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"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! SPIN IT!"

Another Disney adventure cartoon from The Disney Afternoon era, this 1990 series transplants several characters from Disney's adaptation of The Jungle Book into a show about the golden age of seaplane travel, featuring a World of Funny Animals. Essentially an animated Tales of the Gold Monkey - especially as the heroes have Indiana Jones-style adventures and one of the key locations is Louie's, an island bar run by the titular orangutan. Also has elements of a Lighter and Softer Disney version of Crimson Skies (particularly the Air Pirates; see below).

Baloo the bear is a seaplane cargo-for-hire operator from the port city of Cape Suzette in a time not unlike the 1930s or The '40s. His twin-engine flying boat, the Sea Duck, is his most prized possession, and he favors his freedom over all else, including paying his bills. When the bank forecloses on his debts, a young entrepreneur/lady bear/single mother named Rebecca Cunningham snaps up his business, his plane, and his home, and opens the "Higher-For-Hire" air cargo service. Rather than abandon his "baby" to her and whatever low-rent pilot she may hire, he stays on, working for the day when he can buy back the Sea Duck and be rid of her.

Early on, he picks up a young stowaway, Kit Cloudkicker, who eventually earns the post of Baloo's navigator and sidekick. A daring barnstormer and aspiring pilot, Kit uses a collapsible airfoil to glide behind the Sea Duck on a line, and is responsible for much of the derring-do of the series in contrast to his overweight chum.

Outside the odd subtle occasion, there's not a lot of romance between Becky and Baloo: their relationship smacks more of Sibling Rivalry. Baloo, Kit, Becky, and Becky's adorable daughter Molly form a definite sitcom family dynamic, with the practical, strait-laced Becky faced off against her lazy, easygoing, roguish pilot.

Allies of the crew include Louie (the orangutan monarch from The Jungle Book) who operates a seaplane truckstop of sorts out in the ocean that is Baloo's favorite hangout; and Wildcat, a seemingly slow-witted mechanic with incredible skills.

There are three major antagonists: the Air Pirates, led by Don Karnage, who operate from a giant flying aircraft carrier called the Iron Vulture (and would have long ago plundered Cape Suzette, had it not been for all those big honkin' guns on the nearby cliffs); the country of Thembria, a pseudo-Soviet totalitarian state full of snow and blue warthogs, home to the napoleonic Col. Spigot and his Sergeant Schultz-like sidekick, Sgt. Dunder; and Shere Khan, the most feared predator of The Jungle Book, transformed into a Noble Demon business executive.

The series is animated by five different studios: Sunwoo, South-Korea (twenty-five episodes), Walt Disney Japan (twenty-four episodes), Wang, Taiwan (eight episodes), Walt Disney France (six episodes) and Hanho, South-Korea (two episodes).

Refer to the Character Sheet for more details.

The TaleSpin series is considered, to a point, canon to the DuckTales (2017) series. Don Karnage and his pirates have been recurring villains in every season. As well, Kit and Molly appear in Season 3, both of them older and Kit now the pilot of the Sea Duck.

The show's version of Baloo shows up as a playable character in Disney Mirrorverse and Baloo, Kit Cloudkicker, Louie and Thaddeus E. Klang appear as cards in wave 3 of the Lorcana trading card game.


"Tropes for life, through thick and thin":

