hey everybody and welcome to classical stuff you should know we are all laughing because we have been still arguing about the stuff that we talked about last episode and our listeners was a week ago but to us was like like minutes ago and then we also argued they turned off like a half hour in between episode and then we i came back from the bathroom and we were still arguing about it and from what i can tell we agree and there might be an equivocation but anyway none of this matters i don't think of his argument i think of his evangelizing but whatever in any case we are all still friends and we disagree and the christ you know the cross is effective for you and the works are great in any case uh i just want to talk about when i just i just want to talk canada's greatest bear this is classical stuff you should know my name is and we are all best friends and now we're going to talk about a children's book cool what an introduction yeah so i guess this is the continued series of thomas talking about the books he actually reads which uh at this point in life with uh three little three little ones is going to be a bunch of kids books and so we're going to talk about we're going to talk about a mil we're going to talk about eh shepherd um and we're talking about eeyore why do you feel a connection to him no it makes me nervous that i have like how popular he is oh this is interesting it's like the wrong characters being pulled out i think so yeah we'll get to it you think it's like predestined that we would um have the wrong focus on this okay so uh yeah in talking about way too lots of different directions to take it uh we'll be talking a little bit about this um i have a book in front of me i sent you all sent you all the link but i guess as a way of getting into this i don't i don't know what these are stories everyone knows about graham like off the bat knew all this backstory about winnie the pooh so maybe this is more reason canadians know about it is because winnie is named is a bear named after the city of winnipeg which is a canadian city and winnie the pooh is a canadian bear so let's go through this so let's start from this angle so there are the stories uh called winnie the pooh they're actually based on a real bear and they're based on a real christopher robin right okay so let's take the dude's nephew or something done so let's take the um the uh christopher robin milne is good christopher robin and then a mil is the guy who's the guy writing um so yeah let's start with the winnie the pooh side of things so there's an actual bear that becomes or there's a real winnie the pooh i guess is one way to take it there's technically two real winnie the poohs i guess let's start with the one you're talking about graham so other than knowing the origin of the name you know do you know any more about the story um was it a bear that was on it was i really don't know i don't i remember it had something to do with the war and um either the bear was brought to a zoo to get him away from the war or something like that i can't remember so we'll go like this so once upon a time there's this guy named harry colburn and harry colburn was a i always want to say a vet going to world war too but that sounds like a veteran so he's a veterinarian right he's an animal doctor who was going to serve in world war one i'm going to serve in world war one and he's canadian i should i only started looking this up so he was born in england then moved to canada when he was 18 and then at the point the story is taking place he's leaving canada to claim him we can't claim anybody that's popular that have any time in canada we claim hemingway i mean okay cool um so colburn starts off this journey i think it's 1914 um um he's yeah he's heading off leaving canada he's gonna go to fight in europe i guess he's gonna be a veterinarian helping with world war one taking place over in europe so he's on this journey and uh they take a little stop and they take this stop in white river ontario was this i don't know small town and they're on a train colburn is on a train they take a stop they get to white river ontario and they get off the train you know colburn's walking around and he sees this trapper sitting there so this person who hunts bears this person who you know hunts bears and he's sitting there with a baby bear um and you know i if it's not explicitly said i don't know it appears you know the trapper has killed the parents of this of this baby bear and now has just this is their name for a child bear a cub yeah a bear cub thank you that's gonna come to me more quickly white river is a tiny little township just north of lake superior so on the northern side of ontario so ontario kind of hooks down underneath the 49th parallel and this is above the 49th um right just sort of on the northern part of lake superior so colburn sees this trapper sitting there with a bear cub and kind of out of whimsy kind of out of just spur of the moment decision uh buys that bear uh buys this bear cub from the trapper just sitting on the side of the train tracks essentially uh buys the bear for 20 bucks um this is 1914 so this is approximately 600 in today money so it's not nothing right um but i think in the grand scheme of what winnie the boo became probably small change but buys this bear and his regiment is like what the heck are you doing like why are you buying a bear as we're going off to off the war um gets a little bit of gets made fun a little bit for this and um uh has to name this bear so you've already made reference to this so the bear is named winnie and where does that name come from i thought it was from the city of winnipeg it is and that's where this regiment this group of group of soldiers is from it's a mascot that's exactly what it is so they buy the bear while they're still in canada they then go to europe they bring the