Ecce Eduardus ursus scalis nunc tump-tump-tump occipite gradus pulsante post Christophorum Robinum descendens!

February 16, 2007 9:43 PM

"Oh bother" said the Disney corporation. "It seems we've lost Pooh."
posted by Second Account For Making Jokey Comments (34 comments total)

Pooh is safe with Tigger.
posted by homunculus at 9:53 PM on February 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ecce Eduardus ursus scalis nunc tump-tump-tump occipite gradus pulsante post Christophorum Robinum descendens!
posted by ericb at 9:58 PM on February 16, 2007

Pooh is safe with Tigger.

The wonderful thing about tiggers is tiggers are wonderful things!
posted by amyms at 10:06 PM on February 16, 2007

Ah, Everything2, the site that could have been Wikipedia if it wasn't run by asshats.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:25 PM on February 16, 2007 [9 favorites]

I love the 'ohbother' tag.
posted by SpecialK at 10:28 PM on February 16, 2007

YAAAAAAAYY!!! A blow against the empire!

This is good. This is a very good thing. Disney has bastardized and ruined Pooh, the Jungle Book, et al for so long... About time they started at least getting some obstacles thrown into the path of their march toward total domination/ownership of all children's literature.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:04 PM on February 16, 2007

You know, in a sane world, they'd be in the public domain by now...
posted by keswick at 11:09 PM on February 16, 2007

Second Account For Making Jokey Comments is a big ol' fraidy piglet, worried that the Giant Corpocracy might crush him or her. She or he is soooo right.
posted by mwhybark at 11:17 PM on February 16, 2007

Bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy fun fun fun fun fun!

Seriously, it's about time. That battle has been going on for at least 4 years. Disney really messed up Pooh's image, I thought. There were some creepy stuffed toys where they dressed him up like a hippie or a biker or whatever... they just freaked me out.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:21 PM on February 16, 2007

Disney turned Pooh into mediocre poo. Yeah, I said it.
posted by GavinR at 12:37 AM on February 17, 2007

I have a copy of the Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh. Delightful.

... Everything2 is responsible for my learning about the existence of the Hello Kitty vibrator.

I still make Touch The Puppy jokes from time to time.
posted by sparkletone at 12:59 AM on February 17, 2007

I'm just hoping that this will pave the way for the one piece of Pooh merchandise I've always wanted to own: stuffed animals based after Shepard's illustrations, as opposed to the Disney versions.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:38 AM on February 17, 2007

Holy crap, I agree with keswick about something.
posted by EarBucket at 4:53 AM on February 17, 2007

You know, in a sane world, they'd be in the public domain by now...

Exactly.

The Mouse That Ate The Public Domain.
posted by R. Mutt at 5:01 AM on February 17, 2007

I always lothed Disney's bastardization of the Pooh books, so I'm happy here. Also I'm contrarian enough that I just like it when one of the big players gets smacked.
posted by sotonohito at 5:03 AM on February 17, 2007

stuffed animals based after Shepard's illustrations, as opposed to the Disney versions.

Like these?
posted by R. Mutt at 5:27 AM on February 17, 2007

Damn you Disney, for your hideous neon-clad rape of some of the finest books from my childhood.

(And don't get me started on the emotionally inarticulate geeks I've met who identify their repressed sexuality with Disney's version of Tigger. Terrifying.)
posted by Luddite at 6:23 AM on February 17, 2007

You know, in a sane world, they'd be in the public domain by now...

There are still trademark issues involved here.
posted by delmoi at 6:28 AM on February 17, 2007

According to the article, the family of A.A. Milne is on Disney's side. The guy suing Disney is the person who bought out the merchandising rights from Milne's granddaughter's decades ago and is suing because he thinks Disney didn't give him enough money. To top it all off, none of this would affect any trademark holdings Disney has on their specific characters based on Milne's works. So I'm not really sure what to celebrate here. It sounds like Disney still owns your children's imaginations and some asshat who didn't create the characters still makes millions of dollars. Yay?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:33 AM on February 17, 2007

Faint of Butt, I actually have such stuffed animals. They were made for me when I was a kid by a family friend who was an excellent seamstress. My Eeyore even has a removable tail!
posted by Captaintripps at 6:38 AM on February 17, 2007

R. Mutt, I suppose it should come as no surprise that I spent more hours of my childhood with Shepard's illustrations than with Christopher Robin Milne's own stuffed animals.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:09 AM on February 17, 2007

stuffed animals based after Shepard's illustrations, as opposed to the Disney versions.

