Winnie-the-Pooh

This article is about the fictional character. For other uses, see Winnie-the-Pooh (disambiguation).
"Pooh" redirects here. For other uses, see Pooh (disambiguation).
"Hunny" redirects here. For the food, see Honey.

Winnie-the-Pooh

Pooh in an illustration by E. H. Shepard
First appearance When We Were Very Young (1924) (As Edward Bear) Winnie-the-Pooh (As Winnie-the-Pooh)
Created by A. A. Milne
Information
Species Teddy bear
Gender Male

Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children's verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927). All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard.

The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages, including Alexander Lenard's Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu, which was first published in 1958, and, in 1960, became the only Latin book ever to have been featured on The New York Times Best Seller list.[1]

Hyphens in the character's name were dropped by Disney when the company adapted the Pooh stories into a series of features that became one of its most successful franchises. In popular film adaptations, Pooh Bear has been voiced by actors Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith, and Jim Cummings in English and Yevgeny Leonov in Russian.

History

Origin

Original Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed toys. Clockwise from bottom left: Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear ("Winnie-the-Pooh"), Eeyore, and Piglet. Roo was lost long ago; the other characters were made up for the stories.

A. A. Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh for a teddy bear owned by his son, Christopher Robin Milne, who was the basis for the character Christopher Robin. The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into Milne's stories.[2][3] Two more characters, Owl and Rabbit, were created by Milne's imagination, while Gopher was added to the Disney version. Christopher Robin's toy bear is on display at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library in New York City.[4]

Harry Colebourn and Winnie, 1914

Christopher Milne had named his toy bear after Winnie, a Canadian black bear he often saw at London Zoo, and "Pooh", a swan they had met while on holiday. The bear cub was purchased from a hunter for $20 by Canadian Lieutenant Harry Colebourn in White River, Ontario, Canada, while en route to England during the First World War. He named the bear "Winnie" after his adopted hometown in Winnipeg, Manitoba. "Winnie" was surreptitiously brought to England with her owner, and gained unofficial recognition as The Fort Garry Horse regimental mascot. Colebourn left Winnie at the London Zoo while he and his unit were in France; after the war she was officially donated to the zoo, as she had become a much loved attraction there.[5] 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.

Ashdown Forest: the setting for the stories

The Winnie-the-Pooh stories are set in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, England. The forest is a large area of tranquil open heathland on the highest sandy ridges of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty situated 30 miles (50 km) south of London. In 1925 Milne, a Londoner, bought a country home a mile to the north of the forest at Cotchford Farm, near Hartfield. According to Christopher Milne, while his father continued to live in London "...the four of us—he, his wife, his son and his son's nanny—would pile into a large blue, chauffeur-driven Fiat and travel down every Saturday morning and back again every Monday afternoon. And we would spend a whole glorious month there in the spring and two months in the summer."[6] From the front lawn the family had a view across a meadow to a line of alders that fringed the River Medway, beyond which the ground rose through more trees until finally "above them, in the faraway distance, crowning the view, was a bare hilltop. In the centre of this hilltop was a clump of pines." Most of his father's visits to the forest at this time were, he noted, family expeditions on foot "to make yet another attempt to count the pine trees on Gill's Lap or to search for the marsh gentian". Christopher added that, inspired by Ashdown Forest, his father had made it "the setting for two of his books, finishing the second little over three years after his arrival".[7]

Many locations in the stories can be linked to real places in and around the forest. As Christopher Milne wrote in his autobiography: "Pooh’s forest and Ashdown Forest are identical". For example, the fictional "Hundred Acre Wood" was in reality Five Hundred Acre Wood; Galleon's Leap was inspired by the prominent hilltop of Gill's Lap, while a clump of trees just north of Gill's Lap became Christopher Robin's The Enchanted Place because no-one had ever been able to count whether there were sixty-three or sixty-four trees in the circle.[8]

The landscapes depicted in E. H. Shepard's illustrations for the Winnie-the-Pooh books were directly inspired by the distinctive landscape of Ashdown Forest, with its high, open heathlands of heather, gorse, bracken and silver birch punctuated by hilltop clumps of pine trees. Many of Shepard's illustrations can be matched to actual views, allowing for a degree of artistic licence. Shepard's sketches of pine trees and other forest scenes are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.[9]

