Winnie the Pooh - Mike Curb Congregation

Born on this day in 1882 was famous writer Alan Alexander Milne, better known as A.A. Milne, author of the classic Winnie-the-Pooh children's books. (The hyphens in Winnie-the-Pooh were dropped by Disney, but I am keeping them in this post since we are going to talk about Milne's work.)

Do you know how Winnie-the-Pooh go his name? Way back in World War I, a Canadian Lieutenant named Harry Colebourn bought a little black (female) bear cub from a hunter in Ontario for $20. He named her "Winnie" after the bear's hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Colebourn was on his way to England to fight in the War and brought the bear along with him. While he was fighting in France, he left Winnie in the London Zoo and ultimately ended up donating her to the zoo.

The Milne family took many trips to the London Zoo and A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin Milne, loved the little black bear so much that he named his own stuffed bear after her.

The "Pooh" part of Winnie-the-Pooh comes from a swan named "Pooh" that the Milne family met while on a vacation. Pooh the Swan actually makes an appearance in one of the poems in Milne's When We Were Very Young, which coincidentally is also the first appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Milne has a little different explanation of where Pooh got his name, as written at the beginning of Winnie-the-Pooh:

But his arms were so stiff... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think — but I am not sure — that that is why he is always called Pooh.

Today's cover is Pooh's famous theme song, written by the Sherman Brothers, arranged by MIKE CURB and performed by the MIKE CURB CONGREGATION for their 1995 album, WALT DISNEY'S GREATEST HITS. The song refers to a few new characters, a Horsey named Hee-Haw, a birdy and Chippy the Chipmunk, which as far as I know, have nothing to do with the books or the movies.