Why Disney is celebrating Winnie the Pooh now, with Susan Egan, Pete Docter and more

Disney has marked Winnie the Pooh's 100th anniversary with a new tribute video built around favorite memories of the bear and his friends. The celebration arrived for October 14, the centennial of A.A. Milne's original book, not the later Disney adaptation.

What changed is simple: Disney rolled out a new anniversary video that brings together familiar names from across its orbit to talk about Pooh. In the clip below, the lineup includes Disney Legend Susan Egan, Sarah Chalke, Ashley Eckstein, Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter, Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer Jared Bush, and multiple Dancing With the Stars professionals, along with others.

For Disney fans, the release is less a new project announcement than a marker of how wide Pooh's reach has become inside the company. The video takes effect as part of the October 14 centennial observance, giving viewers a star driven way to join the milestone as Disney acknowledges a character whose appeal stretches across generations.

Why the date matters to Disney

The anniversary belongs to the first publication of Winnie the Pooh by British author A.A. Milne. October 14, 2026 marked 100 years since that book arrived, a major benchmark for one of the most durable figures in children's literature and beyond.

Disney's own relationship with Pooh reaches back much earlier than many fans may realize. Walt Disney became interested in adapting the stories after his daughter, Diane Disney, kept reading Milne's tales and laughing at them. The studio was looking into film rights as early as 1938, though Disney did not secure the necessary rights until 1961.

Pooh's animated Disney life began through shorter theatrical releases rather than an immediate full length feature. The studio produced Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree in 1966, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day in 1968, and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too in 1974. Those three featurettes were later brought together, with connecting animation, in 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

From there, Pooh expanded well beyond theaters. The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh reached television in 1988. The character also became a merchandising fixture and, by the late 1990s and early 2000s, a presence in Disney Parks attractions. Disney later returned to the Hundred Acre Wood with the 2011 animated feature Winnie the Pooh and 2018's Christopher Robin.

That history is what makes the new video feel like more than a birthday post. It is Disney using a literary centennial to trace a character who has been part of the studio's world for decades.