104 Fun Facts About Winnie the Pooh

Floating up to a bees' nest on a balloon, what does Pooh try to look like?

A small black cloud: the bees grew suspicious, so Christopher Robin shot the balloon with his gun to bring Pooh gently back down.

Who illustrated the original Winnie-the-Pooh books?

E. H. Shepard studied Christopher Robin's toys, yet the Pooh he drew looked more like Growler, his own son's teddy bear.

In Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin leads an 'Expotition' to find what?

The North Pole: when Roo fell into a stream, Pooh held out a long pole to help him climb out, and Christopher Robin declared it the North Pole.

What is the name of the forest where the Pooh stories are set?

Hundred Acre Wood: the real wood that inspired it is called Five Hundred Acre Wood, and Christopher Robin walked through it on his way to the forest.

The real forest behind the Winnie-the-Pooh stories is in which English county?

East Sussex: Ashdown Forest lay near the Milnes' country home, and the books' illustrator studied its trees to draw the woods.

Which London department store did Milne buy his son's teddy bear from in 1921?

Harrods: the bear was a present for Christopher Robin's first birthday, on 21 August 1921.

What was Christopher Robin's teddy bear originally called before it became Winnie?

Edward: Christopher Robin renamed him after Winnie, a black bear he loved visiting at London Zoo.

The 'Pooh' part of the name came from what kind of animal?

A swan: Christopher Robin once called a swan Pooh, and Milne wrote that when they parted they kept the name, thinking the swan wouldn't want it any more.

Christopher Robin renamed his teddy after a London Zoo bear that had come from which country?

Canada: soldier Harry Colebourn bought the cub for $20 from the man who had killed her mother and named her after his home town, Winnipeg.

What was Harry Colebourn, the soldier who bought the bear cub Winnie, by profession?

A veterinary officer, Colebourn loaned Winnie to London Zoo when his unit was sent to France, and later donated her to the zoo.

Where are Christopher Robin's original stuffed toys on display?

The New York Public Library: the toys crossed to America with Milne's US publisher in 1947 and were given to the library 40 years later.

Which two Pooh characters were invented by Milne rather than based on Christopher Robin's toys?

Owl and Rabbit had no toy models, so the original drawings show them looking more like living animals than stuffed toys.

Which character was created for the Disney films and never appeared in Milne's books?

Gopher was Disney's own addition, reportedly brought in to give the Pooh films a more all-American feel.

What was the title of Milne's 1928 sequel, the second book of stories about the bear?

The House at Pooh Corner introduced Tigger and ends with Christopher Robin, growing up, telling Pooh, 'I'm not going to do Nothing any more.'

Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a Christmas story in which London newspaper?

The Evening News printed 'The Wrong Sort of Bees' on Christmas Eve 1925, and the story became the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh.

What kind of animal is Eeyore?

A donkey; Austin, Texas, has held a yearly festival in his honour, Eeyore's Birthday Party, since the 1960s.

What is Eeyore's favourite food?

Thistles: when Pooh sat on one at a picnic, Eeyore asked if he had quite finished with it, then moved over and ate it.

How does Christopher Robin reattach Eeyore's lost tail?

With a nail: Owl had been using the lost tail as a bell-pull, and once Pooh brought it back, Christopher Robin nailed it on again.

What does Piglet's grandfather's name 'Trespassers William' come from?

A broken sign outside his house reads 'TRESPASSERS W', and Piglet says his grandfather had two names in case he lost one.

What kind of tree does Piglet live in?

A beech: when the rains came, Piglet was trapped in it by the flood and threw out a message in a bottle.

How does Owl spell his own name?

WOL is how Owl spells his own name, and when Pooh asked him to write a birthday greeting for Eeyore, it came out as 'HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY'.

What is the name of Owl's home?

The Chestnuts blows down in a storm, and Eeyore finds Owl a new home that turns out to be Piglet's, which Piglet gives up.

What is the only thing Tigger discovers he likes to eat when he first arrives?

Extract of malt was Roo's 'strengthening medicine', but Tigger loved it, so he went to live at Kanga's house afterwards.

What is Tigger famous for loving to do?

Bouncing: Eeyore claims he was bounced into the river, and Tigger, who gets the blame, denies it.

