Sad News for Tigger Fans -- Creations & Celebrations Interactive Information Forum

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

Subject: Sad News for Tigger Fans

Author:
VJH

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 15:21:47 06/26/05 Sun

Ventriloquist Paul Winchell, who was the voice of Tigger in Disney's Winnie the Pooh films, has died aged 82.
He was a popular children's TV host in the US, and first voiced Tigger in 1968 in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, which won an Academy Award.

Winchell also voiced Gargamel in The Smurfs and Boomer in The Fox and the Hound, as well as voicing other Disney and Hanna-Barbera productions.

He was also an inventor, patenting an artificial heart in 1963.

His other patents included a disposable razor, a flameless cigarette lighter and an invisible garter belt.

Winchell last performed as Tigger in 1999, in Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving.

Lisp and laugh

For Tigger, he created a slight lisp and laugh, crediting his British wife with Tigger's "TTFN" catchprase - "ta-ta for now", itself coming from BBC radio comedy It's That Man Again.

In 1974, he earned a Grammy for best children's recording with The Most Wonderful Things About Tiggers from the film Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too.

Born in 1922 in New York, Winchell contracted polio aged six but beat speech impediments as he learned to throw his own voice.

In 1988 he told the Associated Press news agency: I first met Walt Disney 25 or 30 years ago. He said, 'We're both in the same business. I use cartoons and you use dummies and we both entertain children.'

"That was long before I started working here. Walt gave me a VIP tour of the studio. I remember people doing voices. I said, 'Gee, that must be fun.' And here I am."

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]