Winnie the Pooh: Silly Old Bear

Introduction to Winnie the Pooh

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1:57Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And we're continuing on with our endless nostalgia talk, which is fine by me. Were you into Winnie the Pooh? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was raised on the Disney version. I don't know if I ever had any of the original storybooks, but as I became an adult, I grew pretty fond of those. So, you know, every night, you and me and I will read a couple to each other. Oh, that's nice. I'm kidding.

2:28Well, that sounded like a nice evening. It really would, for sure. And maybe we will start, because I was reading some of these again, and I'm like, God, these are sweet. Yeah, it's sweet stuff. I don't remember, I guess I was into it a little bit, but it doesn't stand out as, like, a hugely, like, formative piece of culture from my childhood. What did you think about it rereading some of the stuff, though, today? I mean, the same. It's just wonderful stuff. And it's kind of, like, a little bit of a

2:59bummer, like the real life stuff. Yeah. So much so, I'm like, maybe we should just skip that part, because I've watched that biopic, or biopic, depending on your pronunciation. Which one? Goodbye, Christopher Robin. Okay. And it is harsh. Yeah. I mean, that's the real story. I think, you know, Disney made the Christopher Robin movie that seemed to, I didn't see that one, the one with Ewan McGregor, but that seemed to be very much a Disney-fied version of the real Christopher Robin's adulthood.

3:31I see. So this was about, they focused easily half the movie on his very, very early life. I'd say about two-thirds or three-quarters of the movie. Maybe five-eighths, we'll just say that. And, but it was, like, based on an author, like, a really exhaustive biography from the 90s. And, man, it did not pull punches. Like, it was tough to watch. And, like, the mom, Daphne, is not treated sympathetically at all. She's, essentially, if there's a villain in the movie, it's her.

4:04Yeah, I totally agree. Well, at any rate, before we get off on that, we should probably talk about the celebrated Winnie the Pooh. And hopefully, you can continue on separating the art, the work of magic that A.A. Milne created from, you know, the real-life behind-the-scenes stuff. Because that's real life. Winnie the Pooh is not real life. And that's what makes it so magnificent.

The True Story of Winnipeg the Bear

4:28That's right. But it was birthed from a real-life thing, which is, I mean, the story starts out incredibly sweet. And it starts out in Canada in 1914 when a soldier shows up at basic training and has an orphaned black bear cub. And this is Lieutenant Harry Colburn, who was a veterinarian from Winnipeg. Shout-out, Winnipeg. Yeah. City we went to for the very first time on tour this summer. Shout-out, Winnipeg. Had a great time. But he apparently, as the story goes, got this bear from a train platform on his way to the military base.

5:03It was for sale by a hunter who had killed the bear's mom. So he brings this bear along, who was a little girl bear, by the way. And that's kind of set me down the path of like, wait a minute, was Winnie the Pooh a girl bear? No. And apparently not. So we'll kind of get to that switch. But because he was from Winnipeg, he nicknamed this real bear, Winnie, and took this real bear to like the barracks. And it became like a little base bear. Yeah. That's so Canada, too, you know? Oh, totally. I love it.

5:33Also, in the version of the story in my head, Lieutenant Harry Colburn left that hunter, a bloody pulp, just barely clinging to life. Yeah, sure. So Colburn is at the base, and he's like called off to World War I. And that's, you know, even Canadian friendliness has its levels. They're like, no, you can't take the bear with you. So he, because he was stationed in London, he took it to the London Zoo and said, can you hang on to my bear for me for a few years until I come back?

6:05And the London Zoo said, sure. And in the meantime, while he was gone, Winnie the Bear became a huge sensation because she had been raised around humans. She was very gentle, so much so that kids were able to interact with her, you know, smartly or otherwise. But by the time Colburn came back from World War I, he found, like, Winnie was so beloved, he was like, I think you belong to London now, not me. Yeah, and especially with that cute voice that this bear had, you know. So now we got to go to the story of A.A. Milne, the author of these books, Alan Alexander Milne.

A.A. Milne and Post-War Life

6:44He was a writer before Winnie the Pooh came along. He edited a humor magazine called Punch. He was also sent off to World War I in 1914, and he came back a mess. And especially if you see this movie, like, if that movie is the truth and it seems like it is because it's based on that exhaustive book, then he had a pretty severe case of PTSD after being injured and seeing the horrors of war. Yes, and it was very much – his view of the world was really wrecked as well.

7:19Like, he just couldn't understand how people could send other people off to die like the way he saw people die. And, yeah, he had what they called at the time shell shock. Yeah. And he – like you said, he had worked for Punch magazine. He kind of established himself. But he continued to write, and he tried writing other stuff. He wrote a play that was turned into a silent movie, and he was an essayist as well. I think it wasn't until about the early to mid-1920s that he really found his calling.

7:50And he found his calling after he had his one and only child, Christopher Robin. Yeah. I mean, I kind of assume most people knew that Christopher Robin was the real kid's name. But if you didn't know, surprise. You can't make that kind of name up. You can't. And he had a nickname, which was Billy Moon. He was born in 1920. And like you said, once he had this little boy, he started writing children's poetry. And in 1923, he wrote a poem called Vespers, which mentioned his son, Christopher Robin, by name and the little stuffed bear that he had.

