A.A. Milne grew to loathe his Winnie-the-Pooh books, as they typecast him forever as a "writer of children's books", and he could never go back to writing adult fiction. He even tried to kill off Pooh at the end of the second book. (Of course, it didn't work.) Milne's son, Christopher Robin, grew to hate the works as well, since he was bullied constantly for being immortalized in them and he resented his parents monetising his childhood. That said, he eventually warmed up to the books in his later years.
E.H. Shepard, Pooh's illustrator, likewise suffered from this, as the books overshadowed his work in political cartoons. He would later draw a Take That!illustration◊ (depicting Pooh being kicked by Christopher Robin) for the British humour magazine Punch!, perfectly summarising his feeling towards the character by that point. He apparently still had some remaining affection for Pooh, however, since he was reportedly not fond of Disney's Americanisation of the franchise in the '60s.
Disowned Adaptation: Christopher Robin Milne (the son of A. A. Milne) and E. H. Shepard (the illustrator of the original books) reportedly hated Disney's Americanisation and commercialisation of the franchise. Christopher Robin in particular hated the adaptations so much that he refused to receive the royalties from them for years until he reluctantly accepted them in his later years purely for the sake of his daughter Claire Milne.
Defictionalization: The game of Poohsticks now has its own world championships.
Fan Community Nickname: Fans like to call themselves "Pooh-ophiles". Disney would even use the term when referring to Pooh fans in the documentary, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: The Story behind the Masterpiece.
Magnum Opus Dissonance: The illustrator of the books, E.H. Shepard, considered his work on them to be a side project, with the majority of his focus and effort being placed on the political cartoons he did for Punch! instead. Guess what he became far better known for? The fact that Pooh overshadowed his other works would eventually cause Shepard to hate the books and his work on them as a result.
Outlived Its Creator: The original author and illustrator are now deceased, but authorised sequels have been published, such as Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (published 2009) as well as The Best Bear in All the World and Winnie-the-Pooh Meets the Queen (both published in 2016).
Screwed by the Lawyers: Until the end of the 20th century, Poland was known from putting on numerous stage and audio plays based on Milne's books that were frequently independent from Disney's version. These adaptations came to a halt in November 2000 when the A. A. Milne Trust didn't extend the agreement with ZAiKS (Polish royalty collecting society) as it had decided to sell the remaining rights to the Winnie the Pooh franchise to Disney, which ultimately happened in March 2001. Since then, the only stage productions in countries where the original books haven't fallen into public domain yet (such as Poland) are the ones based on the Disney adaptations.
Spin-Off Cookbook: The Pooh Cook Book, "inspired by" Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne. Written by Virginia Ellison; with Ernest H. Shepard's illustrations.
What Could Have Been: In the introduction (or, according to Owl, the "Contradiction") to The House at Pooh Corner, Milne himself mentions other adventures, "more grand than any I have told you about," which he can't tell because they came to him in dreams and he's forgotten them. He only remembers one small part of one of them, with Pooh meeting 107 cows sitting on a gate, and claims that this was probably the best story of them all.
Write Who You Know: Christopher Robin is the author's son of the same name. Many of the animal characters are based on actual stuffed animals he owned.
Before that, Hal Smith, who played Owl, also played Pooh throughout the early to mid-'80s.
However, in France, Roger Carel was the voice of Pooh and Rabbit until he retired in the 2000s. He was also Piglet until the late '90s.
In France again, Henry Djanik was Eeyore and Owl from 1977 to 2000.
Banned in China: Believe it or not, yes. Sort of. As of 2017, online references to Winnie the Pooh are often blocked in China because of a running joke about how President Xi Jinping resembles Pooh. However, this often gets misinterpreted as that Winnie the Pooh itself is banned in China, which is not the case, as a Winnie the Pooh ride exists in Shanghai Disneyland, and using Pooh in ordinary contexts (i.e. non-political contexts with president Xi) is still allowed.
However, it was the factor that some people living outside of Chinese countries mocking the president Xi with Pooh Bear, including Thai people (in a Thailand vs. Chinese internet war in 2020, also known as Thai-Chinese Meme War, in where the Chinese refer to Thailand as "poor", and the Thai refer to China as "pooh".◊) and Indian peoples. (even more so since the ongoing recent China–India skirmishes)
Recently, Myanmar protestors began boycotting Chinese products and wearing Pooh Bear masks as an insult to Xi in response to China voicing open support for the Myanmar military government.