bear with them so the bear makes this long journey with them it becomes kind of a mascot for what are they called the uh uh the fort gary horse yeah the name of the regiment is the fort gary horse and so their mascot is a bear which i guess makes sense um and so there's just a bear hanging out with these people going off to world war one well uh uh colburn starts getting promoted and it's having more and more trouble like maintaining a bear uh keeping a bear around and entertained and so he ultimately will donate winnie to the london zoo that's where winnie ends up in the london zoo um through this kind of weird happenstance of guys going to war runs across a bear buys him take him to london so there you go we got one side of where where winnie comes from um and there's a um i should also you have not we've not gotten there yet this is my question coming into this that's a weird title for something and i'm wondering and my question also is where does this come from i hope you will appreciate the answer if you if one of your links is to the winnie the story like the original one and we'll read that which is the answer um just so i am somewhat citing my sources i've made a joke in the ama episodes that my only source of information on like important cultural things like art or whatever is from children's books and there's a great book called finding winnie uh written by lindsey mattock and illustrated by sophie black uh sophie black hole um lindsey mattock is the i think she's the granddaughter or great-granddaughter of holborn of the guy who bought winnie in the first place um so it's a cool connection there okay so one and then obviously this winnie at the london zoo will have to intersect with the author of these books at some point that's the other way that we'll take things um so i guess in conjunction or around the same time there's this guy named a.a milne and that is for alan alexander milne he's the author of the winnie the pooh books um and he um he's an author i think he's written a children's book prior to when he writes these winnie the pooh books um but he's looking for ideas of what to write about um and um he is to look for ideas he just starts looking at the toys that his kid plays with and so his kid has his kid christopher robin has a bear and this bear goes by a few names uh this bear goes by the name teddy this bear goes by the name edward goes by the name big bear edward is just formal is that i mean honestly though um and then ultimately we'll change the name of his stuff there to winnie after meeting the bear at the london zoo so christopher robin meets winnie real bear at the london zoo loves this bear somehow builds this ability like it's given permission by the zookeepers this is a horrifying story about it to like go closer to the bear like to go past the like outer enclosure to go close to the bear i'm looking for those opportunities to feed children bears i guess but this sounds like a terrible precursor to the grizzly man what's the uh oh yeah and i guess from there that gets us so milne a milne will eventually write two sets of stories about winnie the pooh again we'll read from one of them uh and then also writes i think two books of poetry set in this hundred acre woods world um ultimately not that much source material to start with but then from that probably most importantly uh winnie the pooh get picked up uh for movies so there's a short feature ad i think in the 60s and then ultimately the um 1970s film i'll try and find it but ultimately picked up for movies and then popularity just grows from there to the point that like billions of dollars of merchandise in the winnie the pooh universe is sold every year so very much a very much a big deal um a few things just before we get into reading a little bit again this being a podcast you'll hear us reading the words those are milne's words um but similar to beatrix potter who we've talked about an important piece of these books are the illustrations um this illustration they're done by e.h shepherd at least for these these first four uh the again two sets of short stories and two books of poetry those are done by e.h shepherd i will not be able to do justice to the illustrations maybe someone will describe them when we get to that point but um similar to potter this the early winnie the pooh books have entered the public domain as of 2022 i want to say so while it's not the ideal way to experience these books you can go if you want to go and look uh at the i know i'm making a is that a sub tweet no email i'm saying i'm sub-tweeting that email emailing i always got an email saying like like you know how dare you or like why would you say potter should you look at project gutenberg well yes despite the email recipient the email writers deep love of project gutenberg she was like for a children's book you should probably get the book which is true have a kid in your lap and read that book yeah which is very true which is very true so please go by the and just on the e.h shepherd thing um an important part to the popularity and the enduring nature of these books um milne inscribed on the copy of the first winnie the pooh book that shepherd received um this little poem um when i'm gone let shepherd decorate my tomb and put if there is room two pictures on the stone piglet from page 111 and poo and piglet walking and peter thinking that they are my own will welcome me to heaven um and the poo and piglet one is the i think of it as walking into the sunset it's that famous picture is what he's referencing so i will not be able to describe how important that the art is to it but please take a look for yourself to see that not everyone loved maybe let's start there you have a link that says criticism i believe um so you know i'm going to speak in glowing terms about this book but not all critics loved it at the time um so this