8:26It was a real-life stuffed bear. And if you're ever in New York City, go to the New York City Public Library because all his little original stuffed animals that these stories were based on are sitting there. And it's wonderful to see. Yeah. Under a glass case. And if you go at the right time after closing, you can hear them banging on the glass. It's funny, I couldn't remember where I saw those when I was doing the research. I was like, I know I saw those somewhere and I couldn't remember what museum. And then when – who helps us with this? Julia?

8:56Yeah, Julia. This is a Julia joint. A Julia joint. Yeah, when she said that it was a New York Public Library, I remembered. Did you say, by God, that's right? I did, but you know when you have a little gnawing thing that you don't know the answer to and it's so satisfying to have that memory even though it wasn't a memory? Yeah. That's called my normal life, but I don't get the satisfying remembrance. It's just – I have to just give it up. I'm sorry to hear that, but I'll send you a little stuffed bear. Okay. Fair enough.

How the Bear Got His Name

9:28I have a question for you though, Chuck. Sure. I think you might be able to answer this. You said that Winnie – Winnie was a girl bear, Winnipeg, the Canadian bear. And Winnie the Pooh is not a girl. So how did Winnie the Pooh get the name Winnie? You're being coy, but I'll play along. You know, like I said, he had this real stuffed bear. He got it as a – I think a one-year-old on his first birthday from his mom, Daphne.

9:59Winnie, and he nicknamed this bear – or he named it, I guess, Edward. So right out of the gate, this bear is gendered. And then later on, the name Winnie comes around because he meets that real bear that we were talking about, Winnipeg, at the London Zoo, nicknamed Winnie. So he changed Edward to Winnie and just said, I guess you're still a boy. So, yeah, I think in the movie or somewhere his dad said, well, is he a boy or is he a girl? I thought he was a boy. He said, he's neither.

10:30He's a bear. Sure. Which is just a great Christopher Robinism. Yeah, I agree. I knew – so Edward for a bear is not that odd. It's actually kind of cute. But I knew a man once who had a dog named Jason. And I still to this day think that's the oddest dog name I've ever heard. Yeah, the real human names for dogs can be funny, and I think Jason is one of them. But there are definitely human names that are more – that are funnier than others. Jason's pretty high up there. It is, but I don't think the guy was being funny, which made it even stranger.

11:03Yeah, I guess you're right. What's a funny name, real name for a dog? I mean, my in-laws had a dog named Josh. I don't think I ever told you that. No. Yeah, they always named their dog's real names, like Josh and Toby and – I can't remember the others. Toby I can see. Josh, that's a surprising one too. Yeah. How about – It's no Jason though. How about Lois?

11:28See, no, that's – yeah, that's almost – that's starting to be – that's purposefully silly. Or Elizabeth. That's a weird dog name. That is a weird dog name. But I could also see some real frou-frou-like little Pomeranian or something. I almost said Pomeranian. Look at us. So, okay. I think we were talking about Winnie the Pooh at some point, right? That's right. It went from Edward to Winnie after he met the real Winnipeg bear at the London Zoo. Well, while we're on it, what the heck is the Pooh then?

11:59Well, Pooh, I think, came from – he was on vacation, the young Christopher Robin Milne. And there was this swan that he nicknamed Pooh that he fed every morning. And apparently, as the story goes, when the swan did not show up, he would just say, Pooh, like, I don't care if you're coming or not. Even though, obviously, he did. And so, I guess it just sort of morphed into Winnie the Pooh, hyphenated at first. Yeah. Pretty cute. Yeah. One of the all-time great names, too. Like, I think that is, in no small part, one of the reasons for Winnie the Pooh's belovedness.

12:32Yeah. It's such a great name.

Moving to Sussex and the 100 Acre Wood

12:33I agree. So, as we said, A.A. Milne was definitely suffering from PTSD. And he was back in London. He was trying to, you know, pick up his career again. And it was just – those two things were not going very well together. So, he decided that what would be best for him and, in turn, his family was to leave the city and move to Sussex, which is, I guess, it's called the home county. It's like an exurb of London. It's not that far away, but it's pretty rural from what I understand.

13:04And he bought Cotchford Farm near this forest was just exactly the kind of impetus they needed to come up with the 100-acre woods, thanks to forays with his son, which was – he says in the movie, and I totally buy it, but these were the happiest times of his life, making up games and stories with his, you know, three-, four-, five-year-old son walking through Ashdown Forest. Yeah, and I hate to issue a correction, but I know we're going to hear from listeners, if you don't correct 100-acre wood, singular.

13:35Cool. Thank you for – thank you. That's absolutely true. A small thing, but it jumped out at me. Thank you. Well, yeah, if it jumped out at you, we were definitely going to get some mean emails. How could you be so stupid? I know. It's not an S. Did you mention the other stuffed animals? I know I mentioned all of them being in the New York City Public Library, but all of those characters that would eventually end up in these books, he had his little stuffies. He had a little pig. He had a little donkey. He had a tiger and a kangaroo and that bear, which is just – all this stuff couldn't be any sweeter.

14:10No, it's true. That little piglet one is adorable. Yeah, very much. So, you said he wrote Vespers, and that apparently became quite popular. It was just super sweet. It was definitely along the lines of what he would later write for Winnie the Pooh. The first thing he did was start writing children's poetry. And then, as I said, like as he started hanging out with his son in the woods, just having fun time with him, he would bring – a little Christopher Robin would bring his stuffed animals along on these walks.

