Tigger is a fictional tiger-like character 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. Nowadays he is most widely recognized as reinterpreted by the Disney 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." 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, 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'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 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. 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, but 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'".[1] 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, Tigger is often well-meaning but usually does more harm than good. In one episode, 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. 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, his locket in The Tigger Movie, and a page of Piglet's scrapbook in Piglet's Big Movie). 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. 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.
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