Shadowing Practice: Winnie the Pooh: Silly Old Bear | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
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Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
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I'm Josh, and there's
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Chuck, and Jerry's here too.
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And we're continuing on with our endless nostalgia talk, which is fine by me.
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Were you into Winnie the Pooh?
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, I was raised on the Disney version.
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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.
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So, you know, every night you and me and I will read a couple to each other.
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Oh, that's nice.
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I'm kidding.
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Well, that sounded like a nice evening.
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It really would, for sure.
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And maybe we will start because I was reading some of these again and I'm like, God, these are sweet.
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Yeah, it's sweet stuff.
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I don't remember.
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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.
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What did you think about it rereading some of the stuff, though, today?
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I mean, the same.
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It's just it's wonderful stuff.
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But and it's kind of like a little bit of a bummer, like the real life stuff.
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yeah so much so i'm like maybe we should just skip
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that part because i've watched that biopic or biopic depending on your pronunciation
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which one goodbye christopher robin okay and it is harsh
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yeah i mean that that's the real story i think you know disney made the christopher robin movie
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that seemed to i didn't see that one the one with ewan mcgregor
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but that seemed to be very much a a Disney -fied version of the real Christopher Robbins adulthood.
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I see.
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So this was about, they focused easily half the movie on his very, very early life.
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I'd say about two thirds or three quarters of the movie, maybe five eighths.
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We'll just say that.
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And, but it was like based on an author, like a really exhaustive biography from the 90s.
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And man, it did not pull punches.
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Like, it was tough to watch.
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And like the mom, Daphne, is not treated sympathetically at all.
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She's essentially if there's a villain in the movie, it's her.
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Yeah, I totally agree.
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Well, at any rate, before we get off on that, we should probably talk about the celebrated Winnie the Pooh.
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And hopefully you can continue on separating the art, the work of magic that A .A.
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Milne created from, you know, the real life behind the scenes stuff.
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Because that's real life.
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Winnie the Pooh is not real life, and that's what makes it so magnificent.
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That's right.
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But it was birthed from a real life thing, which is, I mean, the story starts out incredibly sweet.
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And it starts out in Canada in 1914
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when a soldier shows up at basic training and has an orphan black bear cub.
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This is Lieutenant Harry Colburn, who was a veterinarian from Winnipeg.
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Shout out Winnipeg.
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Yeah.
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City we went to for the very first time on tour this summer.
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Shout out Winnipeg.
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Had a great time.
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But he apparently, as the story goes, got this bear from a train platform on his way to the military base.
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It was for sale by a hunter who had killed the bear's mom.
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So he brings this bear along, who was a little girl bear, by the way.
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And that's kind of set me down the path of like, wait a minute, was Winnie the Pooh a girl bear?
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No. And apparently not.
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So we'll kind of get to that switch.
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But because he was from Winnipeg, he nicknamed this real bear Winnie and took this real bear to the barracks.
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And it became like a little base bear.
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Yeah, that's so
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Canada, too, you know?
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Oh, totally.
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I love it.
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Also, in the version of the story in my head, Lieutenant Harry Colburn left that hunter, a bloody pulp, just barely clinging to life.
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Yeah, sure.
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So Colburn is at the base and he's like called off to World War I.
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And that's, you know, even Canadian friendliness has its levels.
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They're like, no, you can't take the bear with you.
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Yeah.
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So he because he was stationed in London, he took it to the London Zoo and said,
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can you hang on to my bear for me for a few years until I come back?
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And the London Zoo said, sure.
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And in the meantime, while he was gone, Winnie the bear became a huge sensation
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because she had been raised around humans she was very gentle
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so much so that kids were able to interact with her you know smartly
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or otherwise but by the time Colburn came back from World War I he found like Winnie was
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so beloved he was like I think you belong to London now not me yeah
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and especially with that cute voice that this bear had you know
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so now we got to go to the story of A .A.
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Milne the author of these books
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Alan Alexander Milne.
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He was a writer before Winnie the Pooh came along.
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He edited a humor magazine called Punch.
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He was also sent off to World War I in 1914.
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And he came back a mess.
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And especially if you see this movie,
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like if that movie is the truth and it seems like it is because it's based on that exhaustive book,
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then he had a pretty severe case of PTSD after being injured and seeing the horrors of war.
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Yes.
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And it was very much his view of the world was really wrecked as well.
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Yeah.
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Like he just couldn't understand how people could send other people off to die like the way he saw people die.
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And, yeah, he had what they called at the time shell shock.
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Yeah.
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And he, like you said, he had worked for Punch Magazine.
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He kind of established himself.
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But he continued to write and he tried writing other stuff.
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He wrote a play that was turned into a silent movie.
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And he was an essayist as well.
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I think it wasn't until about the early to mid 1920s that he really found his calling.
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And he found his calling after he had his one and only child, Christopher Robin.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I kind of assume most people knew that Christopher Robin was the real kid's name.
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But if you didn't know, surprise.
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You can't make that kind of name up.
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You can't.
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He had a nickname, which was Billy Moon.
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He was born in 1920.
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And like you said, once he had this little boy, he started writing children's poetry.
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And in 1923, wrote a poem called Vespers, which mentioned his son, Christopher Robin, by name and the little stuffed bear that he had.
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It was a real life stuffed bear.
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And if you're ever in New York City, go to the New York City Public Library
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because all these his little original stuffed animals that these stories were based on are sitting there and it's wonderful to see.
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Yeah, under a glass case.
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And if you go at the right time after closing, you can hear them banging on the glass and coming out.
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It's funny, I couldn't remember where I saw those when I was doing the research.
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I was like, I know I saw those somewhere and I couldn't remember what museum.
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And then when, who helps us with this, Julia?