14:43And they became like characters in the woods themselves. So, the woods very quickly became their home in these stories they were making up. And what were their names? We haven't even said these yet, I don't think. So, you've got Piglet – man, I love Piglet. You have Eeyore, the sad donkey. Tigger, the hyperactive tiger, but actually he's not really a tiger. He's a tigger. He's one of a kind. Yeah. Kanga, the incredibly sweet and patient mom.

15:13Her Joey Roo, who's a lot of fun to have around. And then, of course, Winnie the Pooh, the willy-nilly silly old bear. Oh, goodness.

15:23It's just too much for me, so I've got to take a break if that's all right. Yeah, for sure. All right. We'll be right back, everybody, with more on Winnie the Pooh.

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19:08All right, everyone.

Publishing the First Stories

19:21We're back with more sweetness. It's Christmas Eve 1925, and the London Evening News publishes a short story and introduces the world to Little Pooh. It was called The Wrong Sword of Bees, and it would be the first chapter of a short story collection, or I guess just a story collection. Well, they were short stories, right? They were short stories, sure. All right, great. And that published as a unit the next year. And almost all of the characters were in this first group, and they all had their distinct personalities that, you know, as we'll see later, people extrapolated on, like, maybe what the meaning of these personalities were.

19:59But what were they like? Well, there were two also that we didn't mention, Rabbit and Owl, and that was because there was no Rabbit or Owl stuffed animal. They came later. But they were in this first book. Tigger was the only one who didn't make his first appearance in the first storybook. He came out in the second one. But Piglet, he was always very scared and nervous and worried and anxious. Rabbit was a perfectionist. He was very much, like, I never really caught on to his character quite as much.

20:32But I just know that he was very much preoccupied with everything going right, if I'm not mistaken. Owl was one of those guys who likes to hear himself talk and would just say stuff. Yeah. The other characters, you know, Winnie the Pooh frequently talked about how he didn't have a brain or he was filled with fluff or something like that. And so the other characters are taking whatever Owl says is, you know, correct, even though it's sometimes wildly off. Yeah, for sure. I think you already mentioned earlier that Eeyore was, of course, sad.

21:06And then Kanga was obviously is the mom, a very nurturing character. And you got Rue, who was a little, you know, he was a little rambunctious baby. He was like the tiny Tim. Just super sweet and cute. Just having him present was fun. Yeah. And that was The Wrong Sword of Bees. And then you mentioned The House on Pooh Corners when Tigger comes along. And we should talk about The Wrong Sword of Bees because it kind of just lays out a template for, I guess, things to come.

21:37And it's just so gosh darn cute, too. It's so cute. And it sets the tone for like these personalities and what readers are in for, right? Yes. So, in it, the whole thing, and actually the book ends the same way in the opposite direction. But Christopher Robin, the real boy, comes down the stairs dragging his bear by the arm and asks his father to tell him a story. We'll tell his bear a story. And that's how the whole thing starts, that Winnie the Pooh is sitting under a sign that says Mr. Sanders.

22:13And that's the only mention that's ever made of it, as far as I can tell. It's just such a weird little detail. But he starts trying to go for honey because he realizes he hears some bees. And to him, the only purpose of bees is to make honey for him to eat. Yeah. It's that honeypot. Always getting him into trouble. And it starts off right off the bat in book one. So, he wants to climb up this tree, obviously, get into that honeypot. A branch breaks and he falls down to a little prickly bush.

22:44And he's like, all right, I've got a new idea. I wish I could do the voice. But he says he's got a new idea. He wants to become a cloud and trick these bees. So, he decides to become a dark cloud by rolling himself in mud, borrows a blue balloon from his friend, Christopher Robin, so he can float up. And he's like, this is going to work. They're going to be scared of this dark cloud and I'm going to get that honeypot. Yes. But the bees don't seem to be buying it. And so, he asked Christopher Robin to go get his umbrella and walk underneath Pooh with the umbrella out saying, tut, tut, it looks like rain to help fool the bees even further.

23:23That still doesn't work. But now Pooh realizes that he's stuck up there because if he just lets go of the balloon, he's going to fall and it's going to hurt. That's right. And the title, Wrong Sword of Bees, comes from the fact that the bees don't buy into his plan. And Pooh says these are the wrong sort of bees, which is adorable. It is. So, Christopher Robin helps him out, shoots a hole in that balloon, and he drifts down safely, doesn't learn a lesson, which is a very much established sort of thing for Winnie the Pooh.

23:54Like, he's still going to go after the honeypot a million times in the future. So, that was the first one. That was the one that premiered in the London Evening Times on Christmas Eve, 1925. And that was the first chapter in that book. And the other ones are super cute, too. Like, there's one where Pooh goes to visit Rabbit in his warren and eats too much. He takes too much advantage of Rabbit's hospitality and starts eating condensed milk and honey.