The game of Poohsticks was originally played by Christopher Milne on a footbridge across a tributary of the River Medway in Posingford Wood, close to Cotchford Farm. The wooden bridge is now a tourist attraction, and it has become traditional to play the game there using sticks gathered in nearby woodland.[10][11] When the footbridge recently had to be replaced, the engineer designed a new structure based closely on the drawings of the bridge by Shepard in the books, which were somewhat different than the original structure.

First publication

Winnie-the-Pooh's debut in the 24 December 1925 London Evening News

Christopher Robin's teddy bear, Edward, made his character début in A. A. Milne's poem, "Teddy Bear", in the 13 February 1924 edition of Punch, and the same poem was published in Milne's book of children's verse When We Were Very Young (6 November 1924).[12] Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name on 24 December 1925, in a Christmas story commissioned and published by the London newspaper The Evening News. It was illustrated by J. H. Dowd.[13]

The first collection of Pooh stories appeared in the book Winnie-the-Pooh. The Evening News Christmas story reappeared as the first chapter of the book. At the beginning, it explained that Pooh was in fact Christopher Robin's Edward Bear, who had been renamed by the boy. He was renamed after a black bear at London Zoo called Winnie who got her name from the fact that her owner had come from Winnipeg, Canada. The book was published in October 1926 by the publisher of Milne's earlier children's work, Methuen, in England, and E. P. Dutton in the United States.[14]

Character

In the Milne books, Pooh is naive and slow-witted, but he is also friendly, thoughtful, and steadfast. Although he and his friends agree that he "has no Brain", Pooh is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense. These include riding in Christopher Robin's umbrella to rescue Piglet from a flood, discovering "the North Pole" by picking it up to help fish Roo out of the river, inventing the game of Poohsticks, and getting Eeyore out of the river by dropping a large rock on one side of him to wash him towards the bank.

Pooh is also a talented poet, and the stories are frequently punctuated by his poems and "hums." Although he is humble about his slow-wittedness, he is comfortable with his creative gifts. When Owl's house blows down in a storm, trapping Pooh and Piglet and Owl inside, Pooh encourages Piglet (the only one small enough to do so) to escape and rescue them all by promising that "a respectful Pooh song" will be written about Piglet's feat. Later, Pooh muses about the creative process as he composes the song.

Pooh is very fond of food, especially "hunny" but also condensed milk and other items. When he visits friends, his desire to be offered a snack is in conflict with the impoliteness of asking too directly. Though intending to give Eeyore a pot of honey for his birthday, Pooh cannot resist eating the honey on his way to deliver the present, and so instead gives Eeyore "a useful pot to put things in". When he and Piglet are lost in the forest during Rabbit's attempt to "unbounce" Tigger, Pooh finds his way home by following the "call" of the honeypots from his house. Pooh makes it a habit to have "a little something" around eleven o'clock in the morning. As the clock in his house "stopped at five minutes to eleven some weeks ago," any time can be Pooh's snack time.

Pooh is very social. After Christopher Robin, his closest friend is Piglet, and he most often chooses to spend his time with one or both of them. But he also habitually visits the other animals, often looking for a snack or an audience for his poetry as much as for companionship. His kind-heartedness means he goes out of his way to be friendly to Eeyore, visiting him and bringing him a birthday present and building him a house, despite receiving mostly disdain from Eeyore in return.