    open/close all folders 

    #-A 
  • 65-Episode Cartoon
  • Abnormal Ammo:
    • The Thembrian air defenses consist of catapults launching bathtubs, pianos, and other random objects, because the paperwork for getting actual ammo for their AA cannons is more of a nightmare than the Thembrian prisons.
    • In part two of "Plunder and Lightning", Baloo escapes an attack by dumping a load of fruit on the air pirates.
    • Similarly, in "Citizen Khan", Kit and Wildcat throw rotten fruit on the corrupt sheriff and his sidekick, causing them to crash.
    • This is pretty much how Baloo always fights back any time the Sea Duck is attacked; he does fly a cargo plane with no guns after all.
  • Absent-Minded Professor:
    • Baloo's friend Buzz from "Baloo Thunder" and "Bullethead Baloo" counts for this in spades. He gets so many ideas so frequently that he can't think most of them through properly.
    • Dr. Zivaldo from "The Incredible Shrinking Molly" is another example; Molly confuses him with a Mad Scientist at first.
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: The sewer in "Bringing Down Babyface" is (just barely) big enough for Baloo to fly the Sea Duck through.
  • Accidental Misnaming:
    • Colonel Spigot!
    • Also "it's Rebecca, not Becky", though she grows attached to the nickname later on.
  • Bantering Baddie Buddies: The two raccoon goons in "Vowel Play" are a bit more witty and competent than Bantering Baddie Buddies like Mad Dog and Dumptruck and have a casual banter. When they receive instructions to surround City Hall during an extortion scene, one of them jokes "Who says you can't fight City Hall?"
  • The Ace: Whistlestop Jackson, hero to millions!
    • Broken Ace: Whistlestop apparently has been struggling ever since aviation vehicles started evolving and becoming too complex for him to properly handle and briefly considers dissolving into obscurity until Baloo snaps him out of it.
    • Inverted with the ironically named character Ace London.
  • Ace Custom: The Sea Duck, a hydroplane freighter that Baloo and Wildcat customized up the gazoo. Which includes, of course, the Overdrive system.
    • Don Karnage also flies a custom C-37 with an extra set of wings.
  • Acrofatic: Although Baloo isn't a particularly skilled fighter, he can deal a mean punch, and he's quite agile considering his size.
  • Action Figure File Card: The toys had them.
  • Adapted Out:
    • All of the major non-human characters from The Jungle Book appear in TaleSpin save Bagheera. It seems that the "big cat best buddy" role went to Wildcat, and it's hard to imagine Bagheera playing him.
    • However, Shere Khan's elite pilot squad, and the members of his executive board, and most of the law enforcement professionals are all panthers who all look suspiciously like Bagheera.
  • Adventurer Archaeologist: Three of them, all guest stars.
  • Adventurer Outfit: It's part of the genre. Worn by various professors, a Girl of the Week or two, and even Rebecca during one of her odder get-rich-quick expeditions.
  • Affably Evil: Both Shere Khan and Don Karnage.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Baloo dishes out a lot of these, but perhaps the most notable are "Lil' Britches" (for Kit; ironically Kit doesn't normally wear britches) and "Becky" (for Rebecca). Rebecca's treatment of her nickname also mirrors the trope, only accepting it when she is on happy terms with Baloo. Kit calls Baloo Mowgli's nickname from the original Disney movie, "Papa Bear".
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Iron Vulture.
  • AI Is A Crap Shoot: In "From Here to Machinery", Auto-Aviators do exactly what they're programmed to do — that is, they fly a plane from one location to another in the most efficient manner possible. They don't evade danger, they ignore contrary orders (even from their owner or inventor), and they react to attempts to be manually shut down or reprogrammed by shocking anyone who touches them.
  • Alien Invasion: Baloo and Kit fake one in "War of the Weirds".
  • The Alleged Boss: Rebecca Cunningham plays with this. She has Control Freak issues and is perfectly willing to push Baloo and others around in her schemes; however, she is usually all bark and no bite, and usually acts more as a bossy childish friend than an authority figure, something Baloo takes advantage of time and time again.
  • All There in the Manual: The short-lived comic series confirms Becky's status as a widow and goes into some detail about Kit's life before linking up with Don Karnage.
  • All Women Are Lustful: Louie's aunt, Louise in "The Ransom of Red Chimp", who is attracted to men with accents and goes after Don Karnage, and later her flying rival, a French pilot named Jacques Toujour.
  • Amazing Technicolor Wildlife:
    • The Thembrians are purple warthogs, and are the only anthropomorphic race in the series to sport unrealistic colors.
    • The color of Molly's fur tends to be inconsistent between episodes. In some, her fur is either tan or beige. In others, it can be a vibrant yellow.
    • In "Stuck on You", there is a rabbit employee at the glue factory that could almost be Roger Rabbit's cousin. In addition to having blue fur, his appearance is much more cartoonish than most other characters, including other rabbits that have shown up.
  • Anchovies Are Abhorrent: Louie mentions to Baloo and Kit that he hates anchovies, but unfortunately doesn't get to explain why to them. When Baloo and Kit have to find some anchovies for Louie's pizza delivery business, they get irregular ones from a discount fish market. Just one whiff of them makes Louie severely ill. Rebecca, on the other hand, loves anchovies and sure enough, the pizza with anchovies is to be delivered to her.
  • Animal Gender-Bender: In "Sheepskin Deep", there is a male kangaroo postal worker who carries mail in his pouch.
  • Animation Bump: To an extent, due to the animation being exported from six different studios note , the style and quality varied to rather noticeable degrees on occasion. This was common with most Disney cartoons at this point.
    • Some of the high points are in the four part pilot "Plunder And Lightning" and "Pizza Pie In The Sky", which were animated by Disney France.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Rebecca to Baloo. At the end of "Last Horizons", Rebecca clearly shouts with joy at Baloo's escape from certain death, "I love you, Baloo!".
  • Anti-Villain: Shere Khan. Sure, he engages in Evil Plans from time to time and can be ruthless when he needs to, but he is genuinely fond of the heroes and certainly has a conscience, and generally doesn't cross any lines that there's no going back from. Think David Xanatos, but nicer.
  • Anthropomorphic Shift: From The Jungle Book.
    • Louie can be considered an inversion of sorts. He is given an anthropomorphic role and wears a human attire, though his design and proportions are actually more hunched over and simian-like than his original Jungle Book counterpart.
  • Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: The vast majority of the scenes with Don Karnage and Gibber, and some dialogues between Baloo and Wildcat.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • In "Louie's Last Stand", Dougie Benson, a minor businessman in Shere Khan's company, attempts to evict Louie from his property by forging Khan's signature on documents that mobilize his company pilots into a makeshift mook-army. When Khan finds out, he dresses Dougie down for forgery, misuse of company property, and his now soot-stained coat not being up to company dress code.
    • In the episode, "Bringing Down Babyface", after Baloo and Babyface Half-Nelson escape from the police, Officer Malarkey calls for backup, telling them, "Suspects are armed, dangerous, and wearing festive party hats."
    • In "The Balooest of the Bluebloods", when asked on what charge the servants of Castle Von Bruinwald should be arrested, Rebecca says "Attempted Murder!" Baloo adds: "And bad cookin'!"
  • Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: In "On a Wing and a Bear," the instructor Ralph Throgmorton yells at Baloo for his dangerous flight maneuvers, but finally admits that they saved them from Don Karnage and his men, so Baloo gets his license back.
  • Ass Kicks You: Kitten Kaboodle hip-bumps Rebecca away numerous times in "A Star is Torn".
  • A-Team Firing: But at least they use real bullets, unlike some cartoons.
  • Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Don Karnage's favored strategy:
    • From "Plunder and Lightning":
      Don Karnage: To your posts, men! We will fight to the last man!
      [The Iron Vulture gets perforated by gunfire from the attacking fighter planes, including several rounds into the bridge.]
      Don Karnage: Then again... RETREAT! RETREAT! FULL SPEED BEHIND!
    • From "Jumping the Guns":
      Don Karnage: Today, Cape Suzette, tomorrow...! (anti-aircraft fire) Tomorrow's another day! RETREAT!