24:25But he doesn't want to make a nuisance of himself. So, he very politely tells Rabbit, no need to get me any bread. I'll just eat the condensed milk and honey as is. And he gains so much weight that he can't get back out the hole to Rabbit's warren. And he gets stuck and has to stay there for a week while he goes on a diet until he slims down enough to be pulled out. Yeah, there's a lot of food and gluttony-related storylines with Winnie. For sure. For sure. But he's also adorable. And one of the other things that's so adorable to me is the way that Christopher Robin looks at Pooh and sees Pooh.

24:59He very frequently thinks to himself, silly old bear. And it's just such like a loving, tender feeling that's just evoked in just that little phrase that he thinks of him and calls him sometimes. And it's just super cute. I love it. I don't know if we've gotten across. This stuff is really cute. It is. Okay. It's so sugary sweet.

E.H. Shepard and the Classic Illustrations

25:21So, we should talk about the illustrations a little bit because they have become just completely iconic. It was an illustrator named E.H. Shepard. And they're very, you know, it's nothing fancy. It's pretty straightforward stuff. I don't think they became color until 1931. Is that right? I didn't see that anywhere. I saw a couple of references to it, but all I ever saw were black and white, like just pencil or just line illustrations uncolored. Yeah, it's somewhere in here. So, we'll get to it. I think it was the early 1930s. But, yeah, initially black and white and, again, nothing fancy going on, very simple sort of shapes and lines.

25:59Shepard also had gone to World War I and had a pretty rough go of it. And it seems like, and, you know, this is in the movie as well, that England just really sort of post-war England needed this sweetness in their lives. Exactly. That's one reason why it's posited it became so popular so quickly. This is like an enormous sensation pretty much out of the gate, as we'll see. And I think that's also why a lot of people point to it as being just as popular 100 years on, you know.

26:32It is – people just need that kind of sweet, like, way of living and looking at life, you know, without being bowled over by it at every turn, you know, just kind of saying that's life. You just keep going and be positive. Yeah. There's some good, simple messages in all these books. He originally modeled the drawings on the real stuffed animals from Christopher Robin, except when he got to the final version of Winnie, that came from inspiration. That was inspired by his own kid's teddy bear, who was a little chubbier, I think, than Christopher Robin's real doll.

27:08Yeah. Not his real doll. You know what I'm saying. Right. He also had to – like I said, there wasn't a rabbit or an owl doll. So he had to use live models with Christopher Robin holding them still on the table, holding them down so they wouldn't wriggle too much or get away. That reminds me of – if you look – I might have said this before at some point. If you look at baby pictures of my brother, you will notice that my mother's hand is in the photo propping him up because my brother was so round, he would roll over in Olin Mills' portrait.

27:44So we have a lot of baby pictures of Scott with my mom's hand in there. Man, he's like a weeble that'll wobble but won't fall down. Yeah, and now he can't gain a pound, you know, so thanks for that. Yeah. One other thing about E.H. Shepard that stuck out to me is in that The Wrong Sword of Bees, that first chapter, where Christopher Robin shoots the balloon so that the air slowly comes out so Pooh can come down safely to the ground. And if you look at his gun, it's a pop gun.

28:15There's like a cork on a string hanging out of it, which I thought was a good little touch from E.H. Shepard. And that was like the kind of thing that he would have done because, again, this whole thing is like meant to be the antithesis or the antidote to the war that Europe just went through. And I think that's evidence of how they were trying to make things feel. Yeah, a bazooka would have been completely inappropriate. With like smoke coming out of the end. That would be weird. If you think that some of this original stuff is very valuable, you'd be right.

28:46Because in 2018, the original 100-acre wood map that Shepard Hand drew sold at auction for $568,761, which set a record for a single book illustration. And then just last year in 2025, someone paid $120,000 or close to $120,000 for a collection of Milne's early drafts and like, you know, poems, illustrations, stuff like that. And apparently there was some notes to Shepard from Milne that says the illustrations were very poor.

29:23Not cool. So that hand-drawn map of the 100-acre wood that went for $600,000, I was looking at it and it's purported to have been drawn with scare quotes by Christopher Robin with the help of E.H. Shepard. Because it says drawn by me and then it says Mr. Shepard helped, like H-E-L-P-D. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like, you know, that makes it kind of cute. Yeah. Once again, cuteness abounds with all these sad, sad adults trying to work their way through their war drama.

30:00Agreed. And again, like we said, there's some other bittersweet sadness to it as well behind the scenes.

Commercial Success and Disney Rights

30:07But before we get to that, I said that this was like a huge, huge phenomenon right out of the gate. Yeah. I think it sold 200,000 copies in Great Britain and the United States by the end of the year, which is even more impressive when you realize that it came out in October. Yeah. That is unheard of at the time. It was like on the level of what Mickey Mouse would soon be. I think Steamboat Willie came out around the same time. But I don't think it was quite as big as Winnie the Pooh was.

30:40And Winnie the Pooh became the first, like, mass-marketed children's character thanks to a guy named Stephen Schlesinger who bought the Canadian and U.S. rights in 1930. Yeah. He paid $1,000 plus royalties. I'm not sure how that worked. I was trying to get more detail, but it's hard to find, you know, stuff about these old deals. Mm-hmm. And I don't – could this number be correct or did Julia already West Egg that number up? I don't think so.