Like these?
posted by box at 9:00 AM on February 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

The guy suing Disney is the person who bought out the merchandising rights from Milne's granddaughter's decades ago and is suing because he thinks Disney didn't give him enough money.

It is actually a bit more complicated then that According to a Fortune magazine article:

Shirley's former husband, Stephen Slesinger, acquired the merchandising rights to Winnie the Pooh in 1930 from his creator, A.A. Milne. After Slesinger died, Shirley granted the rights to Walt Disney himself. Now Shirley's company, Stephen Slesinger Inc., accuses Disney of cheating it out of royalties for nearly two decades. Her lawyers want Stephen Slesinger Inc.'s contract with Disney voided so they can shop Pooh around to competing entertainment companies.

What complicates the situation is Slesinger bought the U.S. rights to Pooh from Milne himself (for some absurdly low figure in 1930) and then sold the rights to Disney, BUT a 1998 U.S. law extended copyright for 20 years and gave heirs of authors some ability to take back copyright for the extension period. On that basis, the granddaughter told Slesinger's widow she had terminated the company's rights to Pooh. However, the widow Slesinger is claiming that Disney held out her true share of the profits prior to 1998.

It is all a sad little story of Capitalism gone amok and so totally anti-Pooh that it breaks my heart. I am fortunate to be old enough that when I was a young girl Pooh and his friends were still innocent and pure. It was a lovely time.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:03 AM on February 17, 2007

Disney has bastardized and ruined Pooh, the Jungle Book, et al for so long...

Agreed, but I doubt Slesinger had any problem with that. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) As noted above, it's apparantly about the money.
posted by IndigoJones at 9:20 AM on February 17, 2007

I worked in the toy dept. at Disney and everyone decorated their cubicles with stuffed animals & crap. (You could learn a lot about a person from how they decorated their cube. The guy who was obsessed with Peter Pan kinda scared me.) I tend to prefer a less high-school-girl's-bedroom look, plus I'm drawn to things that are more vintage, so one day I brought in the Eeyore that I cried to get my dad to buy me when I was 3 or so. (It's the one stuffed animal I will proudly own until I die.)

When I brought it in, it became this curiosity that everyone wanted to see. Eeyore looks so different now (to start with, he's turned baby blue or lilac when he used to be gray). People held up my Eeyore to the modern ones and scrutinized them against eachother like scientists comparing the evolution of an actual species.

My Eeyore is totally better.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:21 AM on February 17, 2007

Oh, my. Thank you, box. It appears that I'll be buying some stuffed animals.

Well, I'm out.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:22 AM on February 17, 2007

Wowee. I just checked on BoingBoing to see what Cory had to say about this, figuring he'd be all over this like bees on honey. But to my dismay, there's nothing there ... he hasn't made a single little-bo-peep about it. Amazing! Metafilter scooped BoingBoing for once!
posted by Dave Faris at 12:25 PM on February 17, 2007

Disney licenses and markets "Classic Pooh" as well. Just putting that out there in case anyone thinks they're sticking it to the man by buying the better looking bunch.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:25 PM on February 17, 2007

Just want to say that Pooh's Heffalump Movie is absolutely charming and beautifully animated. Really a fine piece of work.
posted by jmccw at 12:47 PM on February 17, 2007

The new classic pooh stuff still looks different than the old versions though...
posted by miss lynnster at 1:03 PM on February 17, 2007

E2 is responsible for two of the best flash-fiction stories I've ever read.

Who would want to read fiction by Wikipedia editors?
posted by griphus at 1:53 PM on February 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Scooped BoingBoing? Is this a competition I hadn't known we were playing?
posted by five fresh fish at 7:55 PM on February 17, 2007

It's just that the river usually flows from boingboing to metafilter, and not the other way. (Of course, it still hasn't hit their radar, which is odd, since it involves both copyrights and Disney -- two legs of a Doctorow trifecta. All it needs is a remixed metro map for the win.)
posted by Dave Faris at 8:30 PM on February 17, 2007

My nana made me some Pooh stuffed animals when I was a kid. I had all of them, even Kanga and Roo, and they were super awesome as far as handmade toys go. I also hand my grandfather reading the Pooh books on tape, which was also supremely awesome.

I'll never be able to explain to my future children why this was just as good, if not better, than a mass produced Tigger toy and the Heffalump movie. *sigh*

(Also, that tiger with the Pooh toy was so cute, I nearly asploded.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:30 PM on February 18, 2007