    B 
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Happens with Shere Khan at least twice.
    • "Whistlestop Jackson, Legend" ends with the titular famous pilot retiring after the satisfaction of one last heroic feat, but it is revealed that Khan, who held a grudge against Jackson, had intended for him to retire all along.
    • "Save the Tiger" ends with the reveal that Khan was secretly behind Baloo's kidnapping. To be fair, he was getting annoyed by Baloo's constant demands.
  • Badass Adorable: Kit, and to a lesser extent Molly.
    • Oscar from "Captain Outrageous" earns this status at the end of the episode when he Takes a Level in Badass and saves Baloo, Kit, and Wildcat from the pirates.
  • Badass Bookworm: Myra from "In Search of Ancient Blunders". She doesn't really fight, but she does drop a piano on Dumptruck's head—and then there's her Beware the Nice Ones moment with the mummy.
  • Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Too many characters to list, including Rebecca, Molly, Wildcat and Shere Khan in the main cast.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: In "Louie's Last Stand", Dougie Benson, a member of Shere Khan's executive board, uses his stolen signature to commandeer his squad of elite pilots as flunkies to try to steal Louie's island (and business).
  • Beary Friendly/Beary Funny: Baloo, Rebecca, Molly and Kit.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Kit sometimes is this due to Baloo's occasional idiocies and Jerkass tendencies. Rebecca and Baloo himself often play this trope as well, depending on who is leading the madness.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Baloo and Rebecca are all over this, being patterned after Sam and Diane from Cheers.
  • Benevolent Boss/Mean Boss/Pointy-Haired Boss: Rebecca can be considered an unusual mix of all three tropes in one. While she mostly leaned towards the first due to her protagonist role and viewing her employees more as her friends, her occasional temperament, superiority complex and outright quirkiness leads to her being less than pleasant to work with on occasion, especially in early episodes.
    • Shere Khan himself was a mix of the first two of those. He is deadly serious, hates having his time wasted and is extremely strict, but he values hard work and is quite demanding, albeit fair to his employees.
  • Berserk Button: The pig from "The Bigger They Are, The Louder They Oink" goes on a ballistic rampage whenever it hears the word 'bacon'. It becomes a Chekhov's Gag when Baloo and Rebecca weaponize it to escape from natives.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Myra from "In Search of Ancient Blunders".
    • Also Wildcat, Rebecca, Kit, and even Molly fit this trope most of the time.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: Don Karnage.
    • The majority of villains for that matter. While they are nearly all bumbling wackos the majority of them do at least pose as a sort of plausible threat.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Don Karnage, Col. Spigot, and Shere Khan act as the series' primary antagonists.
  • Big Beautiful Woman: Two examples of significant note and numerous examples seen in background characters, namely Plane Jane, a pilot from the episode 'Waiders of the Wost Tweasure' whose aviation and adventuring skill rivals Baloo's and Sally, the sultry-voiced DJ from the episode 'The Time Bandits'.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Baloo is known for doing this in quite a few episodes with "Plunder And Lightning" and "Last Horizons" being some of the most famous examples.
    • Also Oscar does this in the episode "Captains Outrageous" when he blows the cell wall open in the Iron Vulture to save Baloo, Kit, and Wildcat from the pirates.
    • Shere Khan of all people does this at the end of "Louie's Last Stand" when he stops a corrupt employee from blowing up Louie's club.
  • Bizarre Beverage Use: "From Here To Machinery" has a robot act as pilot of Shere Khan's private plane. When air pirates attack the plane, the robot refuses to change course or relinquish control. Baloo jiggles a bottle of carbonated soda, then sprays the robot with fizzy discharge. This shorts out the robot, allowing Baloo to pilot Khan's plane to safety.
  • Boats into Buildings: The episode "Her Chance To Dream" reveals that Louie's bar is a derelict ship that he remodeled. The ghost of the ship's captain then tries to take it back while romancing Rebecca.
  • Body Swap: "A Baloo Switcheroo".
  • Book Dumb: Baloo to a ridiculous extent.
  • Bound and Gagged: Happens to both Baloo and Rebecca on a few odd occasions, as well as to Shere Khan of all people, in "Bullethead Baloo".
  • Brainy Brunette: Rebecca, of course.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Either Kit or Molly, Depending on the Writer.
    • Kit's friend Ernie definitely counts. He's such an entitled little maggot that it's a wonder Kit is even friends with him.
  • Breaking Bad News Gently: Parodied in "Bearly Alive".
    Doctor (over the phone): You'd better sit down.
    Rebecca: I am sitting down.
    Doctor: Then stand up.
    Rebecca (standing): Okay, now I'm standing up.
    Doctor: Now you'd better sit down.
  • Break the Haughty: Both Baloo and Rebecca fall victim to this, over and over and over...
  • The Brigadier: Ace London's boss has some Bling of War and is an encouraging, somewhat dedicated, but ultimately reasonable guy.
  • Broken Aesop: "War of the Weirds" sees Baloo stage a Martian invasion to get out of working. Then along comes Army Intelligence officer Colonel Grogg who thinks the invasion is real. So the gang further trick Grogg by scaring him so badly he runs away, and while he's gone, they dispose of all of the props and costumes, so that when he returns, it appears to his superior General Tumult that he's going insane, and Tumult demotes him. The unfortunate implication being that lying is bad, but lying to get out of trouble for lying is fine, even if it ruins someone's life.
    • Of course, Grogg is a trigger-happy idiot.
  • Bumbling Dad: Baloo, of the surrogate variety.
  • Bumbling Henchmen Duo:
    • Mad Dog and Dump Truck are a pair of bumbling pirates working for Don Karnage.
    • Colonel Spigot and Sergeant Dunder are a duo of comical military officers from the despotic pseuodo-Soviet state of Thembria.
    • Trader Moe has a pair of large but dumb goons, a rhino and a gorilla.
  • Bunny Ears Mechanic: Wildcat. A cheerful Cloudcuckoolander and generally unaware of social niceties, true. But he was also a genius mechanic, a competent pilot (albeit with few directional skills), and (on occasion, such as in "The Flight of the Snow Duck") surprisingly perceptive regarding matters of the heart.
    • Baloo can be considered something of a "Bunny Ears Pilot" as well, slovenly, obnoxious and Book Dumb, but is an ingenious and versatile flyer (including piloting prototype helicopters and a bare jet engine!). One could argue whether Rebecca's quirks make her a "Bunny Ears Businesswoman" as well.
  • Butt-Monkey: Colonel Spigot and Douglas Benson from "Louie's Last Stand". Baloo and Rebecca also have some moments.
  • Buzzing the Deck:
    • Baloo is known to do this literally, using his propeller to trim hedges at times, as seen in the show's opening, upside-down, no less.
    • Baloo got buzzed himself once in flight and was not happy about it, especially when he found out who he'd just been buzzed by, Ace London. In Baloo's case, however, he had very legit reason to be angry. Wildcat was performing essential repairs outside the plane while in flight, and Ace London's carelessness nearly caused the poor mechanic to fall off, not to mention causing the Sea Duck to spin.