Sequel

An authorised sequel Return to the Hundred Acre Wood was published on 5 October 2009. The author, David Benedictus, has developed, but not changed, Milne's characterisations. The illustrations, by Mark Burgess, are in the style of Shepard.[15]

Winnie-the-Pooh and the Missing Bees

Winnie-the-Pooh and the Missing Bees is a forthcoming book being written by the British Beekeepers' Association and Mark Burgess about the current decline in Britain's bee population.[16]

Stephen Slesinger

On 6 January 1930, Stephen Slesinger purchased U.S. and Canadian merchandising, television, recording and other trade rights to the "Winnie-the-Pooh" works from Milne for a $1000 advance and 66% of Slesinger's income, creating the modern licensing industry. By November 1931, Pooh was a $50 million-a-year business.[17] Slesinger marketed Pooh and his friends for more than 30 years, creating the first Pooh doll, record, board game, puzzle, US radio broadcast (NBC), animation, and motion picture film.[18]

Red Shirt Pooh

The first time Pooh and his friends appeared in colour was 1932, when he was drawn by Slesinger in his now-familiar red shirt and featured on an RCA Victor picture record. Parker Brothers also introduced A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh Game in 1933, again with Pooh in his red shirt. In the 1940s, Agnes Brush created the first plush dolls with Pooh in his red shirt. Shepard had drawn Pooh with a shirt as early as the first Winnie-The-Pooh book, which was subsequently coloured red in later coloured editions.

Disney

Winnie-the-Pooh

Pooh's design in Winnie the Pooh
First appearance Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (February 4, 1966)
Created by Walt Disney
A. A. Milne
Voiced by Sterling Holloway (1966–1977)
Hal Smith (1981–1986)
Jim Cummings (1988–present)
Information
Nickname(s) Pooh Bear
Silly Ol' Bear
Species Teddy bear
Gender Male

After Slesinger's death in 1953, his wife, Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, continued developing the character herself. In 1961, she licensed rights to Walt Disney Productions in exchange for royalties in the first of two agreements between Stephen Slesinger, Inc. and Disney.[19] The same year, A. A. Milne's widow, Daphne Milne, also licensed certain rights, including motion picture rights, to Disney.

Since 1966, Disney has released numerous animated productions starring Winnie the Pooh and related characters. These have included theatrical featurettes, television series, and direct-to-video films, as well as the theatrical feature-length films The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, Pooh's Heffalump Movie, and Winnie the Pooh.

Merchandising revenue dispute

Pooh videos, soft toys, 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 stylised Disney Pooh, Disney markets Classic Pooh merchandise which more closely resembles E.H. Shepard’s illustrations.

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.[20] Though the Disney corporation was sanctioned by a judge for destroying forty boxes of evidential documents,[21] 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.[22] Slesinger appealed the termination, and on 26 September 2007, a three-judge panel upheld the lawsuit dismissal.[23]

After the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Clare Milne, Christopher Milne's daughter, attempted to terminate any future U.S. copyrights for Stephen Slesinger, Inc.[24] After a series of legal hearings, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the US District Court in California found in favour of Stephen Slesinger, Inc., as did the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On 26 June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, sustaining the ruling and ensuring the defeat of the suit.[25]

On 19 February 2007 Disney lost a court case in Los Angeles which ruled their "misguided claims" to dispute the licensing agreements with Slesinger, Inc. were unjustified,[26] but a federal ruling of 28 September 2009, again from Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, determined that the Slesinger family had granted all trademark and copyright rights to Disney, although Disney must pay royalties for all future use of the characters. Both parties have expressed satisfaction with the outcome.[27][28]

Adaptations

Theatre

Audio

RCA Victor record from 1932 decorated with Stephen Slesinger, Inc.'s Winnie-the-Pooh

Selected Pooh stories read by Maurice Evans released on vinyl LP:

In 1960 HMV recorded a dramatised version with songs (music by Harold Fraser-Simson) of two episodes from The House at Pooh Corner (Chapters 2 and 8), starring Ian Carmichael as Pooh, Denise Bryer as Christopher Robin (who also narrated), Hugh Lloyd as Tigger, Penny Morrell as Piglet, and Terry Norris as Eeyore. This was released on a 45 rpm EP.[30]

In the 1970s and 1980s, Carol Channing recorded Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner and The Winnie the Pooh Songbook, with music by Don Heckman. These were released on vinyl LP and audio cassette by Caedmon Records.