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Yeah, Julia.
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This is a Julia joint.
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The Julia joint.
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Yeah.
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When she said that it was a New York Public Library, I remembered.
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Did you say, by God, that's right.
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I did.
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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,
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even though it wasn't a memory.
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Yeah, that's called my normal life, but I don't get the satisfying remembrance.
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It's just, I have to just give it up.
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I'm sorry to hear that, but I'll send you a little stuff bear.
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Okay, fair enough.
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I have a question for you, though, chuck it i think you might be able to answer this you said
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that winnie when he was a girl bear in winnipeg the canadian bear um
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and winnie the pooh is not a girl
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so how did winnie the pooh get the name winnie you're being coy uh
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but i'll play along you know like i said he had this real stuffed bear
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He got it as a, I think a one -year -old on his first birthday from his mom, Daphne.
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And he nicknamed this bear, or he named it, I guess, Edward.
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So right out of the gate, this bear is gendered.
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And then later on, the name Winnie comes around because he meets that real bear that we were talking about,
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Winnipeg, at the London Zoo, nicknamed Winnie.
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So he changed Edward to Winnie and just said, I guess you're still a boy.
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So, yeah, I think in the movie or somewhere his dad said, well, is he a boy or is he a girl?
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I thought he was a boy.
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He said, he's neither.
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He's a bear.
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Sure.
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Which is just a great Christopher Robinism.
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Yeah, I agree.
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I knew.
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So Edward for a bear is not that odd.
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It's actually kind of cute.
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But I knew a man once who had a dog named Jason.
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And I still to this day think that's the oddest dog name I've ever heard.
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Yeah.
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The real human names for dogs can be funny.
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and I think Jason is one of them, but there are definitely human names that are more, that are funnier than others.
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Jason's pretty high up there.
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It is, but I don't think the guy was being funny, which made it even stranger.
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Yeah, I guess you're right.
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What's a funny name, real name for a dog?
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I mean, my in -laws had a dog named Josh.
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I don't think I ever told you that.
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No. Yeah, they always named their dogs real names, like
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Josh and Toby and I can't remember the others.
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Toby, I can see.
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Josh, that's a surprising one too.
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Yeah.
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How about - It's no Jason though.
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How about Lois?
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See, no, that's, yeah, that's almost, that's starting to be, that's purposefully silly.
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Or Elizabeth, that's a weird dog name.
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That is a weird dog name.
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But I could also see some real frou -frou, like little Pomeranian or something.
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I almost said Pomeranian, look at us.
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So, okay, I think we were talking about Winnie the Pooh at some point, right?
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That's right.
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It went from Edward to Winnie after he met the real Winnipeg bear at the London Zoo.
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Well, while we're on it, what the heck is the Pooh then?
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Well, Pooh, I think, came from, he was on vacation, the young Christopher Robin Milne,
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and there was this swan that he nicknamed Pooh that he fed every morning.
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And apparently, as the story goes, when the swan did not show up, he would just say, Pooh,
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like, I don't care if you're coming or not, even though obviously he did.
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And so I guess it just sort of morphed into Winnie the Pooh, hyphenated at first.
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Yeah, pretty cute.
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Yeah.
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One of the all -time great names, too.
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Like, I think that is in no small part one of the reasons for Winnie the Pooh's belovedness
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that is such a great name.
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I agree.
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So as we said, A .A.
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Milne was definitely suffering from PTSD and he was back in London.
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He was trying to, you know, pick up his career again.
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And it was just those two things were not going very well together.
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So he decided that what would be best for him
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and in turn his family was to leave the city and move to Sussex.
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which is I guess it's called the home county it's like an exurb of London it's not
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that far away but it's pretty rural from what I understand
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and he bought Cotchford Farm near this forest was just exactly the kind of impetus
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they needed to come up with the hundred acre woods thanks to forays with his son
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which was he says in the movie and I totally buy it
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but these were the happiest times of his life making up games
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and stories with this you know three four five year old son walking through Ashdown Forest.
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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.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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That's absolutely true.
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A small thing, but it jumped out at me.
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Thank you.
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Well, yeah, if it jumped out at you, we were definitely going to get some mean emails.
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I hope you could be so stupid.
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I know.
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It's not an ass.
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Did you mention the other stuffed animals?
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I know I mentioned all of them being in the New York City Public Library,
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but all of those characters that would eventually end up in these books, he had his little stuffies.
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He had a little pig.
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He had a little donkey.
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He had a tiger and a kangaroo and that bear, which is just all this stuff couldn't be any sweeter.
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No, it's true.
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That little piglet one is adorable.
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Yeah, very much.
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So, you said he wrote Vespers, and that apparently became quite popular.
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It was just super sweet.
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It was definitely along the lines of what he would later write for Winnie the Pooh.
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The first thing he did was start writing children's poetry.
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And then, as I said, like as he started hanging out with his son in the woods, just having fun time with him.
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Yeah.
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He would bring a little Christopher Robin would bring his stuffed animals along on these walks.
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And they became like characters in the woods themselves.
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So the woods very quickly became their home in these stories they were making up.
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And what were their names?
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We haven't even said these yet, I don't think.
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So you've got Piglet.
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Man, I love Piglet.
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You have Eeyore, the sad donkey.
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Tigger, the hyperactive tiger.
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But actually, he's not really a tiger.
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He's a Tigger.
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He's one of a kind.
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Yeah.
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Kanga, the incredibly sweet and patient mom.
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Her Joey Rue, who's a lot of fun to have around and then of course Winnie the Pooh, the willy -nilly silly old bear.
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Oh, goodness.
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It's just too much for me, so I've got to take a break if that's all right.
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Yeah, for sure.
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All right.
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We'll be right back, everybody, with more on Winnie the Pooh.
