Disney Animated Features
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Release Date: 18 October 1967
When this film was released, it had been almost four years since the last animated feature from Disney. The intervening time had seen a couple of important events for the company. Mary Poppins, possibly Disney's best and most successful live action (well, mostly) film ever, was released in 1964. But more significantly, Walt Disney himself had passed away, on 15 December 1966. This was the last film he personally oversaw.
Despite that sad note, the show must go on. And it did, and it has ever since, albeit with some bumps along the way.
The Jungle Book is based -- loosely -- on one of the stories in the book of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. The story, at least in the film, focuses on the boy Mowgli, an orphan raised by wolves in the jungle. At the time of the story, Mowgli has grown old enough that he can no longer remain in the jungle. The fierce tiger, Shere Khan, has vowed to kill the "man cub" before he can grow into a dangerous full-grown man. The wise panther Bagheera and his free-spirit bear friend Baloo must convince Mowgli to return to the human village, while keeping him away from Shere Khan, King Louie the orangutan, and Kaa the hypnotic python.
The film is notable and memorable for several things. This was the first animated film to use the voices of several people famous outside of animation. First was Phil Harris, who lent his distinctive personality and voice to three Disney characters, of which Baloo was the first (Thomas O'Malley and Little John were the others). He was a famous singer, actor, and bandleader, who appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including Jack Benny's and his own.
Next is Sebastian Cabot, a distinguished film and television actor who lent his voice to Disney as Sir Ector in The Sword in the Stone, Bagheera in this film, and the Narrator in the Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons.
King Louie of the Apes was voiced by none other than the scat-singing jazz musician and composer Louis Prima. His duet with Phil Harris, "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" is one of the most memorable moments in the film.
George Sanders, famous for portraying debonair villains and other unsavory characters, lent an air of nobility to Shere Khan, who otherwise would have been nothing but a forgettable, generic bad guy. OK, so maybe I'm overstating the case a bit. But a little more character development, along with Sanders' voice, would have made the evil tiger a truly memorable villain. By the way, Khan's singing voice was none other than that of Thurl Ravenscroft.
Sterling Holloway was already familiar to Disney audiences as the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh, and he lent his distinctive soft, high-pitched voice to the cunning snake Kaa in this film.
J. Pat O'Malley, although not the same as famous character actor Pat O'Malley, was nonetheless a well-known movie and TV actor when he was selected to voice Col. Hathi the Elephant.
This selection of well-known actors as voices -- two of whom were popular singers -- gave the animators plenty of personality to work with, even before drawing a single line. The vivid characterizations of Baloo and King Louie are due just as much to the talents of their voice actors as to the animators who drew them. Many of Disney's subsequent films have continued the tradition of using famous actors for just this reason.
The music used in this film was also a notable change for Disney. While the music in previous films had been very much in the Broadway or Tin Pan Alley style, this film incorporated jazz into the soundtrack. The inclusion of Harris and Prima in the film helped this along immensely, as did the songwriting talents of Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman ("I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)") and Terry Gilkyson ("The Bare Necessities").
The other songs in the film were all written by the frequent Disney songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman, including "Col. Hathi's March (The Elephant Song)."
The Jungle Book was also the first Disney Animated Feature to have an animated TV series as a spin-off. Actually, it's had two (also a rare feat)! First was TaleSpin. When this series debuted, it inaugurated the Disney Afternoon along with the already-established cartoons DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers, and Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears. TaleSpin took Baloo, Louie, and Shere Khan and placed them into the city of Cape Suzette, which was basically a 1940s adventure novel come to life. As in DuckTales, there are no humans in the world of TaleSpin; the various jungle animals take the place of humans in a recognizably human society. It's a very good cartoon, even if the continuity is entirely separate from that of the movie.
The second and more recent of the TV spin-offs was Jungle Cubs, a Muppet Babies-style prequel to the movie. That is, the characters from the movie (except Mowgli, of course) were regressed to children, with the plots claiming that they all knew each other way back when. This time, all the main animals from the movie showed up, including Shere Khan and Kaa. Oddly, only Shere Khan held any animosity toward the others at this young age. "Prince" Louie was good friends with Baloo (they both have a fun-loving nature, after all), and Kaa was just one of the group as well. But even Shere Khan was willing to join in their adventures from time to time.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Song ("The Bare Necessities", Terry Gilkyson).
Although perhaps not the best of the Disney Animated Features, The Jungle Book is certainly one of the most entertaining. It was also groundbreaking in its use of new ideas (i.e., use of popular actors and singers as voice talent and use of popular styles of music). Entertainment and innovation were always Walt Disney's strengths, which means this, his last film, serves as a wholly fitting epitaph.
Information for the Disney Animated Features series of nodes comes from the IMDb (www.imdb.com), Frank's Disney Page (http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~fp/Disney/), and the dark recesses of my own memory.
Update:
5 February 2003: Like
Peter Pan before it,
The Jungle Book has been graced with a
theatrical sequel created by Disney's
Television Animation division. Entitled
The Jungle Book 2, the sequel is set just a few days after the end of the first movie, as Mowgli and Baloo discover they miss each other, and Shere Khan longs for revenge.
John Goodman voices Baloo, and
Haley Joel Osment voices Mowgli. The sequel premieres on
Valentine's Day, 2003.