31:11I could see it being correct. All right. So according – I'm going to blame Julia if this is wrong. But within a year of purchasing the rights to Pooh and company, apparently he was making, in 1931 dollars, 50 million bucks a year on merch and media, which would be over a billion dollars a year in today money. I mean, he put it on absolutely everything and licensed it to a lot of people to do more than just make toys with, like, to make, like, little animated shorts or make records that were, you know, the stories acted out, that kind of stuff.

31:55So, I mean, that is a lot of money, but Julia is usually pretty good about saying, like, in today dollars or something when she means that. Yeah, I mean, what I tried to do was look up Schlesinger's, like, net worth when he died and they didn't – you know, they don't have kind of information on that kind of stuff because I think he died in the 1950s maybe. But he was well known in the business for, like, merchandising and buying rights to a lot of characters. And there's a really long, detailed – I don't even know all the details – story of the rights and how that worked over the years because Milne died in 1956 and left the rights to his widow through a trust and – to his widow in three organizations, the Westminster School, the Royal Literary Fund, and the Garrett Club.

32:41And Disney bought the rights from the widow, at least, that she controlled in 61 and struck a deal with the other four – I'm sorry, the other three organizations to, like, you know, pay them out semi-annually. And then I think in 2001, Disney bought it outright from those other entities for $350 million. Wow. But it's – the article went on and on about, like, more nuance and subtleties over the years and lawsuits and all this kind of crazy stuff, obviously, when you're dealing with hundreds of millions of bucks.

33:12But long story short, Disney ultimately acquired all the rights because I think Walt Disney's daughter really loved Winnie the Pooh and he was like, I'll buy it for you then. Yeah, she said, get it for me, Daddy. I want it. And I don't think we mentioned the real Christopher Robin voiced Christopher Robin on those early records and radio shows, right? Yes. He became a overnight sensation. His dad became a celebrated literary sensation overnight as well because not just kids but adults loved Winnie the Pooh right out of the gate as well.

33:45So, yes, they became a huge smash hit in the toast of England, at least if not further, which became problematic for them for sure. I say we take a break and we'll come back and talk about some of those problems after, well, the break. Let's do it. Okay. Okay.

34:15Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgart, Vivgart is also known as its generic name, Efgart Tigamod Alpha FCAB. You'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease. Join host Andra Stratton as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis.

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35:37We'll see you next time.

36:07We'll see you next time.

36:37Okay, Chuck, thanks for leaving it to me to kick this part off.

The Dark Side of Childhood Fame

36:56As we mentioned, that movie from 2017, Goodbye Christopher Robin, was based on a biography of A.A. Milne from 1990. And I don't remember the biographer's name, but it did not, like I said, pulled many punches, if any. And it was starring Domhnall Gleeson, Brendan Gleeson's son. Yeah, I love that guy. Yeah, he was in Ex Machina, a few other movies, but he was also in Frank. Have you ever seen Frank?

37:27I don't think so. What was that? It's an indie film about an indie band led by a guy with a giant papier-mâché head who no one has ever seen. He will not take it off. Yeah, that was true. Turns out it's Fassbender playing Frank. Yeah, yeah, that's a true story. Is it? Yeah, and I think our old buddy John Ronson wrote the book that that was based on, if I'm not mistaken. Well, that is a great, great movie. I'm guessing the book's even better because that's usually the case.

37:59Yeah, I didn't read the book or see the movie. I need to do both. Go see the movie for sure. It's a great little movie. I would recommend it to anybody. Yeah, that was a weird, true story. And, of course, right up John Ronson's alley. For sure. So, anyway, that was neither here nor there. But the point of Goodbye Christopher Robin was this idea that A.A. Milne essentially stole Christopher Robin, the real-life Christopher Robin's childhood, and sold it in book form.

38:33He packaged it and sold it and got very, very rich off of it. And his son became very, very unhappy. Even before he realized that that's – even before he could put into words something like that, he just knew something was quite wrong. And he did not like all of the attention. He liked it at first, but very quickly it became overwhelming and overtaxing for him. And his nanny, Olive, who he loved very much. Right. Who in the movie was played by – what's her name from – Kelly MacDonald.

39:03Yeah, Trainspotting. That book, by the way, was written by Anne Thwait. Thank you. And in that book, she goes on to sort of detail how, in some ways, this kind of – I don't want to go so far as to say ruin their lives, but it wasn't a great thing. Like, you know, this was a writer, A.A. Milne, who wanted to do other things. He was like, I don't want to write this stuff anymore. I was a satirist to begin my career and then a playwright, and nobody wanted that.

39:34Everyone just wanted more poo. And he felt, you know, I think this happens sometimes when you get a big breakout hit with a thing, sort of imprisoned by that thing. Yeah, and something similar happened to A.A. Shepard, although I don't think to nearly the degree that it happened to A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin in his real life, not his career, his real life, he ran into the same problems that his father ran into with his career. But, you know, the point is made that Shepard was a – he was a political cartoonist, so he had an edgy, satirical, like, career as well.

40:10And people were like, draw some more, like, piglets for us. But I did see that he continued to have a very long, illustrious career at Punch magazine into the late 40s. So he wasn't – you know, his career wasn't totally derailed like A.A. Milne's was. He's like, here's poo as Uncle Sam. Exactly. And here he is as Chairman Mao.