Which friend plots to lose Tigger in the misty forest to make him humbler?

Rabbit's plan backfired: Tigger found his way home, Rabbit, Pooh and Piglet got lost in the mist, and Tigger had to rescue Rabbit.

Pooh's clock has stopped at what time, meaning it is always nearly snack time?

Five minutes to eleven: Pooh liked 'a little something' at eleven, and one such snack left him wedged in a friend's front door.

What birthday present did Pooh give Eeyore?

A useful pot to put things in: Pooh ate what was inside on the way there, yet Eeyore was delighted with it.

Which game does Pooh invent on a bridge over the river?

Poohsticks: the footbridge where Milne and his son played it was later replaced, and the rebuilt original sold at auction in 2021 for over £131,000.

In which English county is the annual world championship of Pooh's bridge game held?

Oxfordshire: the championships began when a Thames lock-keeper saw people playing and turned the game into a fundraiser for lifeboats.

Which creature do Pooh and Piglet dig a Cunning Trap to catch?

A Heffalump, an elephant-like beast: the trap caught Pooh instead, with a jar stuck on his head, and Piglet ran off sure he had seen one.

How does Pooh rescue Piglet from the flood?

By riding in Christopher Robin's umbrella, which was Pooh's own idea, so Christopher Robin named the floating umbrella The Brain of Pooh.

Which museum put the skull of the real bear Winnie on public display in 2015?

The Hunterian Museum: Winnie had been so tame that young Christopher Robin was allowed into her enclosure to feed her.

Alexander Lenard's 1958 translation of Winnie-the-Pooh became a US bestseller in which language?

Latin: unable to find a publisher, Lenard, a Hungarian-born doctor in Brazil, paid to have the first copies printed himself.

Where are the original English manuscripts of the Pooh books held?

Trinity College, Cambridge: Milne studied maths there and later bequeathed the manuscripts to its Wren Library.

Disney's first Pooh featurette, in 1966, was titled 'Winnie the Pooh and ...' what?

The Honey Tree was later joined with two sequels to form Disney's 1977 feature, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Which actor was Disney's original voice of Pooh, from 1966 to 1977?

Sterling Holloway: when talking pictures left many silent-film actors out of work, his distinctive voice brought him success instead.

Who voiced Tigger for Disney from 1968 to 1999?

Paul Winchell, a ventriloquist, was also an inventor who patented one of the first artificial hearts in 1963.

Who voiced Piglet in Disney's films from 1968 until his death in 2005?

John Fiedler got the part after Walt Disney heard his voice and picked him to play Piglet.

Which 2000 Disney film follows a Pooh character searching for his family tree?

The Tigger Movie was developed as a video premiere, but Disney bumped it up to a cinema release instead.

Who plays the grown-up title character in Disney's 2018 live-action film Christopher Robin?

Ewan McGregor; Chris O'Dowd was first cast as the voice of Tigger, but was replaced before the film came out.

Which songwriting brothers wrote the songs for Disney's Winnie the Pooh featurettes, including the theme tune?

The Sherman Brothers were writing songs for a planned Pooh feature when Walt Disney split it into featurettes to introduce Pooh to Americans.

Which book by Benjamin Hoff uses Milne's characters to explain Taoism?

Hoff followed it with The Te of Piglet; Frederick Crews satirised academia in The Pooh Perplex.

Which singer-songwriter wrote the Pooh-inspired song that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band first recorded in 1970?

Kenny Loggins went on to rework it as the title track of a children's album.

At Sotheby's in 2018, the original 1926 illustrated map of Pooh's forest sold for roughly what?

£430,000, far above Sotheby's estimate of up to £150,000, set a world record for a book illustration at auction.

Which Olympic figure skater is famous for having fans shower the ice with Pooh bears after his skates?

Yuzuru Hanyu kept a Pooh tissue box by the rink, and that habit is what started fans showering the ice with Pooh bears.

Online images of Pooh were censored from 2017 after memes compared him to which leader?

Xi Jinping: China's censors moved in after the memes, which began in 2013 when a photo of him beside Barack Obama was likened to Pooh and Tigger.

In 2006 Pooh joined Mickey Mouse and Snow White in receiving what?

A Walk of Fame star: Disney staged the Hollywood ceremony as part of its celebrations of the bear's 80th birthday.