is um dorothy parker famous critic for writing for the new yorker um um was not our famous satirist uh was not a fan of milne's beloved there um i don't know if it'll be worth we can read it it's not very long who wants to read nonsense poems that in fact come from milne's book i'll do it cool so is that the morris knows yes so graham will start at the beginning and then aj do you want to read the the rest of it essentially okay so this is gonna start with graham graham will be quoting winnie the pooh written by milne and then aj will be reading what dorothy parker said about having to read uh the more it snows tiddly palm the more it goes tiddly palm the more it goes tiddly palm i'm snowing and nobody knows tiddly palm how cold my toes tiddly palm how cold my toes tiddly palm are growing the above lyric is called from the fifth page of mr a milne's new book the house at who corner for although the work is in prose there are frequent droppings into cadence whimsy this one is designated as a hum that pops into the head of winnie the pooh as he is standing outside piglet's house in the snow jumping up and down to keep warm it seems to him a good hum such as is hummed hopefully to others in fact so good a hum did it seem that he and piglet started right out through the snow to hum it hopefully to eeyore oh darn there i've gone and given away the plot oh i could bite my tongue out as they are trotting along against the flakes piglet begins to weaken a bit poo he said at last and a little timidly because he didn't want to think he was giving in i was just wondering how it would be if we went home now and practiced your song and sang to eeyore tomorrow or or the next day when we happen to see him that's a very good idea piglet said poo we'll practice it now as we go along but it's no good going home to practice it because it's a special outdoor song which has to be sung in the snow are you sure asked piglet anxiously well you'll see piglet when you listen because this is how it begins the more it snows tiddly palm tiddly what said piglet he took as you might say the very words out of your correspondent's mouth palm said poo i put that in there to make it more hummy and it is that word hummy my darlings that makes the first place in the house at poo corner at which constant reader flog up so made that so parker went by the name uh constant reader so again at the very end saying that this is what made constant reader throw up was having to having to read through this so not universal acclaim but you know there's something to what's our rule for classics it's lasted 100 years so uh i don't know does that prove parker wrong i don't know maybe maybe this is that the i never know how i feel about winning poo tell me why there i don't i mean they just seem so unhinged no no our last podcast was unhinged what do you tell me what you mean um well i think maybe there's on purpose piglet is always anxious poo is kind of like an oblivious moron the rabbit is on like he's like i always associated him with sort of like a 1980s like stock trader okay um no sorry that's the tiger the tiger's like that the rabbit is kind of like a busy body eeyore is clinically depressed okay and christopher robin is just like oh you crazy animals yeah and i'm like these people need an adult these people need help i've always thought that these animals need structure yeah i mean it's just archetypes like rabbits are busy piglets are timid bears are roly-poly because the monkeys are awful and sad because monkeys have pretty bad jobs and then tigers bounce around are they happy not all of them i mean you are unhappy but if you try to make him not if you try to make him happy he doesn't really want to do it i know that's why i've always found you frustrating that way that he can't be made happy um and then like the tiger is is just not i just like want him to be prudent and the rabbit i don't know this is incredible i've always found i've always found it frustrating i have found him to be frustrating okay and then the person i blame the most wait did you feel this as a child yes i definitely felt this as an eight-year-old child you're like gosh i wish that time no no the thing is i felt no this i definitely remember as a child is feeling like christopher robin had a responsibility as the human to like help them or to like fix things or like order them and he didn't and he was just like silly old bears like no friggin christopher robin like you have you as the you know adults in the room or whatever i always just because they're talking animals associated with narnia and narnia you have noble creatures you have evil creatures and here he's got like like you just got your you know they're all they all need therapy these animals yep and um christopher robin was i always thought was in a position to guide them he doesn't so i always felt frustrated about that that's definitely my hang up we don't need to talk about it you're taking the the task given in genesis to like cultivate and grow the world in absolute seriousness and being frustrated with christopher robin that he just wants to experience animals as they are as a problem every single animal is like a dsm archetype and uh christopher robin should you know be helping them out but i mean can piglet be less than he's a piglet he's gonna grow a pig eventually and the pig will be less than it maybe but christopher in the stories in the stories they don't work towards those things so in the stories they don't get to higher moral places like frog and toad right or like even in or even even i don't know if it's part of but like they don't At the end of it, they don't, like, improve as characters. They kind of just bumble, bumble through. I also, yeah, I think as a kid, I got bored because I just felt like it wasn't going anywhere. Did you read the stories, or was that from, like, the movies?