40:33So Christopher Robin Milne had a rough go. Like you said, he was bullied kind of all throughout school, kind of that thing where anytime, you know, you think like being a famous kid is a cool thing, but it seems to never work out that way at school, like you become a target. He went off to war, enlisted to, to kind of prove that, you know, all the kids would call him names. They would call him a sissy and, like, names that they said, you know, at the time like that. And went off to war, graduated college, and even in his professional life, like, I get the idea.

41:10It's sort of like, you know, he goes to get a job and they're like, wait, Christopher Robin – you're that Christopher Robin? No way. And, yeah, and he just had a hard time breaking free of being that character even though he was a real human. Yeah, he – and he became more and more resentful, especially as he was able to put into words what he felt like his father did for him or to him as far as his childhood goes. And also his father wasn't exactly like walking around with his heart on his sleeve. He supposedly was very, very reserved, maybe even more than Domino Gleeson portrays him in that movie.

41:44Oh, wow. According to the real Christopher Robin later in life. So for his adolescence all the way up to middle age, he had a seething resentment for his father. And it wasn't until later in life that he finally was able to happily make peace not just with his father but also with Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. And then he came to appreciate Winnie the Pooh again because Christopher Robin, the real-life Christopher Robin, ironically, was the one kid in the entire world over generations who hated Winnie the Pooh.

42:17I know. And he was able to overcome it, which I think is a really triumphant story. But he had a quote I read when he was, I think, age 60. He said, My father had got where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders. He filched from me my good name and left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son. Oof. That's how he felt about his father for decades. Man, that is rough. And his dad was a deeply damaged human because of the war. Yeah. Yeah. We promised sadness, everyone. So I hope we're delivering on that.

42:49Yeah, 1932 is when he got color on a record sleeve, and that's when the iconic red shirt became a thing. And I guess we should talk a little bit about the Disney cartoons.

The Animated Disney Featurettes

43:02Like I said, they got the rights in 61. And I think five years after that, the first featurette came out, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. And all of a sudden, it was like a, you know, living, breathing, moving thing on the big screen. And people drank this in as much as they did the books. Yeah, I think it outshined the first live action movie that it was paired with in theaters. The Ugly Dachshund, starring Suzanne Plachette and Dean Jones.

43:32It looked like a stink bomb. I think I saw that, actually. Did you really? It's basically like a giant dog that is playing with dachshunds and thinks it's a dachshund for like an hour and a half. It just looked awful. Plus, there's something about Dean Jones I've never put my finger on, but I don't know. I just don't see him as a family film kind of guy, even though that's mainly what he was in. Oh, interesting. I wonder if there's a Subway Jared story in there somewhere. I don't know. Maybe not that far, but I could see him like shouting at the child actors.

44:05There's like in between takes about how terrible they're doing. I love you've created this scenario. Yeah, I know. Poor guy. Anyway, so as far as the Disney movies go and the featurettes, it was like an all-star team from Disney from the beginning. It was directed – the originals were directed by Wooley Reitherman, who was one of the legendary nine old men of Disney who were these nine dudes. It's the name Walt Disney gave them, who kind of like all those early – kind of up through like the late 70s even.

44:38I think one of them even worked until the mid-80s. All those early animated movies were these nine dudes kind of running the show. And then they had an all-star cast voicing these things too, right? Not like these days all-star cast when it's like Patton Oswalt and Maya Rudolph. Like back in the day when they were animated voice stars. Well, Sterling Holloway, he's a great example. He was Ka, the serpent in the jungle book. He played the stork in Dumbo, who I think – he's like drunk and accidentally delivers Dumbo somewhere else, right?

45:11Yeah. You would just totally recognize his voice and probably his face too because he was in a lot of like live-action movies too. But he played Winnie the Pooh. And I can't hear Winnie the Pooh as any other voice but his. Yeah, totally. Barbara Letty did the lady voice for Lady and the Tramp. She was Kanga. Clint Howard, of course, a famed actor. And I hate to have to say this, but he is Ron Howard's brother. I'm sure he gets tired of that designation though.

45:42I would think so. I've heard he's actually a really cool dude. Yeah, he is. And kind of easygoing. So he probably doesn't let on that it bothers him. He was also the star of the terrible, terrible movie The Ice Cream Man, which Riff Trax does. And it's so bad I can't even watch Riff Trax do it. Oh, no. But get this. My brother-in-law is producing a remake of The Ice Cream Man. No way. So I'm kind of excited to see that, yes. I don't know if Mila's in it or not, but I know my brother-in-law's producing, co-producing. Oh, she's got to be, right?

46:13Hopefully she'll at least have some sort of walk-on, you know, where she like spikes the camera and waves in the background. One of those. That'd be great. So Clint Howard was Rue. Buddy Baker was the composer. He did the Mickey Mouse Club theme. You know, the legendary animators of the early days of Disney were all put on this, of course. And they just started kind of pumping these things out one after the other in the late 60s, you know, through the mid-70s and beyond. Yes. And, I mean, when you say pumping them out, I feel like we should also accompany that with, like, these were also, like, Oscar-winning shorts, too.

46:52Yeah. It really started getting pumped out in, like, the 90s with a lot of, like, direct-to-DVD stuff. Yeah. These were still very much, like, cared for and, like, they were a big deal whenever they were produced, you know what I mean? Yeah. It didn't seem like, hey, how can we print more money next? Exactly. That started in the 80s and 90s.