    C 
  • Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: Kit Cloudkicker admires his mentor, Baloo, and hopes to become a remarkable pilot some day. The few times that Kit has taken the controls have overwhelmed him, though. However, as far as riding an airfoil goes, Kit takes to "cloudsurfing" like a bird to the sky.
  • Captured by Cannibals: In "The Bigger They Are, the Louder They Oink", Becky's truffle hunting expedition turns sour when they're found by "pygmies" who try to cook her and the pig she brought to sniff the valuable fungus out. The biggest irony is, the pygmies seem to have plenty of truffles; they use them in the soup that Becky nearly becomes a part of.
  • Casting Gag:
    • The decision to cast Ed Gilbert and R.J. Williams as Baloo and Kit, respectively. They had previously been cast as a father-and-son bear duo in the mid-1980s NBC cartoon Kissyfur.
    • Similarly, casting Ed Gilbert aa main character Baloo and Pat Fraley as secondary character Wildcat. The two had previously worked together on several series, including G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Gilbert as Hawk, Fraley as Ace), Centurions (Fraley as Max Ray, Gilbert as Hacker), and BraveStarr (Fraley as BraveStarr himself [as well as recurring villains Thunderstick and Cactushead], Gilbert as 30/30 and Shaman).
  • Catchphrase: Downplayed, but Kit and Baloo generally say "pull chocks!" (aviator slang) instead of "let's go."
  • Cat Fight: Rebecca had them with some female villains. Mainly Kitten Kaboodle in "A Star Is Torn" and Muffy Vanderschmeer in "A Touch Of Glass".
  • Chain of Deals: The plot of "Double or Nothing".
  • Chained Heat: "Stuck on You". Except with superglue instead of handcuffs.
  • Characterization Marches On: Kit's history with Don Karnage and the Sky Pirates seems to be all but forgotten in episodes following the pilot, to the point the two seem rather inept about each other outside their connections with Baloo. Karnage rarely refers to Kit as anything outside the generic label of "Baloo's little friend". This is because the pilot was actually rather late in production order, with the creators brainstorming several planned backstories for Kit before sticking to that one (one being Rebecca's son).
    • Ironically Col. Spigot's first appearance in "The Idol Rich" is about the one time he and Baloo instantly recognize each other.
  • Cheerful Child: Molly Cunningham. She's rambunctious and not above a little blackmail to get what she wants. However, in the major incident she did that, she didn't hesitate afterward to bail out Baloo when her mother threatened to fire him.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In "Feminine Air", Rebecca accidentally dropped one of her earrings in the pile of scavenger items. Cool Hands then cheats and steals the items to win the contest. To prove he stole the items from her and Baloo, Rebecca points out to the judge that within the items were a nail file, silk stockings, and finally her missing earring.
  • The Chessmaster: Shere Khan.
  • Chick Magnet: Baloo has won affection and attention from Katie Dodd, Princess Lotta Lamour, Kitten Caboodle, Myra, Plane Jane, Sally the radio host, and even Rebecca herself, so he definitely deserves a spot here.
  • Christmas Episode: "A Jolly Molly Christmas".
  • City of Adventure: Cape Suzette.
  • Clip Its Wings: In "Flight of the Snow Duck", Baloo, Wildcat and Molly escape from a Thembrian prison by flying a plane made completely out of ice, while being pursued by military fighters. When one of the wings gets shot off, Wildcat scoops some water out of a lake and tosses over the wing's stub, instantly repairing it.
  • Clock Tampering:
    • In "The Time Bandit", Baloo alters the clocks and calendars (and even bribes a radio show host to say the incorrect day) to trick Rebecca into thinking it's Saturday and pay him so he can attend a party at Louie's. Hilarity Ensues.
    • In "Flying Dupes", Baloo is tasked with delivering a package to the Thembrian High Marshall by 3:00, unaware that the package contains a bomb. When he, Col. Spigot and Sgt. Dunder stop at Ivan's bar, Spigot refuses to leave until after 3:00, when the showgirls perform. Baloo alters the clock at Ivan's to 3:00 and disguises himself and Dunder as the showgirls.
  • Cloudcuckooland: Thembria.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Wildcat. Baloo and even Rebecca on occasion have lighter bouts of this too.
  • Comically Serious: Shere Khan (somewhat in contrast to the hammier Smug Snake he was in The Jungle Book). The odd occasions a smile does appear on his face usually spells big trouble for someone.
  • Commissar Cap: Baloo wears one of these.
    • Also part of Spigot's military uniform - as with all the Thembrian military.
  • Company Town: "Citizen Khan" takes place in a small western mining town occupied solely by Khan Industries employees and a service establishment provider. The mine workers are stuck in indentured servitude, but this is because of the overseers (who are also robbing Khan) and Khan himself puts a stop to their theft and slave labor as soon as he finds out what's going on and visits the town.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Baloo and Kit get this a lot due to their occasionally haphazard manner of saving the day, though they're usually rather open about what they think of the situation.
    Kit: Well excuse me for saving your tail.
  • Contagious Cassandra Truth: In "It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck", Kit is chewed out by Rebecca for taking Molly outside the apartment while babysitting (in reality this was for a load of convoluted reasons). Baloo suggests letting Kit explain what happened, however Rebecca just assumes that Kit learned his irresponsible behaviour from him and shushes him too.
  • Continuity Cameo: A lot of supposed One-Scene Wonder characters from specific episodes make background cameos in others (even previous villains such as Kitten Caboodle and Muffy and Buffy oddly enough). Sometimes counts as an Early-Bird Cameo.
  • Control Freak: Rebecca plays with this. While she has a rather shrill attitude and frequently manipulates or bullies Baloo and the others into following her schemes, she fails to have much intimidation over them or take much action against their own incompetent or obnoxious habits, leading her to come off more as a bossy friend than a domineering boss.
  • Conjunction Interruption/Not Now, Kiddo: Often the bane of Molly and Kit's lives, usually issued by Rebecca (Baloo even notes a couple of occasions it might be worth listening to them).
  • Convection Shmonvection: Baloo has flown into a volcano several times before with the Sea Duck escaping with only mild burns on the plane.
  • Cooked to Death: The villains attempt to eliminate Rebecca in the episode "The Balooest of the Bluebloods" by tying her to a spit above an absurdly deep fire pit. She gets rescued after becoming no worse than uncomfortably warm.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Don Karnage is fond of these. For example, in "Captains Outrageous" he uses tiger claws for Nails on a Blackboard torture to pry information from his prisoners.
  • Cool Plane: The Sea Duck, natch: a rare case of a beat-up, unarmed cargo hauler getting the kind of love usually reserved for fighter planes. There are many, many other examples - stunt planes, crop-dusters, a multitude of flying boats - some pulled from genuine aviation history and others seeming to parody it.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Zigzagged by Shere Khan. Khan is ruthless and can be quite vicious and vindictive. However, he has a moral code and a sense of honor, and his rivals are usually much worse than he is. Many of his appearances have him as a protagonist, and his antagonist appearances frequently end with him saying something along the lines of "You are right and I will stop taking the action you are opposing. Now get out before I change my mind". Furthermore, if he hires you for a job and knows your moral principles, the job will likely be dangerous, but it will be doable, agree with your conscience, and he pays very well in the end.
    • Whether or not it's subverted or not is completely up to the episode. In one episode he'll recruit the sky pirates to attack planes and create a fake fuel shortage. In another he'll swear a life debt. The most consistent thing about this show is its inconsistency.
    • He's also surprisingly concerned about overworking. One episode had him rethink the care of his lower workers, as poor, unpresentable employees give him neither money or power.
  • Title Cards Always Lie: The title card of the episode "The Ransom of Red Chimp" has Don Karnage in his signature air pirate uniform, while in the actual episode he's wearing a bathing costume all throughout the episode.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Baloo always manages to save the day.
  • Cute Bruiser: Rebecca earned this status at the end of the episode "A Touch Of Glass".