Ah, mostly the cartoons. I was like, nothing really happened. Yeah, I like it because it's exciting when everything else is boring. Are there great differences between the cartoons and the stories?
It depends which one. So the first movie, the 1977 or the 76, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, is a very, it's a faithful retelling of Winnie the Pooh, the first one. But, again, there's not much source material. It's two books, and it's two books of stories, two books of poems.
Everything after that is, I was going to say made up. I guess it's all made up. But as opposed to the real Winnie the Pooh. Wait, there was a real Winnie.
Never mind. But, yeah, so there might be something to, like, it's the same Peter Rabbit problem, maybe, that, like, the old PBS cartoon rules in the, like, newer 3D animated one that's, like, not based on the B.A.T. Potter stories are not great. Like, just about your parents.
That's the original ones are, like, you'll get shot if you don't listen to your friend who's, like, a really well-beated person. And the new ones are... All the cool kids breaking the stuff. Yeah, I guess that's another way of bringing all that.
That's right. I think that's fair. And I guess I'm... So, Mel would probably follow more in the...
It's an entertaining story for kids. So, like, the characters in Winnie the Pooh, almost all of them are just toys that his son had, that Christopher Robin had. I think there are two that were added for the purpose of the story. But, like, the original dolls, like, there's an original Winnie the Pooh, there's an original Eeyore, there's an original Piglet.
And I think they might... I don't know if they're still there, but for a long time they were at the New York... Like, one of the New York libraries. Like, they're captioning, essentially.
So, I find that charming. That the one way to read this is as a father is, like, incorporating... It's not too far off from... If I've talked about this, stop me.
Like, Tolkien has a series of letters that he wrote to his... Stop, stop, stop. Oh, okay. To his nieces and nephews about Father Christmas, like, pretending to be Father Christmas, writing these letters to them.
And then those letters were then collected and published as a book. But it's not really meant for that. It's meant as letters to family. Or, like, how Franz Kafka, like, pretended to be a lost girl's doll going on adventures.
And then... You know the story? So, Franz Kafka was, like, bumped up against this girl. She was crying because she lost her doll.
And he felt really bad. And he said, oh, your doll isn't lost to your doll. I bumped into it. She's going on a voyage.
And she's going on adventures. Give me your address. And she said she was going to write me. Give me your address.
And I'll send you her postcards. And the girl was like, awesome. And so, for years, Franz Kafka wrote this little girl Doll's Adventures. And he eventually bought a doll and was like, I'm coming home and mailed it to her.
And the little girl responded, this doesn't look anything like my lost doll. And Franz Kafka wrote back and said something on the lines of, like, all journeys transform you. And that was it, right? Like, I was transformed on my voyage.
That's wonderful. I guess the only other thing to... We've made some references to it, but just kind of timeline stuff. So, Milne is...
A.A. Milne, Alan Alexander Milne, the dad, the guy who writes these books, is born in 1882, he'll then die in 1956. And then, from 1956 on, it's this kind of bouncing back and forth of who has the rights, who owns the rights to Winnie the Pooh. Maybe this is something only I find interesting.
But he gives these rights to a few different groups. One is the Royal Literary Fund. One is the Westminster School. And the other is the Garrick Club.