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All right, everyone, we're back with more sweetness.
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It's Christmas Eve, 1925, and the London Evening News publishes a short story and introduces the world to Little Pooh.
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It was called The Wrong Sword of Bees, and it would be the first chapter of a short story collection,
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or I guess just a story collection.
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Well, they were short stories, right?
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They were short stories, sure.
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All right, great.
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And that published as a unit the next year.
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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,
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people extrapolated on like maybe what the meaning of these personalities were.
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But what were they like?
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Well, there were two also that we didn't mention, rabbit and owl.
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And that was because there was no rabbit or owl stuffed animal.
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They came later.
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But they were in this first book.
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Tigger was the only one who didn't make his first appearance in the first storybook.
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He came out in the second one.
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But Piglet, he was always very scared and nervous and worried and anxious.
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Rabbit was a perfectionist.
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He was very much like I never really caught on to his character quite as much.
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Yeah.
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But I just know that he was very much preoccupied with everything going right, if I'm not mistaken.
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Yeah.
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Owl was one of those guys who likes to hear himself talk and would just say stuff.
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Yeah.
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The other characters, you know,
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Winnie the Pooh frequently talked about how he didn't have a brain or he was filled with fluff or something like that.
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and so the other characters are taking whatever
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Owl says is, you know, correct even though it's sometimes wildly off.
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Yeah, for sure.
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I think you already mentioned earlier that Eeyore was of course sad and then Kanga was obviously is the mom,
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a very nurturing character and you got
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Rue who was a little you know, he was a little rambunctious baby
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He was like the tiny Tim just super sweet and cute, just having him present was fun Yeah.
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And that was the wrong sort of bees.
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And then you mentioned the house on Pooh Corners when Tigger comes along.
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And we should talk about the wrong sort of bees because it kind of just lays out a template for, I guess, things to come.
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And it's just so gosh darn cute, too.
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It's so cute.
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And it sets the tone for like these personalities and what readers are in for.
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Right.
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Yes.
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So in it, the whole thing, and actually the book ends the same way in the opposite direction, but Christopher Robin, the real boy,
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comes down the stairs dragging his bear by the arm and asks his father to tell him a story.
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We'll tell his bear a story.
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And that's how the whole thing starts, that Winnie the Pooh is sitting under a sign that says Mr. Sanders.
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And that's the only mention that's ever made of it, as far as I can tell.
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It's just such a weird little detail.
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But he starts trying to go for honey because he realizes he hears some bees.
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And to him, the only purpose of bees is to make honey for him to eat.
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Yeah, it's that honeypot always getting them into trouble.
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and it starts off right off the bat in book one so he wants to climb up this tree obviously
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get into that honeypot a branch breaks and he falls down
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and uh into a little uh prickly prickly bush
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and he's like all right i've got a new idea i wish i could do the voice
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but he says he's got a new idea he wants to become a cloud
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and trick these bees so he decides to him a dark cloud by rolling himself in mud, borrows a blue balloon from his friend,
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Christopher Robin, so he can float up.
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And he's like, this is going to work.
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They're going to be scared of this dark cloud, and I'm going to get that honeypot.
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Yes, but the bees don't seem to be buying it.
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And so he asked Christopher Robin to go get his umbrella and walk underneath Pooh with the umbrella out saying,
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tut, tut, it looks like rain to help fool the bees even further.
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That still doesn't work.
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But now Pooh realizes that he's stuck up there because if he just lets go of the balloon,
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he's going to fall and it's going to hurt.
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That's right.
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And the title, Wrong Sword of Bees, comes from the fact that the bees don't buy into his plan.
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And Pooh says these are the wrong sort of bees, which is adorable.
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It is.
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So Christopher Robin helps him out, shoots a hole in that balloon and he drifts down safely,
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doesn't learn a lesson, which is a very much established sort of thing for Winnie the Pooh.
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Like he's still going to go after the honeypot a million times in the future.
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So that was the first one.
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That was the one that premiered in the London Evening Times on Christmas Eve, 1925.
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And that was the first chapter in that book.
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And the other ones are super cute too.
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Like there's one where Pooh goes to visit
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Rabbit and is Warren and eats too much.
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He takes too much advantage of Rabbit's hospitality and starts eating condensed milk and honey.
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But he doesn't want to make a nuisance of himself.
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So he very politely tells
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Rabbit, no need to get me any bread.
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I'll just eat the condensed milk and honey as is.
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And he gains so much weight that he can't get back out the hole to Rabbit's Warren.
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And he gets stuck and has to stay there for a week while he goes on a diet.
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Until he slims down enough to be pulled out.
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Yeah, there's a lot of food and gluttony related storylines with Winnie. For sure. For sure.
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But he's also adorable.
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And one of the other things that's so adorable to me is the way
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that Christopher Robin looks at Pooh and sees Pooh.
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He very frequently thinks to himself, silly old bear
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and it's just such like a loving tender feeling that's just evoked in just
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that little phrase that he thinks of him and calls him sometimes and it's just super cute.
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I love it.
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I don't know if we've gotten across this stuff is really cute.
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It is.
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Okay.
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So sugary sweet.
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So we should talk about the illustrations a little bit because they have become just completely iconic.
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It was an illustrator named E .H.
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Shepard and they're very, you know, it's nothing fancy.
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It's pretty straightforward stuff.
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I don't think they became color.
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Until 1931.
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Is that right?
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I didn't see that anywhere.
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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.
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Yeah, it's somewhere in here.
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So we'll get to it.
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I think it was the early 1930s.
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But yeah, initially black and white.
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And again, nothing, nothing fancy going on.
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Very simple sort of shapes and lines.
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Shepard also had gone to World War One and had a pretty rough go of it.
