Winnie the Pooh (character)

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	Bear
Gender	Male

Winnie the Pooh is a character from the Disney media franchise based on A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928).

Disney's Pooh was originally voiced by Sterling Holloway (1966–1977) in three featurettes that were later used as segments in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977). Hal Smith (1981–1986) took over for the 1981 short Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons, and would maintain the role until Jim Cummings (1988–present) began voicing Pooh in The New Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1988–1991). Cummings continues to voice Pooh (as well as Tigger) to this day.

In 1961, Walt Disney Productions licensed certain film and other rights to the characters, stories, and trademarks from Stephen Slesinger, Inc. and the estate of A. A. Milne. and made a series of cartoon films about him. The early cartoons were based on several of the original stories and the distinctive images made popular by Stephen Slesinger, Inc. during the 1930s through 1960s. Alongside the cartoon versions, which Disney adapted from Slesinger, Slesinger's simplified lines and pastel color adaptations of Shepard's classical drawings are 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 Gopher acknowledges by proclaiming, "I'm not in the book, you know"). The film comprises three segments originally released as separate 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). The 1977 release featured new bridging material and a new ending, as it had been Walt Disney's original intention to make a feature. A fourth featurette, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, was released in 1983.