You know, any of these organizations. No, but I'm assuming the Westminster School is the school that's associated with the church, which is probably like a choir school at some point. It's the thing in England where what they call a public school is what we would call a private school. They kind of flip the private school, using American terms, that it's, you know, let me leave a list of their prominent members.
Three Nobel laureates. How many... It has a number of prime ministers, seven UK prime ministers attended there, you know, a well-to-do school, right, that Milne was associated with. The Royal Literary Fund is a fund that I'm just reading off.
It gives assistance to published British writers in difficult financial situations. And then the Garrick Club is like a social club that Milne was associated with. So they're the ones who get these rights to what becomes Winnie the Pooh and his family, I should say, as well. So Christopher Robin received a portion of that ownership, and then Milne's widow also received a portion of that ownership.
She would then go on to sell that to the publisher associated with Milne. And then where this is all going is that... Disney bought it. Yeah, Disney bought it.
That's where this goes. In the 1960s is when the first featurette comes out, and they start paying this licensing fee. I think it's twice a year, they pay a bunch of money to all these people who own the rights. 1970s come around, they put out the many adventures of Winnie the Pooh that I've already referenced.
It becomes more popular. They're still paying this licensing fee. And then ultimately, by 2001, Disney just decides to pay for it outright instead of paying until the end of this licensing agreement. So they pay $350 million to the owners.
And again, this goes from a guy, Meta Bear, at a zoo 100 years before that, and then to be $350 million in 2001, which is probably even like a steal compared to... Again, if you're making billions of dollars a year in sales on this stuff, it's a good deal, right? So are you thinking, Thomas, that all your little stories that you're running for Asher and Will... Yeah, I've got to publish them, right?
They'd have to be original for me to be able to do that, and that's all... All Asher wants, every night, all he wants is... That'll be a Star Wars story. That'll be a Star Wars story.
I do make it up, but they're not very good. And so we've now gone through all nine of the films multiple times, and so now he just wants me to retell those stories over and over again. What's the Thomas and Nagby version of The Phantom Menace? That one's very short, and so we talk about there are cars that go fast.
Pod racing? Pod racing. We don't talk about the diplomatic stuff, because that's super boring. We're talking about trade agreements?
So yeah, but you have to understand. Naboo was encircled by... No. Yeah, there's a boy born in poverty, and he has to race to get out, and Jedis don't fight unless they have to.
They don't force Water to give up, and again, they make a deal. That was the most boring way I could have told that. I promise my kid loves the story. And then all Will does, I just think of Amazing Grace every night when he goes to bed, so it's pretty great.
2001, big money, that's the $350 million. 2022, the original book of stories, enters the public domain. Do either of you know what happens after this? Like a weird thing in the Winnie the Pooh world happens after this?
I don't. There's a movie that comes out? There's a horror movie that comes out? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
About Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey? It's just looking at me like... Yes, that's right. It's called Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey?
Yes, Winnie the Pooh, I remember. Okay. And that's just because it was in a comic domain. Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey 2 comes out in 2024.
I imagine it, well, mostly for the shock of it, not for the quality, necessarily. And I actually don't know how much it made. It was made for $100,000, and it grossed $5.2 million. No, $5.2 million.
Yeah, it's a pretty good return. It's pretty good, right? But the funny thing, I had not watched the movie. My understanding is that because it's only the characters that enter the public domain, so watch that.
But I don't recommend it, and it's probably very bad, and intellectual property is weird. So, okay. Shall we actually start? Should we read a little bit so you don't hate it?
I'm not saying I hate it. I'm just saying, like... I don't think it's as moral as you want it to be. Yeah, that's...
I'm just... And you might... That might be a weakness of it. I'm open to it being less than Beatrix Potter, like that one.
I don't know. Does everything have to be more like this? For kids, it does. Otherwise, they'll...
I don't know. Oh, because you just read a cool book about cars. My kids love cars books, so... I'm thinking of the movie.
Did you mean just, like, literal cars? Yeah. They would probably like that. That's the moral of cars in the movie.
Cars... Oh, man. Okay, so the end of cars. No, don't get me out.
So, like, there's a race at the end of this, okay, right? And so, it's Lightning... My nephew loves Lightning. ...against this Dinoco car and against this green car whose name I don't remember.
