Tigger
Encyclopedia
Tigger is a fictional
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...

-like character originally introduced in A. A. Milne
A. A. Milne
Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...

's book The House at Pooh Corner
The House at Pooh Corner
The House at Pooh Corner is the second volume of stories about Winnie-the-Pooh, written by A. A. Milne and illustrated by E. H. Shepard. It is notable for the introduction of the character Tigger, who went on to become a prominent figure in the Disney Winnie the Pooh franchise.- Plot :The title...

.
Like other Pooh characters, Tigger is based on one of Christopher Robin Milne
Christopher Robin Milne
Christopher Robin Milne was the son of author A. A. Milne. As a child, he was the basis of the character Christopher Robin in his father's Winnie-the-Pooh stories and in two books of poems.-Early life:...

's stuffed animals. Nowadays he is most widely recognized as reinterpreted by the Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

 studios, with distinctive orange and black stripes, beady eyes, a long chin, springy tail, and (the one detail originating from A. A. Milne) his love of bouncing. As he says himself, "Bouncing is what Tiggers do best."

In literature

Tigger is introduced in Chapter II of House at Pooh Corner, when he shows up on Winnie-the-Pooh's
Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...

 doorstep in the middle of the night, announcing himself with a big bounce. Most of the rest of that chapter is taken up with the characters' search for a food that Tigger can eat for breakfast - despite Tigger's claims to like "everything", it is quickly proven he does not like honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

, acorns, thistles, or most of the contents of Kanga's pantry. In a happy coincidence, however, he discovers what Tiggers really like best is extract of malt, which Kanga has on hand because she gives it to her son, Roo
Roo
Roo is a fictional character created in 1926 by A. A. Milne and first featured in the book Winnie-the-Pooh. He is a young kangaroo and his mother is Kanga...

, as "strengthening medicine".

From that point on, Tigger lives with Kanga and Roo in their house in the northeastern part of the Hundred Acre Wood
Hundred Acre Wood
The Hundred Acre Wood is the fictional land inhabited by Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the Winnie-the-Pooh series of children's stories by author A. A. Milne...

 near the Sandy Pit. He becomes great friends with Roo (to whom he becomes a sort of older sibling figure), and Kanga treats him in much the same way she does her own son. Tigger also interacts enthusiastically with all the other characters — sometimes too enthusiastically for the likes of Rabbit, who is sometimes exasperated by Tigger's constant bouncing, Eeyore
Eeyore
Eeyore is a character in the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne. He is generally characterized as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, anhedonic, old grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of the title character, Winnie-the-Pooh....

, who is once bounced into the river by Tigger, and Piglet, who always seems a little nervous about the new, large, bouncy animal in the Forest. Nonetheless, the animals are all shown to be friends.

In addition to chapter II, Tigger also appears in chapters IV, VI, VII, and X of The House at Pooh Corner, and is mentioned in several others. He is the only new major character to be introduced in The House at Pooh Corner; all of the others had been established in the earlier Winnie-the-Pooh book
Winnie-the-Pooh (book)
Winnie-the-Pooh is the first volume of stories about Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne. It is followed by The House at Pooh Corner. The book focuses on the adventures of a teddy bear called Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends Piglet, a small toy pig; Eeyore, a toy donkey; Owl, a live owl; and Rabbit, a...

.

Depictions

In Ernest H. Shepard's illustrations, Tigger appears to walk (or more often, bounce) on four feet as opposed to two. He is, however, capable of holding a pen with one of his front paws. Though Tigger is described by Rabbit and Piglet as "large", he does not seem particularly big in the illustrations. Pooh states once "He always seems bigger because of his bounces", implying that the other animals think of Tigger as being larger than he truly is.

Personality traits

That assessment fits well with Tigger's personality and his assessment of his own abilities, which he always overestimates. He is cheerful, outgoing, competitive in a friendly way, and has complete confidence in himself. Some of the things which he claims Tiggers can do include flying, jumping farther than a kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...

, swimming, and climbing trees. He never actually attempts any of the first three things in the course of the story, but he does try to climb a tree. He only succeeds half-way, being able to climb up but not to climb down again. Tigger also says Tiggers "never get lost"; unlike most of his other claims, this one seems to be true - he is able to find his way through the Forest even in a thick mist, despite Rabbit's attempts to lose him.

Like most of the characters in Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger was based on one of Christopher Robin Milne
Christopher Robin Milne
Christopher Robin Milne was the son of author A. A. Milne. As a child, he was the basis of the character Christopher Robin in his father's Winnie-the-Pooh stories and in two books of poems.-Early life:...

's stuffed animals, in this case a stuffed-toy tiger. However, the word "tiger" is never actually used in the book. The term "Tigger" is used instead, both as the character's name and as a description of his type of animal. No other "Tiggers" appear in the story, and at one point Tigger (who has just seen his reflection in a mirror
Mirror
A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...

 and mistaken it for another individual) comments he thought he was the only one. Despite that belief, he constantly uses the term in the plural, as in "Tiggers don't like honey." and "So that's what Tiggers like!", etc. The term is always capitalized.

