Disney Enterprises Youngstown, Ohio, native Jim Cummings provides the voice of Pooh and Tigger in "Pooh's Heffalump Movie." Click photo for larger image.

When Paul Winchell passed the Tigger torch -- and the voice -- to Jim Cummings, he shared the secret of the tiger who was born to bounce. And bounce. And bounce some more.

"He told me he always thought of Tigger as a cross between some of the Dead End Kids -- the Bowery Boys from the Lower East Side of New York -- and the Cowardly Lion. And he shook my hand, and he said, 'Take care of my little friend for me.' It was very sweet."

Winchell is now 82 and retired. Sterling Holloway, who created the voice of Winnie the Pooh, died in 1992. Cummings, who has been speaking for the "silly ol' bear" since 1987, tried to stay true to Holloway's vocal invention, which he describes as "kind of like the wind blowing through the cattails."

As the voice of Pooh and Tigger, Cummings gets top billing in "Pooh's Heffalump Movie," which opened around the country yesterday. In the G-rated cartoon, the residents of the Hundred Acre Wood venture into Heffalump Hollow to scare away the evil Heffalumps, only to discover there's nothing to fear. The Disney movie carries lessons about the value of friendship and accepting others' differences.

The son of a homemaker and a machinist from Youngstown, Ohio, Cummings spent the first 18 years of his life there (even putting in a little time at a steel mill) before he left for sunnier pastures in New Orleans.

He designed Mardi Gras floats, was a drummer on Bourbon Street, had a rock 'n' roll band, was a singer for the California Raisins, sold encyclopedias and toiled as a deckhand on a riverboat. A talented mimic who could break into Pooh's voice while playing Monopoly (you haven't heard the sentence "I think I shall buy the Boardwalk" until it's done Pooh-perfect), he moved to California and eventually landed a gig as the voice of Lionel the Lion on the TV series "Dumbo's Circus."

Disney Enterprises Tigger, Rabbit, Pooh and Piglet are surprised by a heffalump in their latest movie. Click photo for larger image.

In the past two decades, he's spoken -- or occasionally sung -- for characters as diverse as Darkwing Duck, Zummi Gummi, Doc, Sneezy, Rasputin, Santa Claus and the Tasmanian Devil.

He typically records one voice at a time ("I always tend to do Winnie the Pooh first and then I go back and do Tigger"), but sometimes he will literally talk to himself.

"When I was doing 'Bonkers' for Disney about 10 years ago, and I played the two leads in that, and I would just sit there and do one right after the other, and I would talk to myself and answer myself and throw myself off the building and pick my other self up. Mental Ping-Pong. A lot of fun, though."

He suggests Winnie the Pooh and friends are enduring because they're not part of a fad or trend like the Care Bears or Strawberry Shortcake. The A.A. Milne creations, which first appeared in 1926, are evergreen.

"These little guys come from classic literature, classic bedtime stories for children, and they were written so well, each of them has such a distinct personality. Rabbit's the finicky one and Tigger's the ebullient one and Eeyore's the gloomy one and Pooh, if there's a hurricane going on, well, he's the eye of the storm. ... He sees the world through honey-colored glasses."

One of his most gratifying gigs is done for a group called Famous Phone Friends, which arranges for entertainers and athletes -- and even animated characters -- to call sick children.

"I just love doing that. I never turn that down."

Cummings, who was spotlighted in a segment on last week's Screen Actors Guild Awards, has seen more of the industry's voiceover work go to "name" actors. And although he works more than many performers, he receives only a fraction of the acclaim.

"It's nothing that really bothers me, because it's the path that I chose. I can't really complain about it, I'm doing fine in that regard. On the other hand, you see that a lot of movie stars are almost, you feel like they're taking roles away from people who do that kind of thing for a living. It's not like I'm headlining movies ...

"I harken back to the old days, whether it's Pinocchio or Snow White or Dumbo or the original Winnie the Pooh character. They weren't necessarily famous faces, they were just very talented people who did what they did."