Duck,
Goofy, and
Pluto combined.
[Fortune The Curse of Pooh] Pooh stuffed toys can be found in every imaginable (and some unimaginable) shape and size from Beanie and miniature versions up to human size stuffed varieties. As well as the stylised Disney Pooh there is also a large range of Classic Pooh merchandise depicting the EH Shepard style in toy form.
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. The last of the films listed introduced an elephant-like
heffalump named Lumpy. The classic characters, plus Lumpy, are expected to appear in the future
Disney Channel animated television series, entitled
My Friends Tigger & Pooh in
2007.
Christopher Robin has been replaced with a girl named Darby.
A. A. Milne left the rights to Pooh, and his other characters, to five beneficiaries: The
Garrick Club,
Westminster School,
The Royal Literary Fund, the A. A. Milne Family and the
E. H. Shepard Family. Mrs. Milne sold the film rights to Disney in
1961. Christopher Robin Milne sold his rights to the other copyright holders before his death in
1996.
Sometime around
1998, the Garrick Club sold Disney the rights to all of A. A. Milne's characters until
2026 (when the copyright expires).
In
1991, Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, the widow of Milne's literary agent, who inherited rights to Pooh, filed a lawsuit against Disney, claiming that she was being cheated out of merchandising rights to the characters. Although she has collected $66 million, she claimed to be owed over $200 million more. After 13 years, the suit finally ended in
March 2004; Disney won.
In the wake of the
Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of
1998, Clare Milne, daughter of Christopher Robin, attempted to terminate the rights of Stephen Slesinger, Inc. with
The Walt Disney Company, with whom she had contracted to assign the rights, she brought an action to validate her termination notice in
federal district court. The district court found in favour of Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and as did the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. [
1] On Monday, June 26, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus sustaining the Appeals Court ruling. [
2]
In
December 2005, Disney announced that Pooh's friend and owner
Christopher Robin would be replaced by a 6-year-old "tomboyish"
red-haired girl for the future
Disney Channel animated television series,
My Friends Tigger & Pooh[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4512770.stm].Contrary to published reports, Darby has not replaced Christopher Robin, who will still appear intermittently in the series.
In countries where copyright terms are no longer than required by the
Berne Convention, the copyrights to the Pooh stories will expire at the end of
2006. (Ernest Shepard's illustrations will remain under copyright for longer, however.)
|
Winnie the Pooh in a Soviet cartoon |
The Tao of Pooh and
The Te of Piglet by
Benjamin Hoff use Milne's characters in an effort to explain the Eastern Philosophy/Religion of
Taoism in a more accessible way. Pooh has also been featured in four notable satires:
Pooh and the Philosophers by J. T. Williams,
Was the Winnie-the-Pooh a good Muslim?, and
Frederick Crews'
The Pooh Perplex and
Postmodern Pooh, which both poke fun at
literary theory.
"The Hums of Pooh" (verses from the original books supposed to have been composed and sung by Pooh) were set to music by Harold Fraser-Simson, who also set some verses from Milne's books of children's poetry (
When We Were Very young, and
Now We Are Six).
The "sport" of
Poohsticks, in which competitors drop sticks into a stream from a bridge and then wait to see whose stick will cross the finish line first, began as a game played by Pooh and his friends in the stories, but has crossed over into the real world. A World Championship Poohsticks race takes place in
Oxfordshire each year.
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 feature on the
New York Times Bestseller List.
In the
Soviet Union, three Winnie the Pooh stories were made into celebrated cartoons by
Soyuzmultfilm. Quotes and songs from the films are still a staple of
Russian society, and, together with the characters, are often
parodied, while loved.
Readings of various Winnie-the-Pooh stories have been broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 by
Alan Bennett and also released as recordings.