Unabridged recordings read by Peter Dennis of the four Pooh books:

In 1979 a double audio cassette set of "Winnie the Pooh" was produced featuring British actor Lionel Jeffries reading all characters in the stories. This was followed in 1981 by an audio cassette set of stories from "House at Pooh Corner" also read by Lionel Jeffries.[31]

In the 1990s, the stories were dramatised for audio by David Benedictus, with music composed, directed and played by John Gould. They were performed by a cast that included Stephen Fry as Winnie-the-Pooh, Jane Horrocks as Piglet, Geoffrey Palmer as Eeyore and Judi Dench as Kanga.[32]

Radio

Film

Disney adaptation

Theatrical featurettes
Full-length theatrical features

A live action adaptation of the film is currently in development with screenwriter Alex Ross Perry on board to write the screenplay. The story will focus on an adult Christopher Robin returning to the Hundred Acre Wood.[34]

Soviet adaptation

A postage stamp showing Piglet and Winnie-the-Pooh as they appear in the Soviet adaptation

In the Soviet Union, three Winnie-the-Pooh, (transcribed in Russian as "Vinni Pukh") (Russian language: Винни-Пух) stories were made into a celebrated trilogy[35] of short films by Soyuzmultfilm (directed by Fyodor Khitruk) from 1969 to 1972.

Films use Boris Zakhoder's translation of the book. Pooh was voiced by Yevgeny Leonov. Unlike the Disney adaptations, the animators did not base their depictions of the characters on Shepard's illustrations, creating a different look. The Soviet adaptations make extensive use of Milne's original text, and often bring out aspects of Milne's characters' personalities not used in the Disney adaptations.

Television

Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends debuted on NBC Television in 1960.

A version of Winnie The Pooh, in which the animals were played by marionettes designed, made and operated by Bil And Cora Baird, was presented on 3 October 1960, on NBC Television's The Shirley Temple Show. Pooh himself is voiced by Franz Fazakas.

During the 1970s the BBC children's television show Jackanory serialised the two books, which were read by Willie Rushton.[36]

Magical World of Winnie the Pooh (Note: These are episodes from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh)

Television shows

(*): Puppet/live-action show

Holiday TV specials

Direct-to-video shorts

Direct-to-video features

These features integrate stories from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and/or holiday specials with new footage.

Legacy

Winnie the Pooh has inspired multiple texts to explain complex philosophical ideas. Benjamin Hoff used Milne's characters in The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet to explain Taoism. Similarly, Frederick Crews wrote essays about the Pooh books in abstruse academic jargon in The Pooh Perplex and Postmodern Pooh to satirise a range of philosophical approaches.[38] 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.[39]

Pooh has also left a legacy in popular culture. Winnie-the-Pooh is such a popular character in Poland that a Warsaw street is named for him, "Ulica Kubusia Puchatka." There is also a street named after him in Budapest (Micimackó utca).[40]

In music, Kenny Loggins wrote the song "House at Pooh Corner", which was originally recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.[41] Loggins later rewrote the song as "Return to Pooh Corner", featuring on the album of the same name in 1991. Also, in Italy, a pop band took their name from Winnie, and were titled Pooh. In Estonia there is a punk/metal band called Winny Puhh.

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 book The House at Pooh Corner and later in the films, it has crossed over into the real world: a World Championship Poohsticks race takes place in Oxfordshire each year. The Oxford University Winnie the Pooh Society was founded by undergraduates in 1982.

