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
Gopher (Winnie-the-Pooh) Gopher (Winnie-the-Pooh) Gopher is a fictional grey anthropomorphic gopher character who first appeared in the 1966 Disney animated film "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree", introducing himself as Samuel J. Gopher. He has a habit of whistling out his sibilant consonants, one of various traits he has in common with the beaver in "Lady and the Tramp", by whom he may have been inspired. While he never made appearances in any episodes of "Welcome to Pooh Corner", Gopher was fleshed out a bit further in the television series "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh". He is portrayed as