Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore Roo respectively. Ralph Wright, one of two voice actors who appeared in all four theatrical releases, became the third principal "Winnie the Pooh" featurette voice to pass away shortly after the release of the film; he died of a heart attack on December 31, 1983. He has since been followed in the deaths by Sterling Holloway (1992), Hal Smith (1994), and finally Paul Winchell and John Fiedler, who had also died on consecutive days in June 2005. On DVD and Blu-ray releases of "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", the short carries different voice credits than those on previous
Gopher (Winnie-the-Pooh) original character and not based on a character from the A.A. Milne books, a fact he notes in his first appearance when he says "I'm not in the book, you know!" Instead, he was initially developed by Disney as a replacement for Piglet. Apparently, the proposed character of Gopher was thought to have a more "folksy, all-American, grass-roots image" than Piglet. While American audiences loved the character, British audiences were less than pleased. Like most Winnie the Pooh characters, Gopher is named after his own species. Gopher is also known for his unique voice characterization. He tends to whistle his