What did Stephen Slesinger buy from Milne for Pooh in 1930?

US merchandising rights: after Slesinger died, his widow licensed them to Disney, which kept his red-shirted bear.

Who voiced Pooh in the 1990s audio dramatisations that also featured Judi Dench as Kanga?

Stephen Fry voiced Pooh, and the man who adapted those recordings went on to write the first authorised Pooh sequel.

Who wrote the first authorised Pooh sequel, published in October 2009?

David Benedictus had sent the Milne estate's trustees two Pooh stories of his own, and it took them years to approve a sequel.

What new character was added in the 2016 sequel The Best Bear in All the World?

Penguin was inspired by a little-known photograph of Christopher Robin playing with a toy penguin beside his teddy bear.

Whose Russian translation of Milne was used for the Soviet animated Pooh trilogy?

Boris Zakhoder co-wrote the films, and actor Yevgeny Leonov's voice was too low for Pooh, so the tape was sped up.

Which horror film exploited the bear's entry into the US public domain by making him a killer?

Blood and Honey was made for under $50,000 and panned by critics, yet took millions at the box office worldwide.

Which rock star drowned at Milne's Cotchford Farm in 1969?

Brian Jones: the coroner recorded death by misadventure, finding he drowned in the farm's pool under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Peter Cullen, Disney's long-time voice of Eeyore, was best known as which Transformers character?

Optimus Prime and the gloomy Eeyore shared a voice from 1988, when Cullen joined The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He based the Autobot leader on his older brother Larry, who served in Vietnam.

Which award did Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day win for Walt Disney after his death?

An Oscar for Best Animated Short Film went to the 1968 featurette, the last short Walt Disney produced. No other Pooh production has ever won one.

The songwriters of Disney's 2011 film Winnie the Pooh went on to write the songs for which hit?

Frozen followed two years later for Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, the married duo behind the Pooh film's songs. Anderson-Lopez also voiced Kanga in the 2011 film.

Which Monty Python star narrates Disney's 2011 animated film Winnie the Pooh?

John Cleese narrates a film set inside a storybook, where Pooh and his friends can talk back to the narrator and interact with the printed text.

Which actor made a Mint Mobile advert spoofing Pooh in 2022, when the bear entered the US public domain?

Ryan Reynolds called his advert Winnie-the-Screwed. He could use the bear freely because Milne's first Pooh book lost its US copyright 95 years after publication.

In a 2016 story written for Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday, where does Pooh meet the Queen?

Buckingham Palace is where the bear and the monarch come face to face in Winnie-the-Pooh Meets the Queen, published to mark her birthday.

Which Texas city began holding an annual festival called Eeyore's Birthday Party in 1963?

Austin's party began as a spring picnic for University of Texas students and grew into a day-long festival known for its huge drum circles.

What punctuation did Disney drop from the bear's name when it adapted A. A. Milne's Pooh stories?

The hyphens of Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh went after Walt Disney acquired the film rights in 1961. The studio also kept the red shirt that an American licensee had given the bear.

In which video game series can players visit Pooh's forest inside a book owned by the wizard Merlin?

Kingdom Hearts has included Pooh's world since the first game in 2002, with the hero Sora stepping into Christopher Robin's place for its mini-games.

Disney's 2004 Easter film Springtime with Roo loosely retells which Charles Dickens story?

A Christmas Carol gets an Easter makeover: the Narrator leads a friend who has cancelled the holiday through Easters past, present and future until he relents.

Pooh is very fond of honey, but how does the bear famously spell the word?

Hunny is Pooh's own spelling. His love of the stuff once saved him: lost in the forest with Piglet, he found the way home by following the call of the jars at his house.

In the first Pooh book, what is Owl using Eeyore's missing tail for when Pooh finally spots it?

A bell-pull is what Owl made of it, hanging the tail beside his door. He was busy advising Pooh to offer a reward for it when Pooh noticed.

In the first Pooh book, what does Kanga give Piglet after he secretly takes Roo's place in her pocket?

A cold bath is Kanga's revenge: she pretends not to notice the swap and treats Piglet as if he were Roo. The switch was a plot to make the newcomers leave the forest.

Trapped at home by a flood in the first Pooh book, how does Piglet call for help?

