February 4 - Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree

Image copyright Disney

On this day, in 1966, Disney released their first production starring a bear of very little brain, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. Based on the first two chapters of Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne's beloved children's book, Honey Tree began a franchise in Disney history that would take on a life of its own, its popularity at times eclipsing everything else in the Disney family. As ubiquitous as the Pooh characters are today, people might not remember that they debuted steeped in controversy, albeit one that Disney brought on itself.

Walt had begun trying to acquire the rights to the Winnie the Pooh stories in 1938. It wasn't until 1961 that he actually got the job accomplished. Initially intending to make a feature film, after the mixed reception that Alice in Wonderland received, he decided to make a featurette and release it with a live action movie. Since most of his focus was on The Jungle Book, he turned the whole project over to Woolie Reitherman asking him to Americanize the characters and punch up the humor.

Woolie took his instructions to heart and decided that the story needed a more down-home folksy resident of the Hundred Acre Wood. That's when Gopher was born. For some strange reason, apparently adding a new character meant one of the old ones had to be left out. And even stranger, Woolie felt that the one that should be left out would be Pooh's best friend (outside of Christopher Robin, of course), Piglet. A move that fans of the books couldn't help but notice and they were not happy about it. Needless to say, Piglet would figure prominently in the second installment two years later, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, and would never be left out again.

Image copyright Disney

Released along with The Ugly Dachshund starring Dean Jones and Susan Pleshette, Honey Tree received mixed to positive reviews. Critics were happy that Disney literally took a page out of the books, a trope that would continue through the series and into the attraction at the Magic Kingdom. E.H. Shepard, the original illustrator of the books, called the new look of the characters a travesty (no surprises there) but A.A. Milne's widow reportedly liked it. Most folks were fairly unanimous in their praise of the songs by the Sherman Brothers.

It would take eleven more years for Walt's plan of a Winnie the Pooh feature to happen. The three shorts that had been released up to that point, Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, were combined together with additional bridging material to create the studio's 22nd animated feature, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The multitude of shorts, features, television series and video games that have spawned since, just go to show how endearing Milne's tubby little cubby continues to be.

February 3 - John Fiedler

On this day, in 1925, John Donald Fiedler was born in Platteville, Wisconsin. When John was five, the family moved across the state to Shorewood. After graduating from Shorewood High School in 1943, he immediately enlisted in the United States Navy and served for the duration of World War II. Following his honorable discharge, John moved to New York City and fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming an actor when he joined the Neighborhood Playhouse.

John's first big professional role came on the radio comedy The Aldrich Family as Homer Brown. He became something of a staple in early television, making his small screen debut as Alfie Higgins on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and then making guest appearances on nearly every anthology show that existed, including two episodes of both The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One of his best known television roles came in the Seventies when John was cast as Mr. Peterson, one of Bob's regular patients on The Bob Newhart Show. John spent most of his life as an in-demand guest character on shows covering the decades from Gunsmoke to The Golden Girls and genres from Cheers to Quincy, ME.

Image copyright Columbia Pictures

John hit the big screen for the first time in 1957, as nervous little Juror #2 in Twelve Angry Men with Henry Fonda. He would go on to contribute to such film classics as The Odd Couple, True Grit, Harper Valley PTA and The Cannonball Run. A role that he originated on Broadway and reprised in the movies, was that of Karl Lindner in A Raisin in the Sun. John was so perfect as the seemingly innocuous Improvement Association representative who tries to buy a black family out to keep them from moving into his neighborhood, that he was picked to reprise the role again for a television version in the Eighties.

Image copyright Disney

Although John has provided the voice for numerous roles for Disney, most people will think of only one when they hear his voice. When Disney released Winnie the Pooh and Honey Tree in 1966, they upset fans by not including Piglet (more on that tomorrow). For the next installment two years later, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, they rectified their error and gave John a character he would play for nearly four decades. He gave voice to everyone's favorite little pig in shorts (Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too), features (Piglet's Big Movie), television shows (Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too) and video games (Kingdom Hearts). From 1968 until 2005, all the dozens and dozens of things that Piglet made an appearance in, John endearingly stuttered him to life.

Image copyright Disney

But Piglet wasn't the only thing John did for Disney, not by a long shot. He also voiced Father Sexton in Robin Hood, appeared in The Shaggy D.A. as Howie Clemmings, played Deacon Owl in The Rescuers, did Porcupine for The Fox and the Hound, and was the poor guy who threw off the emperor's groove, Rudy, in both The Emperor's New Groove and Kronk's New Groove, the sequel being his final film appearance.

After over sixty years of being the classic "I know that guy but I can't think of his name" character actor, John would succumb to cancer on June 25, 2005 at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey. Interestingly, his good friend and longtime Pooh co-star, Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger, had passed away the day before. Sadly, neither of them has been declared official Disney Legends as of yet. Looks like Disney has another Pooh snafu they need to fix.