Early development Walt Disney first considered making an animated version of
Rudyard Kipling's 1894 collection of stories
The Jungle Book in the late 1930s. In the early 1960s, after completing his work on
The Sword in the Stone, story artist
Bill Peet proposed
The Jungle Book as the studio's next animated feature, seeing it as a "great chance to develop some good animal characters". Disney agreed and acquired the film rights to all thirteen
Jungle Book stories from the estate of
Alexander Korda (who had produced the
1942 film adaptation) by April 1962, after having spent the previous ten years in negotiations. At that point, Peet had written an early story treatment and developed the initial character designs. Disney originally intended to closely follow Kipling's work, planning to make a film that would be "both naturalistic and fantastic, suggestive of the compelling stag fight in
Bambi". Peet created his treatment with little supervision, as he had done with
One Hundred and One Dalmatians and
The Sword in the Stone. He tried to make the story more linear, since the novel was very episodic, while preserving its ominous tone and adding more drama and suspense (in particular, Peet's story would start with wolves and Bagheera rescuing baby Mowgli from falling from a waterfall). He also decided on Mowgli's journey from the jungle back to the Man-Village as the film's central storyline. After taking some of the treasures, Buldeo would attempt to burn the jungle to avoid the threat of Shere Khan, only for the tiger to attack and kill him, before being killed by Mowgli with Buldeo's rifle. Because of his actions, Mowgli would be hailed as a hero in both the jungle and the village and declared the first human member of the wolves' council. Upon reviewing the
storyboards, Disney felt that Peet's approach was too dark and depressing, and held a meeting, insisting on making the story lighter and more aimed at the family demographic. On January 29, 1964, Peet left the studio after another fight with Disney over the preliminary recording for Bagheera's voice as well as Disney insulting him claiming that he should see
Mary Poppins for "real entertainment". Peet would later admit in his
autobiography that he was glad he did not insult Disney back over the film and left the studio when he did knowing Disney would die two years after he left.
Rewriting supervised before his death in December 1966. The script also tried to incorporate how the voice actors molded their characters and interacted with each other.
The Jungle Book also marked the last animated film to have Disney's personal touches, before his death on December 15, 1966.
Casting Walt Disney wanted to bring in more well-known performers to voice the key characters of
The Jungle Book (which was a rarity in his past works). After Phil Harris was cast as Baloo,
Disneyland Records president Jimmy Johnson suggested Disney to get
Louis Prima, whom he thought to be great as a
foil for Harris' character. Disney had vultures bearing a physical and vocal resemblance to
The Beatles, including the signature
mop-top haircut. It was planned to have the members of the band to both voice the characters and sing their song, "
That's What Friends Are For". However, at the time, The Beatles'
John Lennon refused to work on animated films, which led to the idea being discarded. The casting of the vultures still brought a
British Invasion musician,
Chad Stuart of the duo
Chad & Jeremy. In earlier drafts of the scene the vultures had a near-sighted
rhinoceros friend named Rocky, who was to be voiced by
Frank Fontaine, but Disney decided to cut the character, feeling that the film already had enough action with the monkeys and vultures. Child actor David Bailey was originally cast as Mowgli, but during the film's production he hit
puberty, and his voice changed.
Clint Howard was cast as Hathi Jr. Early in the film's development, Bill Peet suggested
Howard Morris for the role of Bagheera, but Disney did not approve of the choice, with Wolfgang Reitherman and other animators preferring either
Rod Taylor,
Karl Swenson or
Sebastian Cabot. Cabot was the final choice. While many of the later Disney feature films had animators being responsible for single characters, in
The Jungle Book the animators were in charge of whole sequences, since many have characters interacting with one another. The animation was done by
xerography, with character design, led by
Ken Anderson, employing rough, artistic edges in contrast to the round animals seen in productions such as
Dumbo. The monkeys' dance during "
I Wan'na Be Like You" was partially inspired by a performance Louis Prima did with his band on a Las Vegas soundstage that convinced Disney to cast him. Disney frequently brought the composers to the storyline sessions. He asked them to "find scary places and write fun songs" for their compositions that fit in with the story and advanced the plot instead of being interruptive. ==Release==