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And it seems like, and, you know, this is in the movie as well,
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that England just really sort of post -war England needed this sweetness in their lives.
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Exactly.
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That's one reason why it's posited it became so popular so quickly.
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This is like an enormous sensation pretty much out of the gate, as we'll see.
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And I think that's also why a lot of people point to it as being just as popular 100 years on, you know.
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It is, people just need that kind of sweet, like, way of living and looking at life,
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you know, without being bowled over by it at every turn, you know, just kind of saying that's life.
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You just keep going and be positive.
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Yeah, there's some good, simple messages in all these books.
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He originally modeled the drawings on the real stuffed animals from Christopher Robin, except when he got to the final version of Winnie,
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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.
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Yeah.
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Not his real doll.
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You know what I'm saying.
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Right.
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He also had to, like I said, there wasn't a rabbit or an owl doll,
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so he had to use live models with Christopher Robin holding them still on the table,
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holding them down so they wouldn't wriggle too much or get away.
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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,
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you will notice that my mother's hand is in the photo propping him up because my brother was so round,
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he would roll over in Olin Mills' portrait.
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So we have a lot of baby pictures of Scott with my mom's hand in there.
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Man, he's like a weeble that'll wobble but won't fall down.
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Yeah, and now he can't gain a pound, you know, so thanks for that.
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Yeah.
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One other thing about E .H.
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Shepard that stuck out to me is in that
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The Wrong Sword of Bees, that first chapter,
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where Christopher Robin shoots the balloon so that the air slowly comes out so Pooh can come down safely to the ground.
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If you look at his gun, it's a pop gun.
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There's like a cork on a string hanging out of it, which I thought was a good little touch from E .H.
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Shepard.
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And that was like the kind of thing that he would have done. Because, again,
400
this whole thing is like meant to be the antithesis or the antidote to the war that Europe just went through.
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And I think that's evidence of how they were trying to make things feel.
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Yeah.
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A bazooka would have been completely inappropriate.
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With like smoke coming out of the end.
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That would be weird.
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If you think that some of this original stuff is very valuable, you'd be right.
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Because in 2018, the original 100 acre wood map that Shepard hand drew sold at auction for $568 ,761,
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which set a record for a single book illustration.
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And then just last year in 2025,
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someone paid 120 or close to 120 grand for a collection of Milne's early drafts and like,
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you know, poems, illustrations, stuff like that.
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And apparently there was some notes to Shepard from Milne that says the illustrations were very poor.
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Not cool.
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So that hand -drawn map of the 100 -acre wood that went for 600K, I was looking at it,
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and it's purported to have been drawn with scare quotes by Christopher Robin with the help of E .H.
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Shepard because it says drawn by me, and then it says Mr. Shepard helped, like H -E -L -P -D.
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Oh, interesting.
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Yeah.
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Like that, you know, that makes it kind of cute.
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Yeah.
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Once again, cuteness abounds with all these sad, sad adults trying to work their way through their war drama.
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Agreed.
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And again, like we said, there's some other bittersweet sadness to it as well behind the scenes.
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But before we get to that, I said that this was like a huge, huge phenomenon right out of the gate.
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Yeah.
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I think it sold 200 ,000 copies in Great Britain and the United States by the end of the year,
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which is even more impressive when you realize that it came out in October.
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Yeah.
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That is unheard of at the time.
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It was like on the level of what Mickey Mouse would soon be.
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I think Steamboat Willie came out around the same time, but I don't think was quite as big as Winnie the Pooh was and
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And Winnie the Pooh became the first like mass marketed children's
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character thanks to a guy named Stephen Schlesinger who bought the Canadian and U .S rights in 1930.
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Yeah, he paid $1 ,000 plus royalties.
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I'm not sure how that worked.
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I was trying to get more detail, but it's hard to find stuff about these old deals. And I don't know.
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Could this number be correct or did Julia already
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West Egg that number up?
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I don't think so.
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So I could see it being correct.
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All right.
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So according, I'm going to blame Julia if this is wrong.
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But within a year of purchasing the rights to Pooh and company,
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apparently he was making in 1931 dollars, 50 million bucks a year on merch and media,
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which would be over a billion dollars a year in today money.
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I mean, he put it on absolutely everything
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and licensed it to to a lot of people to do
448
more than just make toys with like to make like little animated shorts or make records that were,
449
you know, the stories acted out, that kind of stuff.
450
So, I mean, that is a lot of money.
451
But Julie is usually pretty good about saying like in today dollars or something when she means that.
452
Yeah, I mean, what I tried to do was look up Schlesinger's like net worth when he died.
453
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.
454
But he was well known in the business for like merchandising and buying rights to a lot of characters.
455
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.
456
because Milne died in 1956 and left the rights to his widow through a trust and to his widow and three organizations,
457
the Westminster School, the Royal Literary Fund and the Garrett Club.
458
And Disney bought the rights from the widow, at least, that she controlled in 61 and struck a deal with the other four,
459
I'm sorry, the other three organizations to like, you know, pay them out semi -annually.
460
And then I think in 2001, Disney bought it outright from those other entities for 350 million bucks.
461
Wow.
462
But it's the article went on and on about like more nuance
463
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.
464
But long story short, Disney ultimately acquired all the rights because I think
465
Walt Disney's daughter really loved Winnie the Pooh.
466
And he was like, I'll buy it for you then yeah she said get it for me daddy i want it
467
and i don't think we mentioned the real christopher robin voiced christopher robin on those early records
468
and radio shows right yes he became a overnight sensation his dad became a celebrated literary sensation overnight as well
469
because not just kids but adults loved winnie the pooh right out of the gate as well um so yes they
470
It became a huge smash hit in the toast of England, at least if not further, which became problematic for them for sure.