Sadly this meme resulted in the Taiwanese indie horror game Devotion losing its publishing license in China, and was pulled from Steam after it was review bombed by more nationalistic Chinese gamers.
It is also resulted in South Park being banned and scrubbed from Chinese internet after the episode named "Band In China" aired. The episode, in question, taking jabs at Winnie-the-Pooh ban and criticize the Chinese censorship. Trey Parker and Matt Stone later made an mock apology where they mockingly said that Xi doesn't looks just like Winnie-the-Pooh at all, and asserted this rash censorship just proves the points they made on South Park.
Cash-Cow Franchise: One of the highest-grossing media franchises in the world, currently in third place behind Pokémon and Mickey Mouse, at least according to Wikipedia users after a second clean-up for their list article was done. Even better in that Disney still had to pay the licenses for over 40 years! It only halted once the characters entered the public domain.
Channel Hop: Disney wasn't the first studio to adapt Winnie the Pooh. The year before Disney got the movie rights, an adaptation was produced for television by Columbia Pictures for its children's series Shirley Temple's Storybook.
Character Outlives Actor: John Fiedler passed away during late production of Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie, leading Travis Oates to fill in for him in odd scenes. Oates would take over the role from this film onwards.
Children Voicing Children: Christopher Robin has always been voiced by actual young boys, and in many cases, Roo has as well, with a few exceptions (see Cross-Dressing Voices below...)
Roo was voiced by Dori Whitaker in Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger Too and by Kim Christianson in Welcome to Pooh Corner.
Belgian voice actress Jackie Berger dubbed Christopher Robin in most animated works.
In some languages (such as Hungarian), Piglet is voiced by a woman.
Dub Name Change: The French dubs called Pooh "Winnie l'ourson", and subsequent printings of the books followed suit. "Ourson" actually means "bear cub" rather than "teddy bear".
Fake Brit: Owl is always given an English accent despite having always been voiced by an American actor. This even applies in the case of Craig Ferguson, a naturalized American citizen whose natural accent is Scottish.
The Merch: Throughout the years, Pooh has been placed on numerous features and had his face slapped nearly every possible form of toys and merchandise. That said the majority of it is at least considered better handled than Disney's usual attempts at rehashing a success.
John Fiedler near consistently voiced Piglet throughout his lifetime, though often another actor such as Jeff Bennett provided his singing voice. This was often hidden well since, prior to The Book of Pooh, Piglet rarely sang numbers besides as a chorus.
In projects where Brady Bluhm would voice Christopher Robin (Pooh's Grand Adventure, A Winnie The Pooh Thanksgiving, and A Valentine For You, his singing voice was done by Frankie J. Galasso. These three specific specials all share other examples: Tigger was voiced by Paul Winchell, but his singing voice was Jim Cummings (this was before Cummings would take on Tigger's speaking and singing full time), and Piglet was voiced by John Fiedler, but his singing voice was Steve Schatzberg.
Inverted with Sing a Song For Pooh, Cummings took over as Tigger's speaking voice by this point, but all the songs using stock audio are provided by Tigger's original actor Winchell.
In Japan, Owl is voiced by Toshiya Ueda when speaking and Ryoichi Fukuzawa when singing.
Before Jim Cummings, Hal Smith took over as Pooh for Winnie-the-Pooh and a Day for Eeyore and Welcome to Pooh Corner after Sterling Holloway had retired in addition to his usual role as Owl, with Will Ryan officiallynote Ray Erlenborn voiced him in the educational short Winnie-the-Pooh Discovers the Seasons. taking over the voice of Rabbit from Junius Matthews.
After John Fiedler's death, Travis Oates took over the role of Piglet.
Due to often having child actors, Christopher Robin and Roo went through a long string of voices that rarely stayed for more than one or two projects. Nikita Hopkins is a rare case of an actor that became tied to Roo for a long period of the franchise, though Jimmy Bennett still filled in for him a couple of times between then.