    D 
  • Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Trader Moe and his lackeys.
  • Damsel in Distress: Happens to Rebecca and Molly on occasion. Baloo and Kit aren't immune to the trope either.
    • Also Katie Dodd when she is kidnapped.
  • Dashing Hispanic: Don Karnage fancies himself as one of these, but invariably comes off as just buffoonish. Note, though, that, while he may not be badass per se, he's still very dangerous.
  • A Day in the Limelight: "Flight School Confidential" is focused largely on Kit venturing to Thembria, with Baloo only having a brief role in the opening and closing moments. A couple of episodes also focus primarily on Rebecca and Molly's relationship.
  • Dead All Along: "The Old Man and the Sea Duck" ends with Baloo discovering that the man that had taught him to fly again had been dead and gone for 20 years, and that the airfield he trained at was a broken-down husk of its former self.
    • Also in "Her Chance To Dream", Rebecca's new love interest Captain William Stansbury is revealed to be the ghost of the captain who crashed his boat on Louie's island centuries ago.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Both Rebecca and Baloo to extremes.
  • Death Glare: Despite Rebecca's appearance, she actually has given Baloo a pretty scary one from time to time.
  • Depending on the Writer:
    • Both Baloo and Rebecca's personalities occasionally come off as erratic due to constantly passing off the Sanity Ball (eg. one can be completely gullible or arrogant towards a situation identical to one they were totally wary of in a previous episode). Their similar tendencies also shift from episode to episode (sometimes Rebecca is Baloo's polar opposite, others they are borderline Distaff Counterparts for each other).
    • Shere Khan is mostly a Affably Evil Anti-Villain interested in gaining wealth and power, but is a Noble Demon who won't cross the line and is a Friendly Enemy to Baloo. In other episodes he's a Ambiguously Evil Anti-Hero who teams up with Baloo, but usually for his own gain. In one episode he's a Faux Affably Evil villain largely responsible for the troubles.
    • Colonel Spigot varied in that he can be a straight villain who gleefully leaves Baloo and Kit to burn alive in one episode or direct Rebecca through her own execution in another while other episodes have him as more or less one of the gang.
  • Despair Event Horizon: "Stormy Weather" has Baloo's fear of Kit leaving him to participate in life threatening stunts, completely giving up the will to live when he thinks Kit's left for good.
  • Determinator: In both a negative and positive sense, Baloo and Rebecca are very stubborn individuals, be it for Zany Schemes or heroics. Rebecca is also shown to be very protective of Baloo, to the point of potential self-sacrifice; Baloo, in turn, will go to great lengths to aid or protect her.
  • Did Not Do the Bloody Research: In "Bygones", the English pilot Rick Sky actually says the word "Bloody".
  • Didn't Think This Through: In "Louie's Last Stand", Dougie Benson, an executive of Shere Khan's forges his signature in order to use one of his squadrons to get Louie off his island so Khan can re-take it, as per the details of Louie's ownership contract. When Shere Khan finds out, the executive claims he did it for Khan's best interests. Khan points out that Benson forged his name, misused his employees (getting several badly injured in the process) and broke a verbal contract, and that his best interests are served by firing him.
  • Diesel Punk
  • Dirty Communists: Not explicitly said to be communist, but Thembria is obviously meant to be a stand in for the Soviet Union.
    • In one episode, Baloo actually refers to the Thembrians as "commies," and Colonel Spigot also refers to Cape Suzette citizens as "capitalist swine"note .
  • Disappeared Dad: Molly's. Kit's missing both parents.
    • In the comics it explains that Molly's father is deceased and that Rebecca is unfortunately a widow.
      • The show itself leaves Rebecca's status up for the audience to guess. Gets confusing when a woman in the 30's can be a single mom and nobody cares.
      • Not so much to guess as she's call Ms. Cunningham.
  • Disco Tech: Tinabula.
  • Disguised in Drag: Baloo dresses as a female pilot in "Feminine Air" in order to compete in a plane scavenger race.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Decades ago, Whistlestop Jackson beat out Shere Khan for a profitable airmail job. Rather than letting bygones be bygones, when Whistlestop comes out of retirement, the now-multimillionaire Khan demonstrates what holding a grudge means by trying to have him shot down and killed.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: The reason Baloo and Louie help Katie find the lost city of Tinabula, even though they didn't want to go treasure hunting in the episode "For Whom The Bell Klangs".
    • This also happens to Baloo and Louie when they help Princess Lotta Lamour in "The Road to Macadamia".
    • This is the main reason that Baloo won't listen to Rebecca when she tells Baloo that Kitten Kaboodle is responsible for the "accidents" that have been happening on the movie set in the episode "A Star Is Torn".
    • "Cool Hands" Luke is obviously smitten by "Tan-Margaret" (aka Baloo) in "Feminine Air", even though they are competitors in an air race.
  • Ditzy Genius: Rebecca.
  • The Don: Gangster Owl Capone. Sadly, he only appeared in one episode.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Rebecca's treatment of Baloo leans towards this on occasion (though granted Baloo can find lots of non-violent methods of dishing it back out).
  • Downer Ending: "Your Baloo's In The Mail", albeit Played for Laughs (though apparently a few fans insist otherwise).
  • The Drag-Along: Rebecca on some occasions, who doesn't appreciate Baloo's tendency to turn a simple cargo mission into a dangerous adventure or Zany Scheme (not that she doesn't force Baloo into a few badly thought ones as well at times).
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: No matter how many crises Higher for Hire proves essential in averting, no matter how many times Baloo proves he's the best darn pilot in the sky, they all remain in a barely acknowledged fringe business that has to struggle to find anyone willing to pay them for work. Shere Khan at least seems to know and respect their potential by the end of the series, but as they're still his competition he has a vested interest in keeping them on the dregs (even if he's very civil about it).

