Fun Facts About Winnie the Pooh

There are many fun facts I could share but since I have already mentioned some of them in my previous posts I will leave them out to avoid too many cross overs. These can be some lesser known facts about Pooh.

I’ve included a few links below that have the more fun facts about Pooh Bear and his little empire and legacy.

Fun Fact #1
In the original Milne books, Winnie the Pooh was written as Winnie-the-Pooh. When Disney acquired the rights to animate the character they dropped the hyphens and it soon became the more popular expression.

Fun Fact #2
It was after Milne’s death that his wife Daphe sold the rights to Disney. Walt’s own daughters were said to be fans of the Milne stories which led Disney to want to share the stories. Daphne then destroyed all of Milne’s papers to preserve family privacy.

Fun Fact #3
Real Life magazine reported that two hundred hundred Disney artists used 1.2 million pencils to sketch the 1968 animated movie Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. This short film went on to win an Academy Award in 1969.

Fun Fact #4
Pooh was the first fictional character to have licensing rights sold overseas. Stephen Slesinger purchased the U.S and Canadian rights to the character in January 1930. Milne was paid the generous sum of $1,000 in advance, and the promise of 66% of any income Slesinger made. 18 months later, Winnie the Pooh had become a $50 million-a-year business (around $720 million today).

Fun Facts #4.1
Slesinger created the first Pooh doll, record, board game, puzzle, radio broadcast, animation, and film. After his death in the 1950s, Slesinger’s widow Shirley took over the business and launched her own licensing campaigns. In 1961 and 1983, Stephen Slesinger, Inc. licensed certain Pooh rights to the Walt Disney Company.

Fun Fact #5
The fictional Poohsticks played in the book is now a real sport played worldwide with its own world championships.

Fun Fact #6
The skull of the real bear Winnie was displayed at the Being Human Festival in London for the first time in 2015.

Fun Fact #7
Most of the locations in the stories are based on real places you can visit in Ashdown Forest: the Hundred Acre Wood is the Five Hundred Acre Wood and Galleon’s Leap is Gill’s Lap. Roo’s sandpit
and Poohsticks Bridge are also real places to visit.

Fun Fact #8
Image result for pooh star hollywood Winnie the Pooh has his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame, being one of only fifteen fictional characters to do so.

Fun Fact #9
The most successful translation of the books remains the Latin one from 1958. Upon release the book became a huge hit, with one critic describing it as “the greatest book a dead language has ever known”, and Time Magazine calling it “a Latinist’s delight, the very book that dozens of Americans, possibly even 50, have been waiting for.”

Fun Fact #10
E. H. Shepard’s original drawings are worth an incredible amount at auction. The highest price was paid in 2014 when $292 727 was paid for the image entitled “For a long time they looked at the river beneath them…” depicting Pooh, Christopher Robin, and Piglet playing Poohsticks.