So, the three of them are racing. Lightning has trained this entire movie to win this race, right? He's in first place. He's going to win.
Well, the green car, who's a bad guy, bumps into the blue car just so he can move from third to second place, knocks the car off the track. Lightning gives up his first place. He stops on the track, turns around, gets the blue car to push him across. And I don't know if this is the exact quote.
It's the version that I tell my kids is that there's more to winning than being in first place. Why did he help the blue car? Because... Was it in danger?
Yeah, he was, like... When he was knocked by the green car, he, like, flipped over and over. Like, the kids' movie would not say this, but, like, he was at risk of dying, essentially. And so, Lightning goes to save him and push him over the line.
The car's can't be wheels up. It's not how that works. Yeah, I mean, although... Yeah, whatever.
There's another car who that happens to. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But there's more to winning than being in first place. Country Racial Stereotype.
Okay, very strange. It's not great. Yeah, I've not seen that. I will not be doing that.
Okay, let's... If you click on the link, I forget if it says... Oh, sorry. I wanted to make reference.
There's some T.S. Eliot poems about Winnie the Pooh, and I think I've copied them in there. Who wants to read first? Oh, I got it.
Graham, you want to read poem one, and then AJ, you'll read poem two. So you said T.S. Eliot? Yeah, T.S.
Eliot, yeah. In the hundred-acre wood, where friends play, the landscape changed in a peculiar way. Pooh, with his honeypot, wandered with care, seeking wisdom from Owl, the wise and rare. But Piglet shivered in the eerie gloom, Eeyore sighed, his mood a constant doom.
Rabbit hurried, anxious in his race, and T.S. Eliot bounced, adding a lively pace. Kanga and Rue, in a quest for peace, sought a haven where troubles could cease. Christopher Robin in the woods' expanse navigated a world in a whimsical dance.
Yet amid the whimsy and tales untold lies a hunt of mystery, a story to unfold. In the hundred-acre wood, both near and far, an enchanting adventure, where shadows spar. That's one of the earlier poems, then this is a bit later, so let's see if we can find some differences. AJ, do you want to read poem two?
I feel like I need to read this in a preview voice. Go for it. In the desolate hundred-acre wood, shadows fell. A gloom-laden saga, a forlorn spell.
Pooh, with empty honey jar in hand, roamed the barren landscape, a desolate land. Piglet trembled in the ashen haze. Eeyore's sighs echoed in the empty maze. Rabbit sprinted, driven by a nameless fear.
Tigger's bounces lost their lively cheer. Kanga and Rue, seeking refuge in vain, yearned for a respite from the haunting pain. Christopher Robin, a spectral figure lost, wandered amid the silence. A heavy cost.
The wood, once vibrant, now whispered despair, a wasteland of dreams, where hope was rare. Maybe you're such a dork. Why am I a dork? Because this is clearly a ChatGPT writing a poem on Way to Pooh from T.S.
Eliot's in the Wasteland in ChatGPT. This is so bad, this can't be Eliot. Sorry. I just don't know what Eliot liked.
I was like, this is kind of weird. I said, rewrite T.S. Eliot's the Wasteland. I said, don't worry, I'll Winnie the Pooh story.
And then it wrote the first poem. Then it wrote the first poem, and I said, make it more like the wasteland. Oh, geez, Louise. Why did I sign it?
I don't can trust you again. I'm okay with both sonnets. It's just the second one, right? I did think the end of the sonnet.
It did not accomplish the write it like the wasteland. No, it did not. So it ended with the word wasteland, which is not exactly right. I read ahead what Adrian was reading and said, this is Wasteland with Eliot.
Oh, my word. This is not real. That was not real. Eliot's not my poem.
Thank you. Well, I've been getting so many assignments turned in. I've developed a sense for it. I've developed a taste.
Anyway, so Eliot's not actually write poems about Winnie the Pooh. Those are from ChatGPT. So there you go. I thought that was pretty good.
Okay, let's get to our answer of why. So, again, we talked about Winnie. There's a real bear named Winnie. But we still have a few steps before we get to Winnie the Pooh, which is, again, it's like a weird name.
