Tigger, we knew ye well.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Paul Winchell, a ventriloquist, inventor and children's TV show host best known for creating the lispy voice of Winnie the Pooh's animated friend Tigger, has died. He was 82.

Winchell died Friday morning in his sleep at his Moorpark home, Burt Du Brow, a television producer and close family friend, told the Los Angeles Times.

Over six decades, Winchell was a master ventriloquist -- bringing dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff to life on television -- and an inventor who held 30 patents, including one for an early artificial heart he built in 1963.

But he was perhaps best known for his work as the voice of the lovable tiger in animated versions of A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh" -- with his trademark "T-I-double grrrr-R."

Me, personally, I knew of Paul Winchell best from his own act. As a kid, I saw him on tons of daytime talk shows, variety shows, and game shows with Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Edgar Bergen was more famous, but was old and nearly retired in my childhood - ventriloquism, to me, was Winchell, or Willie Tyler and Lester, or Waylon Flowers and Madam.

As a kid, I probably didn't get half the jokes, but it was fun to watch them. Godspeed, Paul, Jerry, and Knucklehead.