471
I say we take a break and we'll come back and talk about some of those problems after the break.
472
Let's do it.
473
Okay.
474
Okay, Chuck, thanks for leaving it to me to kick this part off.
475
But as we mentioned, that movie from 2017, Goodbye Christopher Robin, was based on a biography of A .A.
476
Milne from 1990.
477
and I don't remember the biographer's name, but it did not, like I said, pulled many punches, if any.
478
And it was starring Domhnall Gleeson, Brendan Gleeson's son.
479
Yeah, I love that.
480
Yeah, he was in Ex Machina, a few other movies, but he was also in Frank.
481
Have you ever seen Frank?
482
I don't think so.
483
What was that?
484
It's an indie film about an indie band led by a
485
guy with a giant paper mache head who no one has ever seen.
486
He will not take it off.
487
And it turns out it's Fassbender playing Frank.
488
Yeah, yeah, that's a true story. Is it?
489
Yeah, and I think our old buddy John Ronson wrote the book that that was based on, if I'm not mistaken.
490
Well, that is a great, great movie.
491
I'm guessing the book's even better because that's usually the case.
492
Yeah, I didn't read the book or see the movie.
493
I need to do both.
494
Go see the movie for sure.
495
It's a great little movie.
496
I would recommend it to anybody.
497
Yeah, that was a weird, true story.
498
And of course, right up John Ronson's alley. For sure.
499
So anyway, that was neither here nor there.
500
But the point of Goodbye, Christopher Robin was this idea that A .A.
501
Milne essentially stole Christopher Robin, the real life Christopher Robin's childhood, and sold it in book form.
502
He packaged it and sold it and got very, very rich off of it.
503
And his son became very, very unhappy even before he realized that that's even before he could put into words.
504
Yeah.
505
Something like that.
506
He just knew something was quite wrong and he did not like all of the attention.
507
He liked it at first, but very quickly it became overwhelming and overtaxing for him and his nanny, Olive, who he loved very much.
508
Right.
509
Who in the movie was played by what's her name from Kelly McDonald?
510
Yeah, Trainspotting.
511
That book, by the way, was written by Anne Thwait.
512
Thank you.
513
And in that book, she goes on to sort of detail how in some ways this kind of,
514
I don't know, want to go so far as to say ruin their lives, but it wasn't a great thing.
515
Like, you know, this was a writer, A .A.
516
Milne, who wanted to do other things.
517
He was like, I don't want to write this stuff anymore.
518
I was a satirist to begin my career and then a playwright.
519
And nobody wanted that.
520
Everyone just wanted more poo.
521
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.
522
Yeah.
523
And something similar happened to E .H.
524
Shepard, although I don't think to nearly the degree that it happened to A .A.
525
Milne and Christopher Robin in his real life, not his career, his real life,
526
he ran into the same problems that his father ran into with his career.
527
But, you know, the point is made that Shepard was a he was a political cartoonist, so he had an edgy, satirical.
528
Yeah.
529
Like career as well.
530
And people were like, draw some more like piglets for us.
531
Right.
532
But I did see that he continued to have a very long, illustrious career at Punch magazine into the late 40s.
533
So he wasn't, you know, his career wasn't totally derailed like A .A.
534
Milne's was.
535
He's like, here's Pooh as Uncle Sam.
536
Exactly.
537
And here he is as Chairman Mao.
538
So Christopher Robin Milne had a rough go.
539
Like you said, he was bullied all kind of all throughout school, kind of that thing where anytime,
540
you know, you think like being a famous kid is a cool thing, but it seems to never work out that way at school,
541
like you become a target.
542
He went off to war, enlisted to, to kind of prove that, you know, all the kids would call him names.
543
They would call him a sissy and like names that they said, you know, at the time like that.
544
And went off to war, graduated college.
545
And even in his professional life, like I get the idea.
546
It's sort of like, you know, he goes to get a job and they're like, wait, Christopher Robin, you're that Christopher Robin. And yeah.
547
And he just had a hard time breaking free of being that character, even though he was a real human.
548
Yeah.
549
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
550
or to him as far as his childhood goes.
551
And also, his father wasn't exactly like walking around with his heart on his sleeve.
552
He supposedly was very, very reserved, maybe even more than Domino Gleeson portrays him in that movie,
553
according to the real Christopher Robin later in life.
554
So for his adolescence all the way up to middle age, he had a seething resentment for his father.
555
And it wasn't until later in life that he finally was able to happily make peace, not just with his father,
556
but also with Winnie the Pooh and came to appreciate Winnie the Pooh again.
557
Because Christopher Robin, the real life Christopher Robin ironically was the one kid in
558
the entire world over generations who hated Winnie the Pooh
559
and he was able to overcome it
560
which I think is a really triumphant story
561
but he had a quote I read
562
when he was I think age 60
563
he said my father had got where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders
564
he filched from me my good name and left me with nothing
565
but the empty fame of being his son that's what how he felt about his father for decades
566
that is rough and his dad was a deeply damaged human
567
because of the war yeah uh yeah we promised sadness everyone
568
so i hope we're delivering uh on that uh yeah 1932 is
569
when he got color uh on a record sleeve and that's
570
when the iconic red shirt became a thing and uh i guess we should talk a little bit about the disney cartoons
571
Like I said, they got the rights in 61.
572
And I think five years after that, the first featurette came out, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.
573
And all of a sudden it was like a, you know, living, breathing, moving thing on the big screen.
574
And people drank this in as much as they did the books.
575
Yeah, I think it outshined the first live action movie that it was paired with in theaters.
576
The Ugly Dachshund starring Suzanne Plachette and Dean Jones.
577
It looked like a stink bomb.
578
I think I saw that actually.
579
Did you really?