So if you'll go in the link that says story, and if you go down to introduction, and I think just the first paragraph answers that question. Yeah, let's just start with the first paragraph. Yeah, if you could read that. If you happen to have read another book about Christopher Robin, you may remember that he once had a swan, or the swan had Christopher Robin, I don't know which, and that he used to call this swan Pooh.
That was a long time ago. And when we said goodbye, we took the name with us, as we didn't think the swan would want it anymore. Well, when Edward Bear said that he would like an exciting name all to himself, Christopher Robin said at once, without stopping to think, that he was Winnie the Pooh. And he was.
So I've explained the Pooh part. I will now explain the rest of it. And the rest goes on to talk about the London Zoo, meeting the bear, Christopher Robin. Yeah, well, when Christopher Robin goes to the zoo, he goes to where the polar bears are, and he whispers something to the third keeper from the left, and doors are unlocked, and we wander through dark passages and up steep stairs, until at last we come to the special cage, and the cage is open, and out trots something brown and furry, and with a happy cry of, oh, bear, Christopher Robin rushes into his arms.
Now, the bear's name is Winnie, which shows what a good name for bears it is, but the funny thing is that we can't remember whether Winnie is called after Pooh or Pooh after Winnie. We did know once, but we have since forgotten. So again, it's got two separate things merged together, and so it's kind of kid logic of, like, of course, the name is Winnie the Pooh. It had a swan, the swan's gone, but the name is still here, here's a bear, it needs a name, just, the name's got Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, done.
That's the story. What more do you need? Yeah, that really is how it's presented. Let's just do one other, another piece that is a little strange, and I hope I mentioned.
So Winnie the Bear, who we just read about, is a girl, is a female bear. Winnie the Pooh in the stories is a boy, right? So there's also a thing to, like, what's going on there as to why the original is a girl, but the doll that Christopher Robin has, Christopher Robin is sure is a boy. So let's go to chapter one.
This is where Winnie the Pooh, the stories start improper. So the name of this chapter is in which we are introduced to Winnie the Pooh, and some bees, and the stories begin. So let's start there. We're only going to go, I will tell you when to stop.
It's when we get to the phrase, going to get, that's the end of it. So let's have, Graham, do you want to read? Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs.
But sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, ready to be introduced to you, Winnie the Pooh. When I first heard his name, I said, just as you were going to say, but I thought he was a boy.
So did I, said Christopher Robin. Well, then you can't call him Winnie. I don't. But you said, he's Winnie the Pooh.
Don't you know what there means? Yes, now I do. I said quickly, and I hope you do too, because that's all the explanation you're going to get. That's the end of it.
So how did Winnie go from being a girl, like a girl's name, to being the name for a boy? What does there mean? It was Winnie the Pooh. If you look at how Christopher Robin said there.
So don't you know what there means? You don't know what there means? And you don't know. That's all the reason you're going to get.
It's kid logic again. I keep hoping for that. Maybe this is another reason why I found it to be uncomfortable. It's like the poor bear, he's getting his head bumped, and then there's no, it's sort of like, there's like an anxiety producing in me.
But they're all stories of literal stuffed animals, wherein. I always felt so bad for the bear. For the bear? Yeah.
Why? Because he was like, oh, I'm getting bumped downstairs because the child's not thinking about my feelings, and I knew there was a way to come down and whatever. I've repressed trauma from him. That's why I'm hearing this right now.
This is good. Did someone not think of your feelings? Did you want to talk about that? Oh, no, my feelings were always thought about.
That's great. And so I felt bad for the bear. Yeah, that's fair. And then this first story, if you remember from the many adventures from the 1970s, this is the story of Winnie the Pooh wanting to get up to Honey that's very high up, but to do that, he gets a balloon, he floats up, the balloon gets popped, he falls in mud, he's covered in mud.
