The last of Chuck Jones' The Jungle Book trilogy, Mowgli's Brothers is the only special that adapts one of the Mowgli stories. It featured Roddy McDowall as the narrator and the entirety of the male cast and June Foray as Raksha, the lone female character. Outside of expanding the roles of Baloo and Tabaqui and Shere Khan being white rather than lame, it is an exceptionally faithful adaptation.
Examples:
- Abled in the Adaptation: Zigzagged. While lame in the Mowgli stories, here Shere Khan is portrayed as able-bodied, but as white, exchanging a physical disability for a lack of camouflage.
- Adaptational Modesty: In the original text, Mowgli was naked. The special gets around this by having him steal cloth to make a loincloth.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: For some unfathomable reason Tabaqui, a golden jackal who should be either pale creamy yellow or dark tawny beige depending on the time of year, is portrayed as green.
- Ascended Extra: Baloo and Tabaqui both have expanded roles in the special.
- Dark Is Evil: The wolves that side with Shere Khan are all black furred.
- Dark Is Not Evil: As in the Mowgli Stories, Bagheera is a panther and thus, black furred.
- Light Is Not Good: Shere Khan is portrayed as a white tiger and is the main antagonist.
- Oddball in the Series: Out of Chuck Jones' Jungle Book trilogy, this was the only Mowgli story adapted with the other two stories being Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and The White Seal. However, this trilogy has two oddballs, as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, did not feature Roddy Mc Dowall as the narrator and the entire male cast.
- Reused Character Design: Tabaqui is essentially a green, quadrupedal Wile E. Coyote.
- Truer to the Text: Coming nine years after the infamously
Disowned Adaptation that is the animated Disney film, this special follows the source quite closely.