580
It's basically like a giant dog that is playing with dachshunds
581
and thinks it's a dachshund for like an hour and a half.
582
I saw that.
583
It just looked awful.
584
Plus, there's something about Dean Jones I've never put my finger on, but I don't know.
585
I just don't see him as a family film kind of guy, even though that's mainly what he was in.
586
Oh, interesting.
587
I wonder if there's a Subway Jared story in there somewhere.
588
I don't know.
589
Maybe not that far, but I could see him shouting at the child actors in between takes about how terrible they're doing.
590
I love you've created this scenario.
591
Yeah, I know.
592
Poor guy.
593
So as far as the Disney movies go and the featurettes, it was like an all -star team from Disney from the beginning.
594
it was directed the originals were directed by Wooley Reitherman who
595
was one of the legendary nine old men of Disney who were these nine dudes that's the name
596
Walt Disney gave them who were who kind of like all
597
those early kind of up through like the late 70s even
598
I think one of them even worked until the mid 80s
599
all those early animated movies were these nine dudes kind of running the show
600
and then they had an all -star cast voicing these things too right not like these days all -star cast
601
when it's like pat noswalt and maya rudolph like back in the day
602
when they were animated voice stars yeah well sterling holloway he's a great example
603
he was caught the serpent in the jungle book
604
he played the stork in dumbo um who i think he's like drunk
605
and accidentally delivers dumbo somewhere else right yeah um you would just totally recognize his voice
606
and probably his face too
607
because he was in a lot of like live -action movies too
608
but he played Winnie the Pooh
609
and I can't hear Winnie the Pooh as any other yes
610
but his yeah totally Barbara Letty did the lady voice for Lady
611
and the Tramp she was Kanga Clint Howard of course a famed actor
612
and I hate to have to say this
613
but he is Ron Howard's brother I'm sure he gets tired of
614
that designation though I would think
615
so I've heard he's actually a really cool dude yeah
616
and kind of easygoing so he probably doesn't let on
617
that it bothers him he was also the star of the terrible terrible movie the ice cream man
618
which riff tracks does and it's
619
so bad i can't even watch riff tracks do it oh no
620
but get this my brother -in -law is producing a remake of the ice cream man
621
so i'm kind of excited to see that yes i don't know
622
if um if mila's in it or not
623
but i know my brother -in -law's producing right hopefully she'll
624
at least have some sort of walk on you know where she like spikes the camera
625
and waves in the background one of those that'd be great
626
so clint howard was rue uh buddy baker was the composer
627
he did the mickey mouse club theme um
628
you know the legendary animators of the early days of disney were all put on this of course
629
and they just started kind of pumping these things out one after the other in the late 60s
630
and you know through the mid 70s and beyond yes
631
and I mean when you say pumping them out I feel like we should also accompany
632
that with like these were also like Oscar winning shorts too yeah
633
it really started getting pumped out in like the 90s with
634
a lot of like direct to DVD stuff yeah these were still very much like cared for
635
and and like like they were a big deal whenever they were produced, you know what I mean?
636
Yeah, it didn't seem like, hey, how can we print more money next?
637
Exactly.
638
That started in the 80s and 90s.
639
So now I think we should finish up a little bit with this thing
640
that's happened with Winnie the Pooh over the years, which is it is a wonderful children's story or set of stories
641
and films and everything but it has always uh
642
or very soon after i feel like branched out as like being kind of co -opted
643
but not in a bad way as like hey
644
there's a lot more to winnie the pooh than meets the eye
645
and we're talking like religion mental health uh philosophy
646
and as we'll see even political resistance how do you feel about winnie the pooh getting
647
that kind of treatment oh for being used in that manner.
648
That's what I should say.
649
I don't mind it.
650
Okay what about you i mean i don't think it totally like disrupts the purity of it
651
because no it's people sort of like saying hey these are there's a lot of like life philosophies
652
you can draw from each of these characters distinct point of view sure yeah yeah for sure
653
and i think that even
654
if it stunk across the board yeah somehow
655
it still wouldn't spoil winnie the pooh as winnie the pooh you know what i'm saying yeah
656
and i think that's also evidence chuck by the fact that the original books, the original stories coexist alongside the Disney -fied version.
657
Like one of the things
658
Disney is just known for is taking the original
659
and redoing it in such a way that it has to consume the original
660
and basically wipe it out of existence to produce the Disney -fied version.
661
Like AI companies scanning old books and destroying them, right?
662
It's essentially what Disney did.
663
Winnie the Pooh survived that.
664
And that's really notable and noteworthy.
665
And that says a lot about Winnie the Pooh, too, I think.
666
Yeah.
667
Winnie shall not be denied his place.
668
No. Winnie the Pooh will take his place by force if you don't give it to him.
669
That's right.
670
Well, God, we should mention that movie at the end.
671
Oh, OK.
672
So I mentioned philosophy at first.
673
There was a book in 1995 called Pooh and the Philosophers,
674
where all of the characters are sort of written about as embodying all the famous philosophers.
675
Plato, Kant, Descartes, Pooh was Nietzsche.
676
And then that followed, actually that was 1995, but earlier than that, and I remember this in the 80s, the Tao of Pooh in 1982.
677
And how do you pronounce that?
678
The Day?
679
The Day of Piglet?
680
So, Tao is the way or the path, and day is virtue.
681
Okay, so that was the 82 and 92, and that looks at the characters, obviously, through the lens of Taoism.
682
Might be D.
683
I'm not sure.
684
But yeah, so Pooh, actually, that one really works, and that's probably by far the most celebrated adaptation of Winnie the Pooh.
685
because the point of the Tao of Pu is that Pu is a perfect example of the goal of Taoism,
686
which is Wu Wei, which is not doing.