Philosophy Politics and Modern Adaptations

47:14So now I think we should finish up a little bit with this thing that's happened with Winnie the Pooh over the years, which is it is a wonderful children's story or set of stories and films and everything. But it has always, or very soon after, I feel like, branched out as, like, being kind of co-opted, but not in a bad way, as, like, hey, there's a lot more to Winnie the Pooh than meets the eye. And we're talking, like, religion, mental health, philosophy, and, as we'll see, even political resistance.

47:49How do you feel about Winnie the Pooh getting that kind of treatment? Oh. Or being used in that manner? That's what I should say. I don't mind it. Okay. What about you? I mean, I don't think it totally, like, disrupts the purity of it because it's people sort of, like, saying, hey, these are, there's a lot of, like, life philosophies you can draw from each of these characters' distinct point of view. Sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that even if it stunk across the board, somehow it still wouldn't spoil Winnie the Pooh as Winnie the Pooh.

48:21You know what I'm saying? And I think that's also evidenced, Chuck, by the fact that the original books, the original stories coexist alongside the Disney-fied version. Yeah. Like, one of the things Disney is just known for is taking the original and redoing it in such a way that it has to consume the original and basically wipe it out of existence to create, to produce the Disney-fied version. Yeah. Like, AI companies scanning old books and destroying them, right? Yeah. It was, it's essentially what Disney did.

48:53Winnie the Pooh survived that. And that's really notable and noteworthy. And that says a lot about Winnie the Pooh, too, I think. Yeah. Winnie, Winnie shall not be denied his place. No. Winnie the Pooh will take his place by force if you don't give it to him. That's right. Well, God, we should mention that movie at the end. Oh, okay. So, I mentioned philosophy at first. There was a book in 1995 called Pooh and the Philosophers where all of the characters are sort of written about to as embodying these, all the famous philosophers.

49:30Plato, Kant, Descartes, Pooh was Nietzsche. And then that followed, or actually that was 1995, but earlier than that, and I remember this in the 80s, the Tao of Pooh in 1982. And how do you pronounce that? The Day? The Day of Piglet? So, Tao is the way or the path, and day is virtue. Okay. So, that was the 82 and 92, and that looks at the characters, obviously, through the lens of Taoism. Might be Dee. I'm not sure. But, yeah, so Pooh, actually, that one really works, and that's probably by far the most celebrated adaptation of Winnie the Pooh.

50:08Because the point of the Tao of Pooh is that Pooh is a perfect example of the goal of Taoism, which is wu-wei, which is not doing. Yeah. And that doesn't mean just sit around not doing anything. It means, like, you go with the flow of nature rather than trying to oppose it to bend it to your will. And that's perfectly embodied by Pooh, who just kind of happily goes along and, you know, completely rebounds from obstacles and problems and just moves a different direction, essentially.

50:40Yeah. They've also, in, like, mental illness treatment and self-help books and things, they have been assigned, well, you know, it seems sort of obvious that maybe Eeyore's depressed or maybe Piglet has anxiety. Tigger, they say, has ADHD. And, again, it's sort of, you know, this one feels a little more gross to me, but if it's helping people, then that's fine. I wonder, though, if it is, you know, maybe. I could see Tigger with ADHD, like, helping a kid with ADHD feel better, but, you know.

51:14I think that's probably what they use it for, don't you think, or? I don't know. I think they use it for think pieces that can be really annoying. Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of shrinks over the years, and no one ever brought this up to me. No, unless they're like, cheer up, Eeyore, geez. Yeah, good point. That's what my shrink always says to me. And then we got to talk a little bit about the political resistance thing. So, in 2017, there were some satirical memes around about Chinese President Xi Jinping and, like, hey, that's Winnie, like, depicting him as Winnie the Pooh.

51:46So, it's China. So, they were like, you know what? We're going to kind of almost ban Winnie the Pooh, basically. Yeah, you cannot legally put a picture of Winnie the Pooh and a picture of President Xi next to one another. That's illegal in China now. And so, of course, South Park got wind of this and dedicated a whole episode to, you know, skewering China over it. And I think they kill Winnie the Pooh in it. Yeah. So, China outlawed South Park, which is surprising to me that that is when they outlawed South Park.

52:19It seems like they would have outlawed South Park back in the aught, you know? Yeah, for real. But this is 2019. And then the Taiwanese Air Force kind of took that and reigned with it. And they have a patch. Some of the pilots have a patch of a Formosan black bear, which is native to Taiwan, punching Winnie the Pooh in the face. And I don't like the concept of Winnie the Pooh being punched in the face, but it is a pretty funny looking patch, I have to say. Yeah. And then, you know, the movie we referenced that we were going to mention, I had seen this trailer before when it came out.

52:49I guess the idea is that Winnie the Pooh eventually entered the public domain, which means people are going to do awful things. What was the name of the movie? Winnie the Pooh colon blood and honey. Yeah. So, it plays Winnie the Pooh as like a murderous bear. Yeah, who, after Christopher Robin left them and never came back, they went feral, but they also are able to use axes and handguns and stuff like that. So, it's a slasher flick with Winnie the Pooh and friends exacting revenge on Christopher Robin and his friends.

