The Jungle Book (Disney film): Difference between revisions

Based on a collection of stories of the same name published around 1893 by [[Rudyard Kipling]], Disney found ''[[The Jungle Book (Literature)|The Jungle Book]]'' and loved at least some of its ideas, so they chose it for [[Disney Animated Canon|one of their]] [[Animated Adaptation|Animated Adaptations]]. The result was and is widely considered a great Disney film, the best and perhaps most original animated Disney film of the 1960s. That said, this adaptation of ''The Jungle Book'' was one of the greatest cases of [[Adaptation Displacement]] in history, so great a case that Disney felt free to use some of Mowgli's friends and foes and rivals far, far away from the books and jungles where they were conceived, and so it considers them its own.

 

 

Also notable for being the last Disney film made while [[Walt Disney]] was alive (although not the last he worked on; that would be [[The Aristocats]].)

* [[Adaptational Villainy]]: Kaa was one of Mowgli's allies and mentors in the original book, saving him from the Bandar-log, giving him advice for battle against the dholes, and never threatening to harm him. In fact, Mowgli was the only character able to resist his hypnotic dance. In the movie, he's a more comical villain, but is a genuine threat to the level that Bagheera is afraid of him when he's angry. In the sequel, he's pretty much a [[Butt Monkey]] and loses almost all of his original menace.

** It also seems worth to note that all the while, the python threatening to predate Mowgli sounds for all the world like [[Winnie the Pooh]] with a lisp.

* [[Affably Evil]]: Nearly all of the [[Rogues Gallery]] have some amount of charm to their personality and valid reasons for their wrathful intentions (Kaa for food, Shere Khan for his hatred and self preservation from man).

* [[Analogy Backfire]]: When discussing the idea of letting Mowgli stay in the jungle...

** This is taken one step further and goes to ridiculous extremes in the sequel, when both Shanti and Ranjan, who unlike Mowgli have not grown up in the jungle, also automatically understand the animals with no explanation.

* [[Animation Bump]]: Milt Kahl's work with Shere Khan is a notable version of this.

* [[Art Shift]]: Very noticable between the two movies. In ''The Jungle Book 2,'' the character designs are mostly the same, but they move slightly differently (most notably Mowgli, who is a lot more agile and often sports some animal-like movements he completely lacked in the original), the "hard scratchy outline" look from the original is replaced with the softer lines of modern Disney movies, and the jungle is overall a lot more lush and colorful.

* [[Ascended Extra]]: Baloo was really supposed to only be a bit part in the original movie, but Walt Disney was so impressed with Phil Harris's vocal performance that the bear was promoted to a major character.

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Kaa dislikes Shere Khan's wrathful reasons for hunting Mowgli rather than hunting merely for food and criticizes him for "picking on that poor defenseless boy" once he knows he's safely out of earshot. [[Hypocritical Humor|Then he remembers that he's currently got that "poor defenseless boy" in his coils]].

* {{spoiler|[[Everybody Lives]]: There are no deaths in either film, which is admittedly odd even for a [[Disneyfication|Disney adaptation]].}}

* [[Expy]]: Baloo proved so popular that Disney used Phil Harris to play essentially the same character in their next two animated features, ''[[The Aristocats (Disney)|The Aristocats]]'' and ''[[Robin Hood (Disney)|Robin Hood]]''.

** The latter is even more obvious since they re-used animation from ''The Jungle Book'' for ''Robin Hood''.

* [[Large Ham]]: King Louie, at least during "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)".

* [[Line in The Sand]]: The elephant brigade all step back, (except for one, who immediately steps back, as well), when asked to volunteer.

* [[Mind Control Eyes]]: Anyone whom Kaa hypnotizes. Also Baloo when caught up in the music of King Louie and the Monkeys.

* [[Misplaced Vegetation]]: Prickly pears for a start.

{{quote| '''Shere Khan:''' [[Slasher Smile|Isn't it ironic that your name is "Lucky"?]]}}

* [[No Pronunciation Guide]]: Mowgli's name is actually pronounced MAO-gli, not MOH-gli. Mow rhymes with cow. Rudyard Kipling's daughter allegedly never forgave Disney for this mistake, though it's hardly their fault--the mispronunciation of Mowgli's name could be heard as far back as Zoltan Korda's 1942 live action adaptation.

* [[Oh Crap]]: Most epically with Shere Khan after he discovers a big burning bush on his tail.

* [[Old Windbag]]: Col. Hathi

* [[The Other Darrin]]: For rather obvious reasons, none of the original voice-actors reprise their roles in the sequel. It's most obvious with Shanti, who sounds ''nothing'' like she did in the first movie, but it's also notable with Mowgli and Baloo. The other voice actors imitate the original actors with various levels of success.

* [[Pale Females Dark Males]]: The wolves and the elephants.

* [[Pigeonholed Voice Actor]]: Phil Harris would basically go on to play Baloo again in Robin Hood as Little John and in ''[[The Aristocats]]'' as O'Malley.

* [[Pinball Protagonist]]

* [[Recycled Script]]: The sequence where Baloo and the monkeys kept taking Mowgli away from each other is pretty much a shot-for-shot remake of a similar sequence from ''[[The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (Disney)|The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad]]''. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKER9K9QozA Watch and see.]

** The sequel is frequently criticized for its similar plot to the original film.

* [[Shout Out]]: Near the end of the film, {{spoiler|Bagheera delivers a eulogy to the apparently dead Baloo as the background music plays}}. Surprisingly, this background music is a [[Grief Song]] called "Chorale for Snow White", a shout-out to the 1937 film ''[[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Disney)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]''.

* [[Show Some Leg]]: Shanti blatantly does this to Mowgli at the end of the first movie (which she attempts to deny in the second). Lampshaded by Baloo and Bagheera.

** Khan himself would have had one in an early version of the film, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMSQfxDLc4k "The Mighty Hunters"].

*** In the final film, [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|he instead steals the vultures' number]].

* [[What Song Was This Again]]: "Bear Necessities", having a pun-based title, really doesn't translate well. In the Swedish version, the gist of the song is the same, but the pun is replaced by a different bear-related pun. The French version is entirely punless, as is the German version, whose title translates as something like "Let's try it the cozy way".

* [[With Catlike Tread]]: The elephants searching for the lost man-cub.

** It should be mentioned that Louie is often referred to as a "Prince" in the first season, which seemed to imply that he was meant to be king from the beginning. However, in the second season this is completely ignored in favor of the whole monkey prophecy thing.

* [[Foregone Conclusion]]: The main characters' friendship peters out and dies - they all end up being not-so-close, while Shere Khan and Kaa take places as more menacing predators in the jungle and become entirely estranged from the rest.

* [[Jerkass]]/[[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]]: Shere Khan, depending on the episode.

* [[Not Even Bothering With the Accent]]: Bagheera, Shere Khan and Hathi all have American accents in the show, this is made all the more jarring due to "Born To Be Wild" replicating their original British voices for their adult forms.

** The two ever-hungry vultures Arthur and Cecil always end up beaten up, crushed, mauled etc while attempting to make a meal out of the main characters.

* [[Spinoff Babies]]: Natch.

 

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