Why does our favorite spunky fatty Vinni Pukh look so alarmed? Perhaps because his makers, animation studio Soyuzmultfilm, are about to get him stuffed for a yearly percentage of plush toy sales in his image.

After the end of Soyuzmultfilm's Golden Age, animation profits are extinct. And so, for the first time ever, Soyuzmultfilm is officially allowing toy production in the likeness of its beloved characters, Kommersant reports. But forget those bootleg plush-Pukh deformities from the Moscow street market, these are the real deal, as Soyuzmultfilm promises to oversee the toy design and carefully preserve the characters' "original charm."

Soyuzmultfilm is known for those most excellent classics like the dreamy opus of Hedgehog in the Fog, the somewhat unsettling man-wolf vs. boy-bunny adventures of Nu, pogodi! and that adorable monkey-Radiohead-bear mutant Cheburashka.

This pimping out classic soviet characters should bring in a few million rubbles (which may or may not add up to one million dollars) a year to the animation studio in advances and percentage of sales and could double the production of domestic toys in Russia.

Vinni Pukh, you may just serve your Motherland again.

[Lenta.ru]
[Lenta.ru]