References

  1. ↑ McDowell, Edwin. "Winnie Ille Pu Nearly XXV Years Later", The New York Times (18 November 1984). Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  2. ↑ "Pooh celebrates his 80th birthday". BBC News. Retrieved 20 July 2015
  3. ↑ Ford, Rebecca (28 February 2007) "Happy Birthday Pooh", Daily Express. Retrieved 20 July 2015
  4. ↑ "The Adventures of the Real Winnie-the-Pooh. The New York Public Library.
  5. ↑ "Winnie". Historica Minutes, The Historica Foundation of Canada. Retrieved on 30 May 2008.
  6. ↑ Willard, Barbara (1989). The Forest – Ashdown in East Sussex. Sussex: Sweethaws Press.. Quoted from the Introduction, p. xi, by Christopher Milne.
  7. ↑ Willard (1989). Quoted from the Introduction, p. xi, by Christopher Milne.
  8. ↑ Hope, Yvonne Jefferey (2000). "Winnie-the-Pooh in Ashdown Forest". In Brooks, Victoria. Literary Trips: Following in the Footsteps of Fame 1. Vancouver, Canada: Greatest Escapes. p. 287. ISBN 0-9686137-0-5.
  9. ↑ "About the E. H. Shepard archive". University of Surrey. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
  10. ↑ "Plans to improve access to Pooh Bridge unveiled". BBC News. Retrieved 11 November 2012
  11. ↑ "Appeal to save Winnie the Pooh's bridge". BBC News. Retrieved 11 November 2012
  12. ↑ "Celebrate Winnie-The-Pooh's 90th With A Rare Recording (And Hunny)". NPR. 20 July 2015.
  13. 1 2 "A Children's Story by A. A. Milne". London Evening News. 24 December 1925. p. 1.
  14. ↑ Thwaite, Ann (2004). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Alan Alexander Milne. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  15. ↑ Kennedy, Maev (4 October 2009). "Pooh sequel returns Christopher Robin to Hundred Acre Wood". The Guardian (UK). p. 15. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
  16. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11695756/New-Winnie-the-Pooh-story-In-which-Pooh-encourages-children-to-save-the-bees.html
  17. ↑ "The Merchant of Child". Fortune. November 1931. p. 71.
  18. ↑ McElway, St. Claire (26 October 1936). "The Literary Character in Business & Commerce". The New Yorker.
  19. ↑ "The Curse of Pooh." Fortune.
  20. ↑ "The Pooh Files" The Albion Monitor.
  21. ↑ Nelson, Valerie J (20 July 2007). "Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, 84; fought Disney over Pooh royalties". Los Angeles times. Retrieved 14 August 2007.
  22. ↑ "Judge dismisses Winnie the Pooh lawsuit" The Disney Corner.
  23. ↑ James, Meg (26 September 2007). "Disney wins lawsuit ruling on Pooh rights". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 26 September 2007.
  24. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh goes to court" USA Today
  25. ↑ "Justices Refuse Winnie the Pooh Case." ABC News.
  26. ↑ "Disney loses court battle in Winnie the Pooh copyright case". ABC News. 17 February 2007. Retrieved 15 May 2008.
  27. ↑ James, Meg (29 September 2009). "Pooh rights belong to Disney, judge rules". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
  28. ↑ Shea, Joe (4 October 2009). "The gordian knot of Pooh rights is finally untied in federal court". The American Reporter. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
  29. ↑ "Hastings Marionettes: Will Open Holiday Season at Guild Theatre on Saturday". The New York Times. 22 December 1931. p. 28.
  30. ↑ "Ian Carmichael And Full Cast – The House At Pooh Corner – HMV Junior Record Club – UK – 7EG 117". 45cat. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
  31. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh". OCLC WorldCat. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  32. ↑ "Tigger comes to the forest : and other stories". OCLC WorldCat. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  33. ↑ "His Master's Voice Speaks Again". Playthings. Nov 1932.
  34. ↑ Fleming Jr., Mike. "Disney Sets Live-Action 'Winnie The Pooh' Film; Alex Ross Perry To Write". Deadline. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  35. ↑ "Russian animation in letters and figures | Films | "Winnie the Pooh"". Animator.ru. Retrieved 2015-03-09.
  36. ↑ Biography: Willie Rushton. BBC. Retrieved on 11 March 2015.
  37. ↑ "Mini Adventures of Winnie the Pooh". IMDb. 2011-08-22. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
  38. ↑ spiked-culture | Article | Pooh-poohing postmodernism. Spiked-online.com. Retrieved on 12 February 2011.
  39. ↑ Sonderbooks Book Review of Pooh and the Philosophers. Sonderbooks.com (2004-04-20). Retrieved on 12 February 2011.
  40. ↑ "Google Maps". Maps.google.com. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2015-03-09.
  41. ↑ "House at Pooh Corner by Loggins and Messina Songfacts". Songfacts.com. 1926-10-14. Retrieved 2015-03-09.

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