    E 
  • Ear Ache: Rebecca frequently drags Baloo away by his ear in an argument.
  • Ear Notch: Don Karnage has one.
  • Ears as Hair: With bows around them, Molly's ears become Girlish Pigtails.
  • Easy Amnesia: In "The Old Man and the Sea Duck", with a dose of Laser-Guided Amnesia too; it only affects Baloo's piloting skills, forcing him to re-learn them. However, the cliche of the second blow is avoided as Baloo's memory returns when he re-experiences the joy of flying again.
  • Easy Come, Easy Go: Several episodes. Even lampshaded.
  • Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Played with in "Waiders of the Wost Tweasure". "Wuby Wings" wasn't a mispronunciation of "Ruby Rings", rather, it was "Ruby Wings".
  • Enemy Eats Your Lunch: In "Plunder and Lighting", Don Karnage intimidates the customers of Louie's through drinking someone's drink.
  • Episode Title Card: Done for only two episodes, "The Ransom of Red Chimp" and "Jolly Molly Christmas".
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Shere Khan has several moments of this. He knows the consequences of Kicking The Dog too many times.
    • A particularly good example of this is in the end of the episode "Citizen Khan".
      Clementine: So you never told the sheriff to mistreat the miners?
      Shere Khan: My dear, I desire only money and power. Unpresentable employees provide me with neither.
    • Don Karnage as well on occasion.
  • Everyone Loves Blondes: Baloo for Kitten Kaboodle in "A Star Is Torn" and Wildcat for Clementine Clevenger in "Citizen Khan".
  • Evil Chancellor: Chancellor Trample from "The Road to Macadamia".
  • Evil Is Hammy: Don Karnage.
  • Exact Words: "When I say 'FIRE', then you FIRE!"
  • Expy: Rebecca, according to Word of God is based on Rebecca Howe of Cheers in both aspects of personality and her chemistry with the main protagonist.note 
    • The business situation is very similar to Cheers as well: Entrepreneurial businesswoman takes over a failing business run by a laid-back owner and attempts to change his ways to make the business profitable, Hilarity Ensues.
    • Kit is also obviously meant to be an Expy for Mowgli in places. While he has enough unique traits to differentiate the two, his relationship with Baloo is very similar (right down to using the same affectionate nicknames for each other).
    • The three major Thembrians: Col. Spigot, Sgt. Dunder and the High Marshall are Expies (and parodies) of Col. Wilhelm Klink, Sgt. Hans Schultz, and General Albert Burkhalter from Hogan's Heroes.
      • Although the High Marshall is also a very obvious visual Expy of Leonid Brezhnev.
    • And as mentioned above, the show is based loosely on Tales of the Gold Monkey, making Baloo, Wildcat and Louie expies of Jake, Corky and, er, Louie.

