The Jungle Book (1967)
After 30 years and nearly 20 animated features, does The Jungle Book close the chapter on Walt’s legacy?
Brief Backstory
After two successful classic Disney animated features in the 1960s, Walt Disney decided to do an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” for his next animated feature, which of course used almost nothing from the original book itself (for the greater good). Unfortunately, this would be his final animated feature that he worked on, though The Aristocats was the last one to get his seal of approval.
Story
Mowgli, a boy who was raised by a family of wolves, is targeted by a murderous tiger, Shere Khan. Therefore, Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear must get Mowgli to a man village before he becomes Shere Khan’s Christmas dinner, but Mowgli himself makes that job harder than it should be.
Random Facts
Baloo is ranked #3 on IGN’s best cartoon characters. He was voiced by Phil Harris, who later voiced O’Malley and Little John. Phil Harris was also a very well known singer who spent a chunk of his life in Nashville, though he was from Indiana when he was born.
Walt was behind the idea of not having Mowgli go to the man village until AFTER seeing Shanti. According to a behind the scenes sequence on the Masterpiece Collection release however, Walt died before this was completed, sadly.
The Jungle Book was released nearly a year after the death of Walt Disney. Use his death as a warning not to smoke – please. I can’t stress that enough. I think a lot of anti-smoking PSAs started popping up right after this movie came out and even moreso when John Wayne died a little over a decade later.
Baloo slashing his back on objects such as trees and rock walls isn’t some kind of class of dance moves or exercises he made up. Actual bears do that; Baloo is much more realistic in terms of how bears act in real life unlike other toon bears like Winnie the Pooh or the Berenstain Bears.
Shere Khan doesn’t appear for quite some time in the movie. This is somewhat similar to classic horror movies how the movies wouldn’t show the monsters or the villains themselves creating chaos until closer to the end.
During Baloo’s “eulogy” a cover of Snow White’s funeral music is played.
You can see Bambi’s mother when Shere Khan first appears.
Random Opinions
I didn’t think Mowgli was acting like a brat in this movie. He spent his WHOLE life in the jungle, and he didn’t know what the man village was going to be like. Trust me, Penny from the Rescuers was far more bratty.
The Jungle Book is another example of how “true love conquers all” with the ending – common with Disney movies. Mowgli wanted to be with Shanti and not Baloo, (even with Baloo pleading him to stay in the jungle) and Bagheera knew that Mowgli was in love with her, so Bagheera encouraged him to stay in love, despite him going to the village. In either case Bagheera knew that Mowgli would enter the village anyway; the scene where he tries to explain to Baloo that he is unable to adopt Mowgli, which leads up to the ending.
I’m with Shere Khan on this one; I don’t like working with fire and I’ve got issues with guns.
One reviewer stated that the scene with the elephants was kind of pointless. True, but on the other hand, it gave Shere Khan the notation that Mowgli was wandering in the jungle.
I still feel like Walt would’ve gotten to see this movie’s reception if he didn’t smoke. I hate to get preachy, but most studies report that tobacco is even worse than obesity (though I can’t agree about it being worse than loneliness) and puts people at the highest risk of heart disease and cancer – however obesity can still lead to these issues. Remember when the police would come to your school and talk about the dangers of drugs and tobacco? They weren’t joking back then, and that still holds true today. Don’t believe them? Check out the smoking episode from King of the Hill or ask the ghosts of John Wayne and John Candy.
Pros
- Baloo the Bear isn’t considered one of the greatest animated characters in history by IGN for “just because” – he starts out as some kind of sloth, but after hearing about Shere Khan, he immediately throws away all of his carefree instincts and agrees with Bagheera on bringing Mowgli to the village. Granted of course he didn’t want to tell Mowgli that he was taking him to the village since he made a promise. So either way, he was going to get in a lot of trouble, but at least he knew the situation before it was too late.
- The scene of Bagheera and Baloo having a talk is one of my favorite Disney scenes in history. Baloo (as I said earlier) agrees with Bagheera since he and Bagheera don’t want Mowgli being killed by Shere Khan.
- Mowgli running away from Baloo again at the end of the movie has some what of a secret concern from himself. He witnessed Baloo nearly getting killed, so he might’ve thought “why stick around with him if he’s just going to get himself killed for my sake?” as he considered going to the village; besides, he implied that Shere Khan was going to come back sooner or later, so, while he liked Baloo, Mowgli just didn’t think he was a good bodyguard.
- Adding to this, Mowgli went to the man village on his own because he knew Bagheera way more. Bagheera wasn’t saying “go on” to him just because he just wanted him in the village – he knew that Mowgli was in love with Shanti, and wanted Mowgli to follow her.
- Epic song numbers, especially The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You.
- Great humor, one of the funniest moments has to be when Baloo is believed to be dead and Baloo himself is raking in the commends.
Cons
- The vulture song sucked. Felt out of place.
- Along with Peter Pan, I felt like The Jungle Book took the biggest damage from restoration – the scenes don’t look as vibrant as they should when watching any release from the Masterpiece Collection release and then further onwards.
Rating: 9/10 – Amazing
To this date, The Jungle Book still remains as one of Walt’s best works, along with Cinderella or Snow White. While it’s no Lion King or The Little Mermaid, I can easily rank this as one of the top 10 greatest Disney movies of all time.
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