687
And that doesn't mean just sit around not doing anything.
688
It means like you go with the flow of nature rather than trying to oppose it to bend it to your will.
689
And that's perfectly embodied by Pu, who just kind of happily goes along and,
690
you know, completely rebounds from obstacles and problems and just moves a different direction, essentially.
691
Yeah.
692
They've also, in like mental illness treatment and self -help books and things, they have been assigned, well,
693
you know, it seems sort of obvious that maybe Eeyore's depressed or maybe Piglet has anxiety.
694
Tigger, they say, has ADHD.
695
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.
696
I wonder though if it is, you know, maybe.
697
I could see Tigger with ADHD like helping a kid with ADHD feel better.
698
But I think that's probably what they use it for, don't you think?
699
I don't know.
700
I think they use it for think pieces that can be really annoying.
701
Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of shrinks over the years and no one ever brought this up to me.
702
No, unless they're like, cheer up, Eeyore, geez.
703
Yeah, good point.
704
That's what my shrink always says to me.
705
And then we got to talk a little bit about the political resistance thing.
706
So in 2017, there were some satirical memes around about Chinese President Xi Jinping.
707
And like, hey, that's when he like depicting him as Winnie the Pooh.
708
So it's China.
709
So they were like, you know what?
710
We're going to kind of almost ban Winnie the Pooh, basically.
711
Yeah, you cannot legally put a picture of Winnie the Pooh and a picture of President Xi next to one another.
712
That's illegal in China now.
713
And so, of course, South Park got wind of this and dedicated a whole episode to, you know, skewering
714
China over it.
715
And I think they kill Winnie the Pooh in it.
716
Yeah.
717
So China outlawed
718
South Park, which is surprising to me that that is when they outlawed South Park.
719
It seems like they would have outlawed
720
South Park back in the aught, you know?
721
Yeah, for real.
722
This is 2019.
723
And then the Taiwanese Air Force kind of took that and ran with it.
724
And they have a patch, some of the pilots have a patch of a Formosan black bear, which is native to Taiwan,
725
punching Winnie the Pooh in the face.
726
And I don't like the concept of Winnie the Pooh being punched in the face,
727
but it is a pretty funny looking patch, I have to say.
728
Yeah.
729
And then, you know, the movie we referenced that we were going to mention, I had seen this trailer before when it came out.
730
I guess the idea is that Winnie the Pooh eventually entered the public domain, which means people are going to do awful things.
731
What was the name of the movie?
732
Winnie the Pooh colon blood and honey.
733
Yeah.
734
So it plays Winnie the Pooh as like a murderous bear.
735
Yeah, who after Christopher Robin left them and never came back, they went feral.
736
But they also are able to use axes and handguns and stuff like that.
737
So it's a slasher flick with Winnie the Pooh and friends exacting revenge on Christopher Robin and his friends.
738
And it's live action, which makes it even more bizarre.
739
Yeah, and the Pooh looks pretty good.
740
You know, the character they created.
741
I remember when that came out and reading about the news about the public domain or whatever.
742
and I don't think it's supposed to be very good, but I'd still like to see some of it, I guess.
743
Me too, me too.
744
The coolest adaptation I saw is called The Call of Puthulu and it is, I think, a dozen different authors,
745
horror authors, writing Winnie the Pooh stories, but then weird like Cthulhu mythos stuff like from Lovecraft is woven in and it sounds awesome.
746
So it's coming to my house on Monday.
747
Oh, cool.
748
I love it.
749
I can't wait.
750
The, you know, Pooh is as big as ever.
751
I believe it's never been out of print.
752
The House on Pooh Corner, at least.
753
These stories are available in more than 50 languages, have sold more than 50 copies around the world.
754
This is a little fun fact.
755
The Latin language version is in 1958 is the only
756
Latin language book to ever make the New York Times bestseller list, which is pretty cool.
757
Yeah, for sure.
758
And you can actually go to the setting of the 100 -acre wood,
759
Ashdown Forest, which is basically – I don't want to say it's been converted into the 100 -acre wood,
760
but there's definitely poo -related stuff all over the place and for good reason.
761
I mean like if you're going to go there, you kind of want to see the stuff that originally inspired this.
762
So there's the Poo Sticks Bridge, which is where the game of Poo Sticks, where each person drops a stick in the water
763
and then you run to the other side of the bridge to see whose stick passes under the bridge fastest.
764
And that's the winner.
765
There was an original bridge from, I don't know when it was, but they rebuilt it, but true to its original form.
766
So that's still there.
767
I think Eeyore's house is there.
768
There's a bunch of cool stuff to do.
769
Yeah, I bet there's a gift shop.
770
There definitely is.
771
It's called Pooh Corner.
772
And not only can you buy gifts there, you can also buy coffee and maybe even have tea, like a high tea there.
773
Oh.
774
I would guess.
775
I'm surmising, but I'll bet I'm right.
776
Yeah, that sounds fun.
777
I mentioned, you know, the New York Public Library.
778
They've been there, the little original stuffy since 1987, except for Roo, which apparently was left behind in an apple orchard, I guess, by Christopher Robin.
779
And just this year, just a few months ago, in fact, in April, Queen Camilla,
780
Queen Camilla gifted the library an exact replica of that original stuffy.
781
And I believe that one's there.
782
So I did not see that one because I went a couple of years ago.
783
Well, you need to go back.
784
Yeah.
785
See that that recreation?
786
Yep.
787
If you want to be reminded of your humanity every once in a while, just go read the last chapter of the House of Pooh Corner
788
that's the second of the only two actual Winnie the Pooh story collections that A .A.
789
Milne wrote.
790
And Christopher Robin is essentially saying goodbye without saying goodbye
791
because he's starting to grow up and now he has to go to school and he can't just do nothing all day.