A message in a bottle is Piglet's distress call. Pooh, meanwhile, runs out of honey and turns his empty jars into a makeshift boat.

What does Christopher Robin make Pooh in the final chapter of A. A. Milne's second book of Pooh stories?

A knight is what Pooh becomes: Christopher Robin dubs him Sir Pooh de Bear at the Enchanted Place, then explains that he must soon leave the forest.

Which subject did A. A. Milne, the creator of Pooh, study at university on a scholarship?

Mathematics earned Milne his degree in 1903, but he spent his student years editing the magazine Granta and went straight into writing.

Which real English heathland near A. A. Milne's country home inspired the setting of the Pooh stories?

Ashdown Forest lay a mile from Cotchford Farm, which Milne bought in 1925. His son later wrote that the bear's fictional home and the real landscape were identical.

Which future X-Men star played Harry Colebourn, the soldier who bought the real Winnie, in a 2004 TV film?

Michael Fassbender took the lead in A Bear Named Winnie. The grown bear was played by Bonkers, a 1,000-pound male, although the real Winnie was female.

Which girl, voiced in the US by Chloë Grace Moretz, leads the Super Sleuths in My Friends Tigger & Pooh?

Darby took the place Christopher Robin usually fills, solving mysteries with Pooh, Tigger and her dog Buster. Christopher Robin himself appears only twice in the series.

Which American singer-songwriter wrote seven new songs for Disney's Piglet's Big Movie and sang six herself?

Carly Simon also recorded her own version of the Pooh theme tune, and she returned to write songs for the next Pooh film in cinemas two years later.

In Disney's 2011 film Winnie the Pooh, which imaginary monster does Owl say has captured Christopher Robin?

The Backson is born when Owl misreads a note in which Christopher Robin says he will return shortly. A scene after the credits shows a real one, and it is friendly.

Which Everybody Loves Raymond actor voiced Eeyore in Disney's 2018 live-action film Christopher Robin?

Brad Garrett had played the part before: he voiced Eeyore in a 1995 Disney computer storybook, 23 years before the film.

Which voice actor became Disney's Pooh in 1988 and later took over the part of Tigger too?

Jim Cummings has also voiced Darkwing Duck and the Tasmanian Devil. In 2018 he played both Pooh and Tigger again in the live-action film Christopher Robin.

Which 1960s child actor voiced Roo in Disney's first two Winnie the Pooh featurettes?

Clint Howard also voiced the young elephant Hathi Jr. in The Jungle Book a year after his first Pooh short. His older brother is the director Ron Howard.

Ken Forsse built the costumes for Disney's 1983 Pooh puppet series, then created which hit 1980s toy?

Teddy Ruxpin came from the head of the workshop that made the animatronic suits worn by the Pooh cast. The puppet series launched on the Disney Channel's first day on air.

Which sport does Pooh play in a Japanese browser game that went viral in 2013 for being brutally hard?

Baseball is the game in Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby, where Pooh bats against eight friends in turn. Made for young children, it stunned players with its difficulty.

Which Disney park opened a Pooh attraction in 2000 whose cars glide around with no track to guide them?

Tokyo Disneyland spent over $130 million on the attraction, which pioneered the modern trackless ride system. Guests sit in oversized honey jars that travel in groups of three.

At Walt Disney World in Florida, Pooh's attraction took over the building of which older Fantasyland favourite?

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride made way for the Pooh attraction, which hides a tribute: a picture in Owl's house shows Toad handing over the deed.

Which US network aired The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on Saturday mornings after its Disney Channel debut?

ABC picked the series up nine months after its 1988 premiere, and it went on to win the Daytime Emmy for animated programmes two years running.

Which children's book prize went to Finding Winnie, a 2015 picture book about the real bear behind Pooh's name?

The Caldecott Medal honoured Sophie Blackall's ink-and-watercolour pictures. The author, Lindsay Mattick, is the great-granddaughter of the soldier who bought the bear cub.

Which British humour magazine made A. A. Milne its assistant editor years before he created Pooh?

Punch was also where the bear made his quiet debut, in a 1924 Milne poem about a toy that had not yet been given his famous name.

Which future famous novelist taught the young A. A. Milne, creator of Pooh, at his father's school?