It's, I think, the first main story. in the movie um so that's what this first one is um i guess i won't just looking at time i don't know if it's worth reading a whole story um i don't know um i don't think so again i'm fine with that this is probably the place just to wrap up with it that um i think maybe this is what i think it's fair that there's maybe there's less of a moral element to these stories but much more on the side of like we're just telling fun stories my kids toys um and just building this world out from there why do you think it got so popular like why do you think it's now it has a 350 million dollar price tag 100 years later like what is the what is the the hook that everybody really really likes about them i mean like they're just entertaining and i wish i had a better answer for it um well is it just a mix of these archetype characters like trying to figure things out because that's when i think of the movie i always think about like rap's got a plan and digger's gung-ho and piglet doesn't know what to do and pooh's kind of stoned and um um eeyore is like like needs a wellness check like like this is like do people sort of like seeing the yeah the dysfunction i wonder if everyone sees themselves in one of the creatures or once i like i always want to hang out there because he seemed fun everyone else seemed boring but there's got to be a tent to get out there that feels like piglet and you know probably doesn't rue want to like go meet adventures and his mom's like yeah um stay in my park and then there's owl and everyone's like oh i have that grandpa you know it could be that maybe it's the it's relatable um straightforward like they're simple stories um there's got to be something just to nostalgia too of like if you are the first again so 1920s is when these are coming out so you have built in this is what people have been raised on for a long time now and like i loved this as a kid so now i read it to my kids so it has to be some of that of you happen to be the one that was there a hundred years ago and so now you benefit from that and now it's banned in china uh yes i do the comparisons between winnie the pooh and jing ping yeah um now the podcast is banned in china you're saying that yeah um so i don't know i'm having trouble answering that like it really is to say these are entertaining stories um and even less than i was talking with sarah after the beatrix potter episode and she's like beatrix potter is deeply moral but it's not moralizing right yeah there is a there are more lessons to get from it but it's not gonna beat you over the head i think this is even a step below that in most cases and it's just like a formal archetypes i don't think kids want formal archetypes i think they just want stories about toys playing having a good time in a make-believe world that is compelling um no but you don't have any you don't have any like hang-ups about them and with their sort of amoral but with the with the characters being like with sort of like the humorous dysfunction of it you don't find that to be you don't worry that the children that kids are going to find like dysfunction humorous i remember like a thanksgiving episode everything just goes absolutely terrible so maybe one of the ironies is um to the end of the movie and the end of the first book is the title in which christopher robin um gives a gives a party and we say goodbye um so there's something to it where this is just a kid playing with his toys for an hour and a half in the movie roughly that if you're reading the book probably um and at the end of it he says goodbye and goes to school if i'm not mistaken so there is like a like this is for children but it's not you're not gonna stay here and so like there's something else that comes after it so it is very much a it's a break from reality the whole thing is christopher robin imagining himself in the hundred acre woods which i think there was a like a 500 acre wood near them again that's also based on a real place um so there's something to that where it's escapist but fun and maybe it's weaknesses that it's probably more for children than i can beatrix potter or escapistables i think those have an appeal um the wisdom like almost like um not wisdom proverbial nature yeah whereas these might be more than a stall to play um for them to be appealing um i don't know that's that's my read on it right now there's a reason i'm not like it was not the first thing that i've like there's a reason we're doing this after escapist potter and now this um but i still think i don't know some things are okay to just be fun and enjoy and uh yeah flip through um project gutenberg if you get a chance um we'll probably talk more in between there's some stuff about like the actual relation like between christopher robin and his dad and i don't know there's some stuff that maybe is interesting there that we'll probably handle in between but uh yeah check it out online if you want to just try it for free or otherwise go pick up a copy um they're pretty cheap now that it's public domain so buy a copy read some books and or sell it yourself public domain that's actually true you could do that if you want to make your own horror movie so i mean you could but no talking but no talking and thanks canada for giving us one of the poo yeah thank you yeah that for that bear that was taken from northern ontario to the very great life um cool that was the classical stuff you should know you can check us out on our website classicalstuff.net you can email us at theguysatclassicalstuff.net you can patronize us at patreon.com slash classicalstuff or tweet us at x dot at c s at c l s s c l right yeah sure yeah that's the stuff you can tweet us there and uh you know or just send us good vibes like those too so thanks bye oh goodbye you