792
And he's trying to explain it to Pooh and Pooh's not really catching on,
793
but they managed to kind of communicate in their own way in the end.
794
And it is really touching.
795
Like, just go read it now.
796
Yeah, and bring the Kleenex.
797
It's so great.
798
Yeah.
799
It's cute, too.
800
So, Chuck, I say that's it for Winnie the Pooh for now, okay?
801
Yeah.
802
I'm sad to leave him behind.
803
Yeah.
804
No, we have to.
805
We have to go to school.
806
Aw.
807
If you want to know more about Winnie the Pooh, go read the last chapter on the House of Pooh Corner.
808
It's a great place to start.
809
And in the meantime, we're going to do listener mail.
810
You know what just happened? you said it's time to go to school
811
and that was such a sweet sentiment
812
but for some reason immediately in my brain i pictured you
813
and i on a school bus and like me shooting spitballs
814
and you with a pocket knife like carving something in the seat wow all right all right i'll go
815
that way just for just for a day
816
it's just what popped into my head uh all right listener mail this is a very sad one
817
so just warning to everybody thanks for it uh hey guys i'm writing and listening from chile
818
Last year my wife passed away at only 29 years of age after battling a rare kind of cancer.
819
N -U -T, carcinoma.
820
Maybe it can inspire an episode, guys.
821
But through this battle we often escaped to my mother -in -law's house on the beach to find some peace
822
and quiet and it was our tradition to listen to two episodes of Stuff You Should Know
823
because the two hour drive on our way there and then two more on our way back.
824
Slowly but steadily you guys became an important part of our travels and brought us knowledge, joy and laughter on many grim occasions.
825
And this week I came back to that coast.
826
after almost a year of not being able to do so because of the memories.
827
And when I did, the first thing I did was put on the podcast and have you guys come along.
828
It would mean, sorry, I'm getting emotional here.
829
That is so sweet.
830
So, Chuck, you just beeped because you cleared your throat.
831
And I was like, is Chuck getting choked up?
832
And yes, you are.
833
That is amazingly sweet.
834
I know I'd have a hard time with this one.
835
Guys, it would mean the world to me if you could dedicate an episode in the memory of Jacinta,
836
who especially loved and laughed at Josh's laugh.
837
keep up the good work and may you come with me to many more trips.
838
And that is from Lucas.
839
And I told Lucas it was going to be in this episode and that there was a cancer episode coming out soon,
840
but I'd rather tag it with this one.
841
And this, this one's dedicated to Jacinta.
842
Good idea, Chuck.
843
That was perfect.
844
Thank you for that.
845
Thank you for that, Lucas, for listening to us all this time
846
and for letting us know the little role we played in your life and Jacinta's life.
847
So thank you.
848
Yeah.
849
I don't know what else to say, Chuck.
850
That was just great.
851
If you want to make
852
Chuck and I quiet at the end of an episode, take your best shot.
853
You can send it off via email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio .com.
854
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
855
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación se basa en el vídeo “Winnie the Pooh: Silly Old Bear”. Este vídeo tiene 855 frases y 9146 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 51:59. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 176 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. El 82 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| robin sustantivo | /ˈɹɑ.bɪn/ | petirrojo |
| bee sustantivo | /ˈbiː/ | abeja |
| chuck verbo | /t͡ʃʌk/ | aventar |
| honey sustantivo | /ˈhʌni/ | miel |
| rabbit sustantivo | /ˈɹæbɪt/ | conejo, conejil |
| acre sustantivo | /ˈeɪ.kɚ/ | acre |
| essentially adverbio | /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/ | esencialmente, en esencia |
| goodbye | /ɡʊdˈbaɪ/ | adiós, hasta luego |
| gate sustantivo | /ˈɡeɪ̯t/ | puerta, portón |
| podcast sustantivo | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | podcast, pódcast |
| adorable adjetivo | /əˈdoɹ.əˌbəl/ | adorable, encantador |
| illustration sustantivo | /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/ | ejemplo, ilustración |
| nickname sustantivo | /ˈnɪkneɪm/ | apodo, mote |
| balloon sustantivo | /bəˈlun/ | globo, vejiga |
| sensation sustantivo | /sɛnˈseɪʃən/ | sensación |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| come out verbo | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | revelarse, salir a la luz |
| come along verbo | avanzar, marchar | |
| make up verbo | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | reponer, suplir |
| cheer up verbo | animarse | |
| come around verbo | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | entrar en razón |
| come up with verbo | ingeniar, ingeniarse | |
| get across verbo | cruzar | |
| get away verbo | alejarse |
Frases que vale la pena repetir
Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:
- You can't make that kind of name up.
- It's just, I have to just give it up.
- What's a funny name, real name for a dog?
- Did you mention the other stuffed animals?
- You know what just happened?
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | i've watched · I've ever heard · haven't even said |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | was raised · is not treated · was birthed |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | talk, which is · thing, which is · nickname, which was |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 158 contracciones y formas reducidas, como don't, I'm, can't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: throat /ˈθɹoʊt/, breathe /bɹiːð/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/, sensation /sɛnˈseɪʃən/, shout /ʃaʊt/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, adorable /əˈdoɹ.əˌbəl/, illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, literary /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: sleeve /sliv/, swan /swɑn/, steal /stiːl/, string /stɹɪŋ/, skip /skɪp/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: overnight /əʊvə(ɹ)ˈnaɪt/, sleeve /sliv/, impressive /ɪmˈpɹɛsɪv/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, revenge /ɹəˈvɛnd͡ʒ/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, phrase /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/, collections /kəˈlɛkʃənz/, lens /lɛnz/, exhaustive /ɪɡˈzɔstɪv/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como robin, bee, chuck.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.