After watching The Jungle Book, I'll never be able to look at Winnie the Pooh the same way again. Let me explain: Sterling Holloway, the voice actor behind everyone's favorite "chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluffy", provides the voice of Kaa, the pedophilic boa constrictor in The Jungle Book. Each treetop encounter between Mowgli the Man Cub and Kaa is more disturbing than the last. In fact, The Jungle Book is chock full of inappropriate encounters between Mowgli and his potential male role models.The story of The Jungle Book is fairly simple. Whilst sauntering through the jungle one afternoon, Bagheera, a black panther, finds a baby abandoned by the riverside. Unable to care for the "man cub" himself, Bagheera drops it off with a family of wolves that raise him like a son. Mowgli is ten when Shere Khan, the gentleman tiger, returns to the jungle after some time away, and it is decided at a council of wolves that it would be best for the pack if Bagheera took Mowgli back to the man village. So begins Mowgli's long hike back to civilization, a journey that also serves as a search for a father figure. Let's take a look at the daddy candidates and some reasons why said candidates are terrible role models, shall we?
Bagheera: fond of abandoning Mowgli; Mowgli is often faced with mortal danger immediately following these abandonments.
Bagheera: fond of abandoning Mowgli; Mowgli is often faced with mortal danger immediately following these abandonments.Baloo: fun-loving and carefree, but doesn't know when it's time to be serious; not adept at the whole discipline thing; more like a young stepfather than an actual dad; probably smokes weed. (Also, how did a bear with a vaguely Southern accent end up living in a jungle in India? I know it shouldn't have, but that bothered me the whole time.)
Col. Hathi: clearly deranged, possibly in the early stages of Alzheimers; runs his house like a boot camp; might shave your head just to make a point.
King Louie: total sociopath; overeater; obsessed with learning how to make fire, possibly to commit arson at strategic jungle locations in the future; the ruins are no place for a 10-year-old to grow up--first, they're falling apart and two, they are teeming with disease-ridden monkeys.
Kaa: child molester.
Shere Khan: hates mankind; wants to kill Mowgli.
The Jungle Book gets one thing right though: when a hot piece of ass enters the picture, your buddies can suck it. Bear Necessities? Hell, I want some Bare Necessities. You know, like, "naked?" You get it.
The Jungle Book gets one thing right though: when a hot piece of ass enters the picture, your buddies can suck it. Bear Necessities? Hell, I want some Bare Necessities. You know, like, "naked?" You get it.My favorite part: Mowgli sees a human girl for the first time; Shere Khan beats the shit out of Baloo, second, behind Genie, on my list of the most irritating Disney characters of all time; the Ringo vulture.
Question: Do the events depicted in TaleSpin occur before or after The Jungle Book?
Arbitrary Grade: C+