    F 
  • Failure Is the Only Option: Baloo's goal: to buy his plane back from Becky.
    • He did buy it back once, though handed back the rights after realising the process was destroying Becky's business, implying he is pretty much set to work at Higher For Hire, willingly or not.
  • Fake Defector: At one point in "Plunder & Lightning" Kit rejoins the pirates, regaining Karnage's trust by pretending he didn't really care about his new friends, so he can convince Karnage to let his friends go. This is Played for Drama, with Baloo convinced that Kit has betrayed him until later in the story.
  • Faked Rip Van Winkle: The plot of "The Time Bandit".
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: Interestingly enough, almost utterly averted. Don Karnage's men fire what appear to be real tracers out of their machine guns, the Cape Suzette anti-aircraft guns are firing real flak shells, and in one episode Baloo is chased by gangsters with very realistic-looking revolvers that fire real bullets. The few exceptions are justified, such as AA guns that shoot pies during an air race, since they are designed to hinder the racing pilots, not kill them.
    • The Thembrians have antiaircraft guns, but getting ammo for them is a red-tape nightmare.
  • Fanfare: There is a leitmotif for the heroic moments.
  • Fan of the Underdog: Baloo, for all his faults, is idolized greatly by Kit.
    Kit: You're "somebody" to me.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Thembria is the Soviet Union with boars.
    • Apparently also the country in which Cape Suzette is located. While clearly modeled on the United States, the more one watches the show, the more one sees signs that it may not actually be set there (e.g. air force planes that do not bear any distinguishable markings; use of both dollars and the currencies "torbits" and "shaboozies", the latter name being applied to a desert country's currency in one episode but seemingly a slang term for "dollars" in another). Word of God eventually placed it in "Usland".
    • Look for other examples among the various fictional places portrayed in this series.
  • Fat Bastard: The High Marshall, no question about it.
  • Fiery Redhead: Katie Dodd.
  • Fish out of Water: Rebecca to an extent. Though one could argue it's the one element preventing her from being Baloo's Distaff Counterpart.
  • Four-Episode Pilot
  • A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted:
    • In "Save the Tiger", Baloo saves Shere Khan's life and Khan owes him a debt in return. At first, Baloo asks for a few simple things, but when he realizes that Shere Khan is one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, he buys back his plane, isolates most of his friends, and eventually becomes bored with his new wealth and gifts. His endless lists of demands end up irritating Khan, who secretly arranges for Baloo to be kidnapped and held for ransom that equals the amount of all the things Baloo asked from Khan and Higher for Hire. Towards the end of the episode, Rebecca and Kit save Baloo, and Baloo's final request is to have everything back to the way it was before.
    • In "The Balooest of the Blue Bloods", Baloo inherits a mansion and the butler and maid try to kill him so they can inherit it for themselves. The mansion gets repossessed at the end of the episode.
  • Forged Message: In one episode one of Shere Khan's executives, Benson, tried to force Louie out of his club by writing a letter that said, "Do whatever Mr. Benson says." and forging Khan's signature, thus making the Khan pilot force think they were on a sanctioned assignment.
  • Five-Temperament Ensemble: Rebecca (choleric), Kit (melancholic), Wildcat (leuquine), Baloo (sanguine), and Molly (phlegmatic).
  • For the Evulz: Don Karnage and Shere Khan, though usually more ambitious villains, occasionally are guilty of this.
    • Thembria seems to be an entire population enforced by "evil" standards and customs. Acts such as fun and laughter can land you a hefty jail sentence.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Almost all characters have them, but there are a (very) few exceptions, such as the five-fingered Princess Lotta Lamour and Kitten Kaboodle.
    • Some inconsistencies have also occurred in this area, like Shere Khan having four fingers in one episode and five fingers in another episode.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: See Five-Temperament above.
  • The Freelance Shame Squad: In "A Jolly Molly Christmas" a rowdy group catches Louie posing as Santa for Molly, taking off his disguise and cackling insanely, completely ignorant of the disillusioned six year old running out of the bar in tears.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision: Baloo has an almost unhealthy obsession with the Sea Duck and will scold anyone for laying a finger on it without permission. Nevertheless, it's established from the very first episode that he would sacrifice it in an instant to save his friends and surrogate family.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Wildcat proves that this description fits him in "Paradise Lost" and "The Sound And The Furry". Also Kit in "All's Whale That Ends Whale" and Molly in "Mommy For A Day".
  • Funny Background Event: In one episode, while there's a conversation going on in the foreground, in the background we see Wildcat repeatedly try and fail to fit a propeller through the door in the shed and ultimately throw it into the sea in frustration.
  • Funny Foreigner: Several, including the Thembrians and Don Karnage... wherever he's from.
  • Furry Confusion: The setting is a World of Funny Animals with all sorts of anthropomorphic species - but the pilot episode shows that regular animals also exist, including seagulls, crocodiles and large flightless "gorilla birds". The most confusing character in this respect is probably Ignatz the parrot from "Polly Wants A Treasure" - he is a parrot who can talk fluently and is just as sapient as the anthropomorphic characters, but is still treated as an animal rather than a person.
    • In "Feminine Air", there is a goat character who behaves relatively normally, except for when he casually takes a bite out of a mattress.
  • Furry Female Mane: Fairly standard for the female characters, with the exception of Muffy Vanderschmeer.
  • Futile Hand Reach: Myra and Baloo do this during "In Search of Ancient Blunders".