Less expectedly, Kanga rarely kept a consistent actor for very long either. Barbara Luddy voiced her in the original shorts and film. Following her death, Julie McWhirter voiced her in A Day For Eeyore, then Patricia Parris in New Adventures. Tress MacNeille and Kath Soucie took turns with the role for a long duration afterwards, with Kristen Anderson-Lopez taking over for the 2011 film.
In the 90s, they would often have substitute voice actors for smaller Pooh projects, such as CD-ROM and video games, commercials, and the new material for Sing A Song With Pooh Bear and Seasons Of Giving. For these, Gregg Berger (and for one CD-ROM, Brad Garrett) would often fill in as Eeyore, and Steve Schatzberg would fill in as Piglet (he also did Piglet's singing voice for quite a few projects during this time.
In the Japanese version, Pooh has switched voice actors three times, going from Shun Yashiro to Sukekiyo Kameyama to Mitsuaki Kanuka after the first two passed away, Christopher Robin and Roo have had numerous voice actors like in the English version, Rabbit was voiced by the late Kei Tomiyama in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh instead of Naoki Tatsuta, Piglet was originally Kiyoshi Komiyama and after Komiyama left the series, Mitsuru Ogata took the role (having alternated in the role during The Book of Pooh and House of Mouse), Gopher is voiced by Kunihiro Kawamoto in the Japanese version of Kingdom Hearts III after Mahito Tsujimura passed away and Yu Ishizuka currently voices Eeyore after Taro Ishida passed away.
An odd subversion happens in the Japanese dub: Tigger is voiced by Tesshō Genda, a voice actor normally associated with voicing Hot-Blooded heroes like Optimus Prime, big guys or outright vicious beings like Kurama or Kratos in Japanese. Keep in mind he's one of the few voice actors from that version that voiced Tigger from day one in Japan, when he was much younger and possibly he wasn't yet typecasted into a specific kind of role.
Uncredited Role: Ron Clements did story work on Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, but demanded that his name be removed from the credits due to his outrage at Disney for outsourcing the animation work to Rick Reinert Productions.
Sterling Holloway was considered to reprise Pooh in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, but the then-83 year old actor was deemed unable to replicate the voice properly after an audition. Given Jim Cummings would step in as Pooh starting from New Adventures in what was arguably his Star-Making Role, who knows how differently his career may have went otherwise.
Paul Winchell was intended to reprise his role as Tigger in The Tigger Movie, however Disney decided his voice had become too worn from age so opted for his replacement Jim Cummings (1952) instead. Winchell's final performances as Tigger before his death of natural causes on June 24, 2005 note John Fiedler (Piglet) died of cancer the following day was in 1999 for Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine for You and the Pooh attraction at Walt Disney World. Following his retirement, Cummings permanently took over the role of Tigger starting with Sing a Song with Pooh Bear in 1999 (though some of Winchell's vocals from previous Pooh animations were included).
Post 2002 prints of A Day For Eeyore feature credits listing a few of the then-current voice actors, such as Jim Cummings, Ken Samson, and Tress MacNeille (Pooh, Rabbit, and presumably Kanga even though Kath Soucie was her main voice actress at this time) alongside some of the original ones, but the featurette itself features all the original voices. This implies that a redub was attempted with those actors, but ultimately scrapped. Disney would later release The Mini Adventures of Winnie the Pooh which brought back the idea of having the then-current voice actors dub clips from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, A Day for Eeyore and The Tigger Movie.
In 2014, a new Winnie the Pooh TV series was in development called The World According To Winnie The Pooh that was set in modern day England. The series was a collaboration between Disney Television Animation and Cartoon Saloon with a pilot episode called "Friendship Phone-blems" being created around the same period. The series was passed by new Disney ABC leadership alongside Disney XD's "Welcome To Simpleton" & "Very Important House" on 2016. Footage of the pilot was uploaded to YouTube on January 5, 2023. Neither of the current voice actors for Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore were brought in to voice the characters.
◊ (depicting Pooh being kicked by Christopher Robin) for the British humour magazine Punch!, perfectly summarising his feeling towards the character by that point. He apparently still had some remaining affection for Pooh, however, since he was reportedly not fond of Disney's Americanisation of the franchise in the '60s.
