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Winnie-the-Pooh

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File:Winnie-the-Pooh.png
Winnie-the-Pooh in a drawing by E. H. Shepard. As described in the books, Pooh "lives under" the name Sanders, which "means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it."

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 similarly named pet bear of a Canadian soldier .

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.

Origins

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 .

Development by Disney

File:Winniethepooh.jpg
Winnie-the-Pooh (Disney version)

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 biggest—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—a sign of the increasing Americanization of the franchise (the gopher being a uniquely North American animal), which Disney nevertheless explicitly acknowledged, by having the 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 Disney—as much as is earned by Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto combined.

Many direct to video featurettes have been created, as well as the features The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, and Pooh's Heffalump Movie. The last of the movies listed introduced an elephant-like heffalump named Lumpy. The classic characters, plus Lumpy, are expected to appear in a television series in 2007. Christopher Robin has been replaced with an as-of-yet-unnamed girl.

Ownership controversy and drastic changes

File:Christopher robins replacement.jpg
Christopher Robin's replacement, a 6-year-old "tomboyish" girl.

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. We understand that 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.

In December 2005, Disney announced that Pooh's friend and owner Christopher Robin would be replaced by a red-haired tomboy-like girl for a planned 2007 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.)

Other works

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 "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 still loved.

Radio

Readings of various Winnie-the-Pooh stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 by Alan Bennett and also released as recordings. Many listeners felt Bennett's voice was particularly well-suited.

Disney adaptations

Featurettes

Full-length features

* - 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

Holiday TV Specials

Video games

Trivia

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, and Sleeping Beauty.

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.. 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.

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.

On 11 April 2006 Winnie the Pooh was awarded a star on the Walk of Fame at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard.

See also

References

  1. http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10193
  2. http://www.nypl.org/branch/central/dlc/dch/
  3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4512770.stm
  4. http://www.nypl.org/branch/central/dlc/dch/pooh/
  5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/53778.stm
  6. http://www.hollywoodchamber.net/icons/upcoming_ceremonies.asp

External links

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