Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore Sterling Holloway elected not to continue the role of Pooh and Sebastian Cabot, the original narrator, died shortly after the release of the feature film "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh". The deaths of Junius Matthews in 1978 and Barbara Luddy in 1979 also necessitated changes in Rabbit's and Kanga's portrayers; Will Ryan began a three-year stint as Rabbit's voice in this featurette while Julie McWhirter portrayed Kanga only once. Additionally, Laurie Main, Hal Smith, Will Ryan, and Kim Christianson later appear in the live-action series "Welcome to Pooh Corner" as the Narrator, Winnie the Pooh, Owl, Rabbit, and
Winnie-the-Pooh "When We Were Very Young" (6 November 1924). Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name on 24 December 1925, in a Christmas story commissioned and published by the London newspaper "The Evening News". It was illustrated by J. H. Dowd. The first collection of Pooh stories appeared in the book "Winnie-the-Pooh". The "Evening News" Christmas story reappeared as the first chapter of the book. At the beginning, it explained that Pooh was in fact Christopher Robin's Edward Bear, who had been renamed by the boy. He was renamed after a black bear at London Zoo called Winnie who got her name from