53:20And it's live action, which makes it even more bizarre. Yeah, and the Pooh looks pretty good. You know, the character they created. I remember when that came out and reading about the news about the public domain or whatever, and I don't think it's supposed to be very good, but I'd still like to see some of it, I guess. Me too. Me too. The coolest adaptation I saw is called The Call of Puthulu, and it is, I think, a dozen different authors, horror authors, writing Winnie the Pooh stories, but then weird, like, Cthulhu mythos stuff, like, from Lovecraft is woven in.

53:54Oh, that's funny. And it sounds awesome. So, it's coming to my house on Monday. Oh, cool. I love it. I can't wait. You know, Pooh is as big as ever. I believe it's never been out of print, the house on Pooh Corner, at least. These stories are available in more than 50 languages, have sold more than 50 copies around the world. This is a little fun fact. The Latin language version is, in 1958, is the only Latin language book to ever make the New York Times bestseller list, which is pretty cool.

54:25Yeah, for sure. And you can actually go to the setting of the 100-acre wood, Ashdown Forest, which is basically, I don't want to say it's been converted into the 100-acre wood, but there's definitely poo-related stuff all over the place. And for good reason. I mean, like, if you're going to go there, you kind of want to see the stuff that originally inspired this. So, there's the Poo Sticks Bridge, which is where the game of Poo Sticks, where each person drops a stick in the water, and then you run to the other side of the bridge to see whose stick passes under the bridge fastest.

54:59And that's the winner. There was an original bridge from, I don't know when it was, but they rebuilt it, but true to its original form. So, that's still there. I think Eeyore's house is there. There's a bunch of cool stuff to do. Yeah. I bet there's a gift shop. There definitely is. It's called Poo Corner. And not only can you buy gifts there, you can also buy coffee and maybe even have tea, like a high tea there. Oh. I would guess. I'm surmising, but I'll bet I'm right.

55:29Yeah. That sounds fun. I mentioned, you know, the New York Public Library. They've been there, the little original stuffy since 1987, except for Rue, which apparently was left behind in an apple orchard, I guess, by Christopher Robin. And just this year, just a few months ago, in fact, in April, Queen Camilla, Queen Camilla gifted the library an exact replica of that original stuffy. And I believe that one's there. So, I did not see that one because I went a couple of years ago. Well, you need to go back.

55:59Yeah. See that recreation? Yep. If you want to be reminded of your humanity every once in a while, just go read the last chapter of the House of Poo Corner. It's the second of the only two actual Winnie the Pooh story collections that A.A. Milne wrote. And Christopher Robin is essentially saying goodbye without saying goodbye because he's starting to grow up and now he has to go to school and he can't just do nothing all day. And he's trying to explain it to Pooh and Pooh's not really catching on, but they managed to kind of communicate in their own way in the end.

56:34And it is really touching. Like, just go read it now. Yeah, and bring the Kleenex. It's so great. Yeah. It's cute, too. So, Chuck, I say that's it for Winnie the Pooh for now, okay? Yeah. I'm sad to leave him behind. Yeah. No, we have to. We have to go to school. Aw. If you want to know more about Winnie the Pooh, go read the last chapter on the House of Poo Corner. It's a great place to start. And in the meantime, we're going to do listener mail.

57:04You know what just happened? You said it's time to go to school, and that was such a sweet sentiment. But for some reason, immediately in my brain, I pictured you and I on a school bus and, like, me shooting spitballs and you with a pocket knife, like, carving something in the seat in front of you. Wowee. All right. All right. I'll go that way. Just for a day. It's just what popped into my head.

Listener Mail and Final Thoughts

57:28All right. Listener mail. This is a very sad one. So, just warning to everybody. Thanks for it. Hey, guys. I'm writing and listening from Chile. Last year, my wife passed away at only 29 years of age after battling a rare kind of cancer, NUT carcinoma. Maybe it can inspire an episode, guys. But through this battle, we often escaped to my mother-in-law's house on the beach to find some peace and quiet. And it was our tradition to listen to two episodes of Stuff You Should Know because the two-hour drive on our way there and then two more on our way back.

57:58Slowly but steadily, you guys became an important part of our travels and brought us knowledge, joy, and laughter on many grim occasions. And this week, I came back to that coast after almost a year of not being able to do so because of the memories. And when I did, the first thing I did was put on the podcast and have you guys come along. It would mean—sorry, I'm getting emotional here. That is so sweet. So, Chuck, you just beeped because you cleared your throat. And I was like, is Chuck getting choked up? And yes, you are. That is amazingly sweet. I know. I'd have a hard time with this one.

58:28Guys, it would mean the world to me if you could dedicate an episode in the memory of Jacinta, who especially loved and laughed at Josh's laugh. Keep up the good work, and may you come with me to many more trips. And that is from Lucas. And I told Lucas it was going to be in this episode and that there was a cancer episode coming out soon. But I'd rather tag it with this one. And this one's dedicated to Jacinta. Good idea, Chuck. That was perfect. Thank you for that. Thank you for that, Lucas, for listening to us all this time and for letting us know the little role we played in your life and Jacinta's life.

59:05So, thank you. I don't know what else to say, Chuck. That was just great. If you want to make Chuck and I quiet at the end of an episode, take your best shot. You can send it off via email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

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1:00:59Come back.

1:01:03Come back. Come back. Come back. Let's go. I know. MiCets. You win.