Piglet (Winnie the Pooh)

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Piglet is a fictional character from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books. Piglet, a small pig who is the best friend of Winnie-the-Pooh, has constant fear of the dark and is generally anxious. Despite the fact that he is a "Very Small Animal", he often conquers his fears. In the original color versions of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, Piglet has white skin and a green jumper, rather than the pink skin and darker-pink jumper that he acquired in the Disney interpretations.

Piglet spells his own name "Piglit". He was also referred to as "Henry Pootel" by Christopher Robin, who claimed to not recognize Piglet after he was thoroughly cleaned by Kanga.

Although featured in every Disney interpretation of Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet was originally omitted by Disney in the first Pooh film, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966). According to the film's director, Wolfgang Reitherman, Piglet was replaced by Gopher, which was thought to have a more "folksy, all-American, grass-roots image."[1] Many familiar with the classic Milne books protested Disney's decision to exclude Piglet, and Disney relented. Piglet appeared in the next Pooh film, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968). John Fiedler provided the voice for Piglet from 1968 until 2005 (his last appearance as Piglet's voice was in Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie).

Travis Oates provided Piglet's voice after Fielder's death in 2005. He has voiced Piglet in Kingdom Hearts II, Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie (only for the newest material since much of the dialogue is still voiced by Fielder [2]) and the My Friends Tigger & Pooh television series.

In Japan, Piglet's voice was done by Kiyoshi Komiyama for Kingdom Hearts, and Mitsuru Ogata for Kingdom Hearts II.

The Te of Piglet was written by Benjamin Hoff following the publication of The Tao of Pooh. Both books feature the original drawing of E. H. Shepard. The Te of Piglet details Piglet's exemplification of the Taoist concept of "virtue of the small."

On June 19, 2006, the New York Times reported that Winnie the Pooh had been taken off the air in Turkey by the state broadcaster TRT. The ban was due to the fact that Piglet is a pig, an animal considered unclean by Muslims. Although TRT made no official announcements at the time, much of the Turkish press picked up the story. Even before the incident, Winnie the Pooh videos were already in circulation in Turkey and widely available in stores; the move was considered controversial since Turkey, although predominantly Muslim, is a strictly secular state.