Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh, a bear of very little brain, tends to be a bit on the slow side (his head is full of fluff, you know...a common occurrence among teddy bears) but his heart more than makes up for that. Pooh has a love of honey (or, hunny, as it is sometimes spelled) and often creates little tunes, or hums, about most anything at all. He is also the inventer of the famous game 'Poohsticks' and discoverer of the 'North Pole'. For his brave actions he is honoured as a 'Hero' and knighted to 'Sir Pooh de Bear' by Christopher Robin.
Winnie the Pooh lives by himself in a tree in Hundred Acre Wood under the name of Sanders. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it." No one really knows who Sanders was. The best guess is that Milne used something he found in the woods near Cotchford Farm and incorporated it into the stories. In this case, a sign with the name Sanders was found on a tree, and it was decided that that was the tree in which Pooh lived.
In the Disney version, Winnie the Pooh always wears an old red t-shirt. Classic Pooh, however, only wears this old red t-shirt during wintertime. This can be seen in two chapters, 'In which Pooh and Piglet go hunting and nearly catch a Woozle', (chapter three from Winnie-the-Pooh) and 'In which a house is built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore' (chapter one from 'The house at Pooh Corner'). Pooh also wears this shirt in the verse 'The engineer' from 'Now we are six'.
Sterling Holloway provided the voice for Winnie the Pooh for Disney's first feature-length animated film of Pooh. He also provided the voice for KAA, the snake in 'The Jungle Book', and the Cheshire Cat in Disney's version of 'Alice in Wonderland'. Holloway appeared in 89 movies during his long acting career. In 1933 alone, he was in 16 movies and acted along side such legends as Clark Gabel, Joan Crawford, Joan Blondell and W.C. Fields with whom he did a live version of 'Alice In Wonderland'.
Some of the loveable quotes and hums from Pooh:
- I'm rumbly in my tumbly
- Oh bother!
- It's more friendly with two
- I'm a little black raincloud
- Dum-dum-dum..
- From the moment the fluff got in my ear
- Such a thing as a balloon
- I like Rabbit because..
- I think I shall come down
- It's a Jagular
- It's time for lunch
- I was afraid of that
- No hurry, take your time
- Now, isn't this a clever disguise
- Now would you aim me at the Bees please
- Oh stuff and fluff
- The only reason for being a bee
- Then bounce down
- Think think think!
- You can never tell with bees
- Yum yum, bears love honey