By India McCarty
The man behind the voice of Winnie the Pooh just went viral after sharing a sweet moment between himself and his grandson.
“Now this is what you call just as sweet as honey,” Jim Cummings, who’s voiced Winnie the Pooh and Tigger for over three decades, said in a TikTok of him holding his baby grandson Jax.
@jimjcummings Times flying and my little Jax is growing so fast ❤️
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Cummings has been using his Winnie the Pooh voice a lot on his new grandchild. One recent Instagram post shows him reciting one of the beloved bear’s most famous lines: “You’re braver than you believe, smarter than you seem and stronger than you think.”
“He’s an eight-month-old pumpkin and so cute you can’t stand it,” he said of his grandson in an October interview with Animation World Network. “And I sat there talking to him as Pooh and we had a nice conversation. He mostly listened. He wasn’t too vocal at the time, which was fine, because his job was to sit there and be adorable, and he was so good at it.”
In an interview with PEOPLE, he joked, “He just thinks that it’s Grandpa being sweet and nice and telling him a nice story.”
Cummings has had over 1,500 voice acting roles over the years, spanning from movies and TV shows to video games and theme park rides, but Winnie the Pooh will always hold a special place in his heart.
“Being the official voice of Winnie the Pooh for all these years is a beautiful thing, because he’s not just a cartoon character, he’s almost like a state of mind,” he told PEOPLE.
“I always say that, there’s a new Pooh fan, a new generation of Winnie the Pooh fans every three years, and they just keep on coming, and it’s because it brings everybody back to their childhood,” he said of the enduring legacy of the character. “And no matter who you are, that was a good time.”
Cummings continued, “It’s not just a job, it’s not just a gig. It’s an honor, because I’m sort of the torchbearer for this generation and that generation, and I’m on my third generation now. I’ve got the 75-year-old grandparents, the 40-year-old parents, and the 4-year-old grandkids. And they’re all three standing in front of me, at once, and it’s beautiful.”
Cummings is still hard at work as an in-demand voice actor, but these days, his grandson gets to enjoy his talents firsthand!
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