pooh

"”Tiggers don’t jump, they bounce!”"
—Tigger in "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh"

Tigger is an energetic tiger originally introduced in A.A. Milne’s book The House at Pooh Corner. Like other Pooh characters, Tigger is based on one of Christopher Robin Milne’s stuffed animals.

Tigger is physically depicted with orange fur and black stripes, beady eyes, and a long, springy tail.

He first shows up at Winnie-the-Pooh’s doorstep in the middle of the night. He cannot eat Pooh’s honey, Piglet’s acorns, or Eeyore’s thistles. After visiting Kanga’s house, however, Tigger enjoys the extract of malt, and subsequently resides with Kanga and Roo in their house near the Sandy Pit. He becomes great friends with Roo (taking on an older sibling role), and Kanga treats him in much the same way she does her own son. Tigger acts with much enthusiasm around everybody — sometimes too much enthusiasm for their liking. Rabbit finds his bouncing to be disruptive, Eeyore is once bounced into the river by Tigger, and Piglet feels somewhat intimidated by the larger, bouncier critter. Nevertheless, they're all shown to be great friends.

Along with Chapter II, Tigger appears in Chapters IV, VI, VII, IX, and X of The House at Pooh Corner, and is mentioned and seen in Chapter V. He is the only new major character to be introduced in The House at Pooh Corner; the rest of the staple cast had already been established in Winnie-the-Pooh.

Disney's version of Tigger was originally voiced by the late Paul Winchell in the featurettes constituting The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Will Ryan would play the role in Welcome to Pooh Corner and Ed Gilbert in Read-Along books. Winchell returned for The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and continued the role for most appearances until his retirement in 1999. The role was then fully taken on by Jim Cummings, who'd also voiced Pooh at the time and remains playing both roles to this day. Cummings had previously played Tigger in the third and fourth seasons of New Adventures and provided the singing voice where Winchell did the spoken dialogue post-Many Adventures.

Books

In The House at Pooh Corner, Tigger is described as "large" by both Piglet and Rabbit, though he does not seem particularly big in E.H. Shepard's illustrations. In Chapter II, Pooh states in his poem, "he always seems bigger because of his bounces," implying that the other animals think of Tigger as being larger than he truly is, which remains consistent with Tigger's personality and his over-assessment of his own abilities.

He is cheerful, outgoing, competitive to a friendly extent, and has complete confidence in himself. Some of the things which he claims Tiggers can do in Chapter IV, "In Which It Is Shown That Tiggers Don't Climb Trees," include flying, jumping farther than a kangaroo, swimming, and climbing trees. The first three items he does not attempt in the story, but climb a tree he does. He only succeeds half-way, being able to climb up but not to climb down again. In Chapter VII, Tigger tells Roo that Tiggers "never get lost"; unlike most of his other claims, this one seems to be true - he is able to find his way home through the misty forest, 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's stuffed animals - a stuffed toy tiger. However, the word "tiger" never comes up in either book. "Tigger" is used instead, both as the character's name as well as in reference to his species. No other "Tiggers" appear in the story. At one point, Tigger (who has just seen his reflection in a mirror 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!" The term is always capitalized.

Disney Adaptation

Tigger in Disney's The Tigger Movie (2000)

Tigger in Disney's The Tigger Movie (2000)

Tigger is arguably the most eccentric member of the Hundred Acre Wood. Overly energetic, reckless, and fairly thoughtless, Tigger is somewhat of a troublemaker and causes a fair share of mishaps for both himself and his friends. To his core, however, Tigger is extremely loving and friendly; he means well and tries his best to be of support toward his friends, even if his efforts end in some form of misfortune, such as in Christopher Robin (2018 film), in which he takes Christopher Robin's papers from his briefcase and replacing them with things from the Hundred Acre Wood to remember him and his friends. He can also be considered the most social of the animals and is exceptionally eager to have his friends join in on his personal joy.

Tigger notably prides himself on being the only "tigger" in existence. This title has given him quite an ego, and he considers himself significantly handsome, debonair, and the "greatest bouncer" in the Hundred Acre Wood. Such egotism is never meant to be malicious, but it often drives Tigger to act without much consideration toward others and it often frustrates people. In Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, for example, he bursts into Pooh's home uninvited, takes and eats his food (claiming he enjoys honey, only to rebuff after actually tasting it and realizing how sticky it is) and absentmindedly leaves Pooh in the state of fear over the mention of honey-stealing Heffalumps and Woozles.

Tigger's rambunctiousness is also directly linked to his relationship with Rabbit, who openly dislikes Tigger's various quirks and even works to knock the latter's ego's down a few times. Rabbit's aggression is often expressed without much notice, but in some cases (such as Piglet's Big Movie and Pooh's Heffalump Movie), Tigger has taken note and this leads to mild contention.

With his fun-loving nature and general innocence, Tigger is about as optimistic and carefree as Pooh himself. Rarely ever upset or depressed, Tigger tends to look on the brighter side of a situation; so much so, that he is somewhat obvious to the problems surrounding him. Nevertheless, he is not incapable of falling into a heavy state of vulnerability. His only significant phobia is that of heights—a crippling fear, and one that renders him incapable of even bouncing. He can also be rather insecure at times, with the confidence in his various assets simultaneously acting as his greatest weakness; when he's unable to perform his usual antics with a usual (if not greater) amount of ease, he instantly becomes emotional and openly self-loathing.

In The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger is more irritable, malicious and less empathetic and he is often well-meaning but usually does more harm than good. In the episode "Tigger is the Mother of Invention", he invented a bulldozer-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 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 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.

For all of his shortcomings, Tigger is very much the heart of the Hundred Acre Woods' social circle. While exuberant and boisterous, he gives levity to the fearfulness of Piglet, or the gloominess of Eeyore, by providing a sense of confidence, joy, and optimism. It's 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, his locket in The Tigger Movie, and a page of Piglet's scrapbook in Piglet's Big Movie).

Tigger's language is full of malapropisms, mispronunciations, or unnecessary syllables. Examples of this include him pronouncing "villain" as "villian"; "terrible" as "terribibble"; "regulations" as "regularations"; "ridiculous" as "ridick-orous" (or "ricky-diculus" in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day); "allergic" as "allergical"; " fixed" as "un-busticated"; "suspicious" as "suspicerous"; "Eureka" as "Topeka"; "UFO" as "Unidentified Flying Omelets"; "Private Eye" as "Private Ear"

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

Appearances

Books

Short films

Feature films

Television series

Television specials

Songs

Nicknames

In the Disney Pooh productions, Tigger often likes to refer to his friends by various nicknames, which include the following:

(Boldface indicates that the nickname is mentioned in Tigger’s entry in the Disney Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters.)

Internationally

Casting History

Gallery

Trivia