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 EeyoreFull-length features* 1977:
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (trilogy of the three featurettes: The Honey Tree, The Blustery Day, and Tigger Too)
* 1997:
Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin V
* 1999:
Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving * V
* 2000:
The Tigger Movie* 2002:
Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year * V
* 2003:
Piglet's Big Movie* 2004:
Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo V
* 2005:
Pooh's Heffalump Movie* 2005:
Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie * V* - Means that the feature integrates stories from
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and/or the holiday specials with new footage
V - Means that it was a
Direct-to-video release
Television show*
Welcome to Pooh Corner (
Disney Channel, 1983-1995)
*
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (
ABC, 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 YouVideo games*
Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood*
Winnie the Pooh Adventures*
Winnie the Pooh's Party Games: In Search of the Treasure*
Winnie the Pooh: Tigger's Honey Hunt*
Pooh & Tigger's Hunny Safari*
Winnie the Pooh Pre-School*
Winnie the Pooh Kindergarten*
Piglet's Big Game*
Winnie the Pooh: Rumbly Tumbly *
Kingdom Hearts series
 |
The Disney incarnation of Winnie the Pooh, as a stuffed animal |
* Winnie the Pooh is such a popular character in
Poland that a
Warsaw street is named after him (in
Polish,
Ulica Kubusia Puchatka).
* Pooh was
Hong Kong's favourite Disney character in a 2004 poll, competing against characters including
Mickey Mouse,
Buzz Lightyear,
Donald Duck,
Simba and
Princess Aurora.
* Pooh also is the number one Disney Character in the Philippines for 2005 with Disney Princess at number two followed by
The Incredibles, Buzz Lightyear and Mickey Mouse. This is in terms of the merchandise sold for the year. (Honey Barn Marketing Corp.)
* The sign over Pooh's door says "Mr. Sanders". The name is not Pooh's name at all, but is a set-up for a joke: Pooh "lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders."
* Pooh's official birthdate is
August 21 1921, the day Christopher Robin got him on his first birthday.
* The toys that inspired the stories are on public show in the
New York Public Library on W53rd St.
[http://www.nypl.org/branch/central/dlc/dch/pooh/]. Many people in Britain feel strongly that this crucial part of Britain's cultural heritage should be
repatriated. There are strong comparisons between the toys and the
Elgin Marbles and the matter was raised in Parliament as recently as 1998
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/53778.stm].
* A bronze statue of "Winnipeg the Bear" appears at the
Assiniboine Zoo in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The statue depicts the bear cub hand in hand with Lt. Harry Colebourn.
* 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.
[http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/12/1557].
* Pooh's obsession with
honey is based upon a completely false premise about bear behavior. While bears are major predators of
beehives to the great consternation of
beekeepers, they are seeking the brood (
larvae and
pupae) of the bees.
* On
April 11,
2006, Winnie the Pooh was awarded a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard
[http://www.hollywoodchamber.net/icons/upcoming_ceremonies.asp].
*
Jack Kerouac's novel
On The Road asks "don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?"
[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_the_Road]* Singer
Kenny Loggins wrote a song entitled "Return To Pooh Corner" (1969) based on the story of
Christopher Robin and Winnie The Pooh. In 1994 he recorded a children's album bearing the same name.
* In June
2006,
Turkish public broadcaster TRT was reported to have removed the Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons from television because the cartoon features a
pig,
Piglet. Other cartoons featuring pigs were reported to have been removed from television as well.
[http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19503274-1702,00.html] The story turned out to be a hoax.
* In the
Kingdom Hearts series, the main character
Sora somewhat serves as a replacement for Christopher Robin whenever he visits Pooh's world, the 100 Acre Wood. Sora helps Pooh and his friends with their problems.
* In an episode of the British television serries
Red Dwarf entitled "Meltdown",
Dave Lister describes the unusual sight of seeing Winnie the Pooh being escorted to a firing squad by his Nazi captors.
*
Sterling Holloway - the voice of Disney's Winnie the Pooh (1960s & 1970s)
*
Hal Smith - voice of Winnie the Pooh in
Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore &
Welcome to Pooh Corner (1980s)
*
Jim Cummings - current voice of Winnie the Pooh (1988-present)
*
Report on the outcome of the Slesinger lawsuit*
"Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne"(pdf) from The Canadian Medical Association Journal (Vol 163, Issue 12)
*
A Bear Named Winnie -
CBC television dramatization of the story of the original Winnipeg Bear.
*
"Was Winnie the Pooh a good Muslim?" One of the popular satires (see above) featuring the bear
*
Pooh's Heffalump Movie, Official Site.*
Winnie the Pooh DVD Movies, Official Site.*
ACHIM-THE-POOH's Homepage about Winnie-the-Pooh a. o. (German)*
Star wears red shirt, no pants to Walk of Fame ceremony