In film

Tigger also appears in the Disney cartoon versions of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, beginning with Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day is a 1968 animated featurette based on stories from the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne. The featurette was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution on December 20, 1968 before The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit. This was...

in 1968. He has even starred in his own film, The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie is a 2000 animated comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Jun Falkenstein. Part of the Winnie-the-Pooh series, this film features Pooh's friend Tigger in his search for his family tree and other Tiggers like himself...

(Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

, 2000), along with his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood
Hundred Acre Wood
The Hundred Acre Wood is the fictional land inhabited by Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the Winnie-the-Pooh series of children's stories by author A. A. Milne...

.

Tigger was originally voiced by Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell was an American ventriloquist, voice actor and comedian, whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s...

. Since 1990, he has been voiced by Jim Cummings
Jim Cummings
James Jonah "Jim" Cummings is an American voice actor who has appeared in almost 100 roles. He has appeared in classic animated movies such as Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as taking on roles in more current films, such as Bee Movie, Princess and the Frog, and Winnie the Pooh.-Personal...

 (who is also the voice of Pooh), with the exception of Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin is a 1997 direct-to-video film from Walt Disney's The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. The film follows Pooh and his friends on a journey to find and rescue their friend Christopher Robin from the "Skull"...

(1997), A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving
A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving
A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving is a 1998 made-for-TV special featuring the voice talents of Jim Cummings, Paul Winchell, and John Fiedler. The movie shows Pooh and his friends learning the true meaning of Thanksgiving...

(1998), and Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine For You
Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine For You
A Valentine for You is a Valentine's Day television special based on the Disney television series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, originally broadcast on February 13, 1999...

(1999), in which Winchell reprised the role of Tigger. On some albums and read-along cassettes in the early 1990s, Ed Gilbert voiced Tigger. Also, Will Ryan
Will Ryan
Will Ryan is an American voice actor and producer–writer–composer, well-known for singing about the American West. In the late seventies he teamed up with Phil Baron as Willio and Phillio. They had regular gigs on television, radio and comedy clubs and universities throughout the US...

 voiced Tigger in the Disney Channel
Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...

 program Welcome to Pooh Corner
Welcome to Pooh Corner
Welcome to Pooh Corner is a live-action/puppet television series that aired on Disney Channel, featuring the characters from the Winnie the Pooh universe portrayed by actors in human-sized puppet suits, except Roo, who was originally a traditional puppet...

.

In the movies, Tigger sings his own theme song, "The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers", written by the Sherman Brothers
Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....

. According to the song, Tigger is "the only one" — a fact that leads to his search for his family in The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie is a 2000 animated comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Jun Falkenstein. Part of the Winnie-the-Pooh series, this film features Pooh's friend Tigger in his search for his family tree and other Tiggers like himself...

.
In The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television that ran from 1988 to 1991, inspired by A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories.-Overview:...

and subsequent cartoons, Tigger lives in a large treehouse. A tire swing hangs prominently from a branch of the tree. In The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie is a 2000 animated comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Jun Falkenstein. Part of the Winnie-the-Pooh series, this film features Pooh's friend Tigger in his search for his family tree and other Tiggers like himself...

, Tigger builds a makeshift addition (gluing the shingles on with honey) in anticipation of a hoped-for visit by members of his family. This "family room" is eventually relocated to serve as a replacement for Eeyore's collapse-prone house of sticks.

The Disney version of Tigger was featured in both the TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue
Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue
Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue is an animated drug prevention television special starring many of the popular cartoon characters from American weekday, Sunday morning and Saturday morning television at the time of this film's release...

and the TV series House of Mouse.

Personality traits

Tigger's personality in the cartoons is much like his personality in the book. He is very confident and has quite an ego, he often thinks of himself as being handsome, and some of his other comments suggest he has a high opinion of himself. Tigger is always filled with great energy and optimism, and though always well-meaning, he can also be mischievous, and his actions have sometimes led to chaos and trouble for himself and his friends. Also, he often undertakes tasks with gusto, only to later realize they were not as easy as he had originally imagined. As in the books, Tigger never refers to himself as a tiger, just as a "Tigger". When Tigger introduces himself, he often says the proper way to spell his name is: "T-I-double-guh-err (T,i,gg,er), which spells Tigger." .

Another of Tigger's notable personality traits is his habit of mispronouncing various words, or stressing wrong syllables in them. Examples of this include him pronouncing "villain" as "villy-un"; "ridiculous" as "ridicarus"; "recognize" as "re-coga-nize"; and "suspicious" as "suspicerous".

A declaration often made, is that "Tiggers are wonderful things. Their heads are made of rubber, their tails are made of springs." In cartoon, he is often depicted bouncing around in ways which would make such a statement appear to be valid.

In The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television that ran from 1988 to 1991, inspired by A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories.-Overview:...

, Tigger is often well-meaning but usually does more harm than good. In one episode, he invented a bulldozer
Bulldozer
A bulldozer is a crawler equipped with a substantial metal plate used to push large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, etc., during construction work and typically equipped at the rear with a claw-like device to loosen densely-compacted materials.Bulldozers can be found on a wide range of sites,...