H. G. Wells taught at Henley House, the London school run by Milne's father, in 1889 and 1890, when the future author was a boy of seven or eight.

Which fellow writer did A. A. Milne, creator of Pooh, accuse of near treason over wartime broadcasts from Berlin?

P. G. Wodehouse, once Milne's cricket teammate, had been captured in France and interned. He hit back by slipping parodies of the Christopher Robin poems into his later stories.

What kind of business did the real Christopher Robin Milne and his wife open in Dartmouth in 1951?

A bookshop, the Harbour Bookshop, proved a success, though his mother thought the choice odd: a bookseller would have to meet fans of his father's work.

Where was Roo, one of Christopher Robin Milne's original toys, lost for good in the 1930s?

In an apple orchard is where the toy vanished, which is why Roo is missing from the set of Christopher Robin's original animals that survives today.

At the party that ends the first Pooh book, what present does Pooh receive for rescuing Piglet from the flood?

A pencil case is the hero's reward at a party thrown by Christopher Robin. The book then closes with the author promising his son more stories later.

Besides honey, which other sweet treat is Pooh said to be especially fond of in A. A. Milne's books?

Condensed milk is Pooh's other weakness. On visits to friends he longs to be offered a snack but thinks it impolite to ask too directly.

Which country is home to Pooh, a long-running pop band formed in 1966 and named after Milne's bear?

Italy's Pooh began in Bologna as the Jaguars. When that name proved taken, a record-label secretary who loved the bear suggested the new one.

Which European capital has a street named after Pooh, who is known there as Kubuś Puchatek?

Warsaw's Kubusia Puchatka Street honours the bear's Polish name, coined for a 1938 translation that reshaped the book for local readers.

Which London institution staged Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic, a 2017 exhibition that later toured abroad?

The V&A, the Victoria and Albert Museum, showed pencil sketches by the books' illustrator that were too fragile to have been exhibited for 40 years. It also keeps his drawings of the forest's pine trees.

Which English playwright narrated the BBC's 1988 audiobook of A. A. Milne's second book of Pooh stories?

Alan Bennett recorded it for BBC Enterprises. Two chapters of the same book had been dramatised on record in 1960, with the comic actor Ian Carmichael as Pooh.

Which English actor narrated Disney's first three Winnie the Pooh featurettes and the 1977 film built from them?

Sebastian Cabot had already narrated Disney's The Sword in the Stone. On television he was best known as the valet Mr. French in the sitcom Family Affair.

By which nickname was the real Christopher Robin Milne known within his own family as a boy?

Billy Moon joined his pet name to his own childhood mispronunciation of Milne. His beloved nanny, Olive Rand, he called Nou.

What kind of animal is Lottie, the new friend introduced in the first authorised Pooh sequel in 2009?

An otter named Lottie joins the animals in the 2009 sequel, the first authorised by the Milne estate. Its trustees took ten years to agree to the book.

Which San Francisco band closed its 1969 Woodstock set with a song whose title puns on a Pooh book?

Jefferson Airplane also made the song the closing track of their 1968 album Crown of Creation. Its words picture a nuclear war, a long way from Milne's gentle world.

What did A. A. Milne, the future creator of Pooh, write for the intelligence unit MI7b late in the First World War?

Propaganda was Milne's war work after trench fever ended his service as a signaller on the Somme. He later wrote a denunciation of war called Peace with Honour.

Which former child star's NBC storybook series staged Winnie-the-Pooh with marionettes in 1960?

Shirley Temple's Storybook used marionettes made and worked by Bil and Cora Baird. Pooh was voiced by Faz Fazakas, later a performer with the Muppets.

Bruce Reitherman, Disney's first voice of Christopher Robin in 1966, also voiced which other young Disney hero?

Mowgli came a year after his Pooh role for Bruce, the son of Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Disney's Nine Old Men.

Which actress and musician performed the classic Pooh theme song for Disney's 2011 film Winnie the Pooh?

Zooey Deschanel sang several songs on the film's soundtrack, and one of them, So Long, earned her a Grammy nomination.

A. A. Milne, creator of Pooh, played in an amateur cricket team of writers captained by which author?

J. M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan and Milne's idol as a playwright, captained the side. Arthur Conan Doyle also played for it.