The Jungle Book was one of the first Disney movies I ever watched and featured one of my favorite Disney songs “I wanna be like you”. So when my older brother told me there was a cartoon that featured characters from the Jungle Book I got excited. I thought I was going to get to see more adventures of Baloo and Mowgli. What I got instead was something even better and more bizarre. TaleSpin is one of Disney’s stranger setups because it’s such a huge divergence from the source material. In fact, only three characters from the movie are in the show (well at least they bought over the best characters). TaleSpin was a show that starred Baloo who in this alternate reality is a pilot for hire who runs his own air delivery service with his loyal co-pilot Kit. One day his plane is bought by Rebecca a strong and independent business woman who hires Baloo to pilot the plane for her new delivery business. The show follows the adventures of Baloo and his friends as they make deliveries, fight air pirates, and search for treasure Indiana Jones style.
First off I have to say I love the characters in this show. The characters of Baloo and Rebecca are great. I know a lot of people didn’t like Rebecca but I thought she was a good foil to Baloo. Baloo was fun-loving but at the same time he could be a slacker and lacked business sense. Rebecca may not have been fun-loving and more business savvy but she kept Baloo on track and opened new business opportunities for him. The two covered each other’s weaknesses and made a good team. Kit was the child everyone wanted to be. Full of preteen optimism and a character who stood on his own in the show. I have to admit he was a unique character in a Disney show, he had a dark past and everything actually being an air pirate before joining Baloo and even then he had troubles trusting Baloo. Their relationship with each other is honestly one of the highlights of this series as Baloo tries to be a father figure for him but tries not to overstep his boundaries as his guardian. We had Louie who in the show runs his own club which serves as a refueling station for pilots and is actually Baloo’s best friend this time around. We also had the funny engineer Frank Wildcat who was one of the most entertaining Disney characters I’ve seen. Finally we had two really good villains for this show. There was Shere Khan who stands upright this time and owns his own powerful business where he engages in illegal acts at times to get more money but can act noble at times when it’s convenient for him. The other villain was Don Karnage an air pirate who Kit used to work under and was just hilarious. This has got to be one of the best comedic villains Disney has ever made. Anytime he was on screen you knew you were going to laugh. As far as the stories go most of them were primarily inspired by Indiana Jones. We had dangerous deliveries, pretty cool air battles, and good treasure hunts. Despite Baloo being a slacker he was quite fearless in the face of danger and wasn’t afraid to fight pirates or Shere Khan despite their sizes and numbers. Rebecca also had flaws herself which made her all the more interesting and she was willing to admit when she was wrong or in over her head. TaleSpin had an air of wit, charm, compassion and emotion that made for an interesting story and kept us entertained.