How Cartoons Sometimes Lie

So talking about the book Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne and how all the characters are awesome—a hallmark sign of whether a story is great is if you can’t quite decide which character is your favorite—reminded me that Gopher is not there. 

And that, as he admits in the movie The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, is because he’s “not in the book!” Which is kind of a shame since I like his work ethic and spankin’ miner’s helmet.

Image obviously from the Disney cartoon. 
Source: http://images.wikia.com/winniethepooh/images/d/d1/Gopher.PNG

Not only is Gopher not in the book.  He’s not in THE UNITED KINGDOM. The small burrowing rodent is indigenous to the Americas, not Europe. It says so on pp. 271-272 of the WORLD Book “G” Encyclopedia (1996 edition). 

I also know it because some family friends from the U.K. came to visit once and we went hiking. 

A striped gopher (also called the thirteen-lined ground squirrel) skittered across the path right in front of me, startling me and causing me to shout “GOPHER!” in a very high-pitched and wimpy voice.  

This is the socially-accepted custom when greeting a gopher here in America.

For all who have never had to deal with them digging up your begonias, 
this is a striped gopher.
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Groundsquirrel4-300.jpg/220px-Groundsquirrel4-300.jpg

The family friends looked at me like I had just spewed some unknown swear-word. When I explained, pointing at the culprit (who was off giggling at me under a bush), they pointed at it and oohed and aahed like they were seeing a zebra on safari. 

So, yeah. There are no gophers in the U.K.  So there could never have been a Gopher in the oh-so-British Hundred Acre Wood. 

Also there are no skunks in France, which makes Pepé Le Pew a lie as well. Just thought I’d get that off my chest because it’s been bugging me to no end.