-like contraption intended to provide convenience for Pooh, Piglet, and Rabbit, but the invention proved to have disastrous results, and Rabbit insisted that Tigger shut it down; however, in the winter, a depressed Tigger accidentally started the machine up, and it proved to be useful by plowing snow
Snowplow
A snowplow is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes...

 around Piglet's house before malfunctioning. On another occasion, Tigger attempted to mimic a superhero, "The Masked Offender," bringing mayhem to the Hundred-Acre Wood. In response, Pooh, Rabbit, Gopher, and Owl (unaware that the Masked Offender was actually Tigger) staged a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

 in which they made an inanimate monster from a sticky glue-like material. The plan worked, revealing Tigger as the Masked Offender, but the fake monster (which was on wheels) turned on its makers, ultimately resulting in Pooh, Rabbit, Gopher, and Owl hanging by the glue from a rickety bridge. Subsequently, Tigger resumed his role as the Masked Offender, and saved his friends.

It is also shown that Tigger will jump in to help without thinking about the danger to himself. On at least three occasions, he has nearly fallen off a cliff, and has fallen two of those times, to retrieve something important (Half of the map in Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin is a 1997 direct-to-video film from Walt Disney's The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. The film follows Pooh and his friends on a journey to find and rescue their friend Christopher Robin from the "Skull"...

, his locket in The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie is a 2000 animated comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Jun Falkenstein. Part of the Winnie-the-Pooh series, this film features Pooh's friend Tigger in his search for his family tree and other Tiggers like himself...

, and a page of Piglet's scrapbook in Piglet's Big Movie
Piglet's Big Movie
Piglet's Big Movie is a 2003 American animated film produced by DisneyToon Studios, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 21, 2003. It is based upon the characters in the Winnie-the-Pooh books written by A. A. Milne...

).

Tigger's birthday is believed to be in October 1928, the year The House at Pooh Corner was first published. However, on Tigger-related merchandise, Disney often indicates Tigger's birthyear as 1968, a reference to the first year Tigger appeared in a Disney production, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day is a 1968 animated featurette based on stories from the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne. The featurette was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution on December 20, 1968 before The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit. This was...

.

Disney's Tigger is also remembered for his song The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers when he made his first appearance. However, he was not included in the Winnie the Pooh theme song until the 2011 film.

In popular culture

  • Tigger has appeared in the Mad
    Mad (TV series)
    MAD is an American animated sketch comedy series created by Kevin Shinick and produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Based upon the magazine of the same name, each episode is a collection of short animated parodies of television shows, movies, games, celebrities and other media using various types of...

    episode "Pooh Grit" (a parody of True Grit
    True Grit (2010 film)
    True Grit is a 2010 American Western film written and directed by the Coen brothers. It is the second adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed in 1969 starring John Wayne. This version stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross and Jeff Bridges as U.S....

    ), where Christopher Robin hires Marshall Pooh to capture Tigger after he bounced his father. He was voiced by Fred Tatasciore
    Fred Tatasciore
    Frederick "Fred" Tatasciore is an American voice actor who portrays secondary characters as well as monstrous-looking types...

    . Then in the next episode "Fast Hive" (a parody of Fast Five), Tigger was part of Pooh's team to get honey. He and Piglet fly out of the book and end up in The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a children's picture book designed, illustrated and written by Eric Carle, first published by the World Publishing Company in 1969, later published by Penguin Putnam. The book follows a caterpillar as it eats its way through a wide variety of foodstuffs before...

    , where the caterpillar gives them some honey. In this episode he was voiced by Kevin Shinick
    Kevin Shinick
    Kevin Thomas Shinick is an American actor, producer, director and voice artist, as well as an Emmy and Annie award winning writer who occasionally writes comic books...

    .

  • In Randy Pausch
    Randy Pausch
    Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....

    's The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
    Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
    Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams was a lecture given by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch on September 18, 2007 that received a large amount of media coverage, and was the base for The Last Lecture, a New York Times best-selling book co-authored with Wall...

    , he asks whether one should live their life as a Tigger or as an Eeyore. Pausch indicated that he was a "Tigger".

  • One skit during the Saturday Night Live
    Saturday Night Live
    Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

    Season 28 episode where the late Bernie Mac
    Bernie Mac
    Bernard Jeffrey McCullough , better known by his stage name, Bernie Mac, was an American actor and comedian. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Mac gained popularity as a stand-up comedian. He joined comedians Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and D. L...

     hosted involves a game show called "BrainBusters", which is a parody of Jeopardy!
    Jeopardy!
    Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

    and other game shows. The last question that the contestant Steve Thinson (played by Jimmy Fallon
    Jimmy Fallon
    James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon, Jr. is an American actor, comedian, singer, musician and television host. He currently hosts Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show that airs Monday through Friday on NBC...

    ) was asked was "This was Winnie the Pooh's feline friend." Steve buzzes in and says, "The answer is..." but before he can finish, a Technical Difficulties sign replaces the screen. Upon the return, we see that the host Lawrence (played by Bernie Mac) has Steve by the throat, while Steve is saying "I meant to say Tigger, with a T!" http://snltranscripts.jt.org/02/02pbrain.phtml

External links

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