The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh derived from three previously released animated featurettes Disney produced based upon the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne: "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" (1966), "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" (1968), and "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" (1974). Extra material was used to link the three featurettes together to allow the stories to merge into each other. A fourth, shorter featurette was added to bring the film to a close, originally made during production of "Blustery Day" (based on the presence of Jon Walmsley as Christopher Robin). The sequence was based on the final chapter of
Winnie the Pooh (Disney character) Pooh" (1977). Hal Smith (1980–1987) took over for the 1981 short "Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons", and would maintain the role until Jim Cummings (1988–present) began voicing Pooh in the animated series "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" (1988–1991). Cummings continues to voice Pooh (as well as Tigger) to this day. In 1961, Walt Disney Productions licensed certain film and other rights to the characters, stories and trademarks from Stephen Slesinger, Inc. and the estate of A. A. Milne. and made a series of cartoon films about him. The early cartoons were based on several of the original