    G 
  • Gainax Ending: Arguable example with "Flying Dupes". Like most The Disney Afternoon shows, the series is left open ended, with the finale focusing near solely on Baloo attempting to give Col. Spigot flying lessons. It doesn't help that this episode was banned on certain networks.
  • Genius Ditz: Wildcat, a Cloudcuckoolander of the highest order who can fix a high number of mechanical issues in a matter of seconds (at least for what his provided apparatus allows).
    • Word of God claims Baloo and Rebecca were meant to foil each other in this regard. Baloo is extremely Book Dumb and slovenly, but also streetwise and resourceful due to his adventuring (as well as being a grade A Ace Pilot). In contrast Rebecca is well educated and has profound business ethics, but due to her pampered lifestyle is somewhat naive and inept to the outside world. Depending on what the scenario fit, either character would play The Ditz while another would act as The Straight Man.
  • Genre Roulette: The cartoon combines characters from The Jungle Book, dogfighting, 1930s Film Noir, Two-Fisted Tales-style adventures, the Cold War, the occasional supernatural curse/mummy/valley of dinosaurs, and Screwball Comedy in one cartoon. Can be equal parts comic, dramatic, action-filled or suspenseful, often just in one episode.
  • Genre Throwback: This show is like watching a Republic Pictures serial film... except everyone is a Funny Animal.
    • Baloo's pilot outfit and Han Solo-like personality are almost identical to that of the protagonist of Dakota Harris. Even the VHS cover artwork is similar.
  • Gentle Giant:
    • Baloo, at least when not in Jerkass mode.
    • Sgt. Dunder, despite his occupation, also seems to apply.
    • Also Moby Dimple from "All's Whale That Ends Whale".
    • Henry the Yencara when he's wet (his species grows to 12 feet tall when wet, but shrinks to 6 inches when dry).
  • Gentleman Thief: Subverted with Covington from "Molly Coddled." He's a handsome, charming gentleman after a valuable idol who easily wins Rebecca over. But instead of a cunning thief, he turns out to be a slimy, ineffectual coward who would hurt Molly to get what he wants.
  • Get It Over With: In "The Time Bandit", Rebecca eventually finds the long drawn execution ceremony more torturous than death itself.
    Rebecca: [sobs] JUST GET IT OVER WITH! SHOOT ME!!!
  • Giant Mook: Spigot has a pair in his first episode. Arguably Dumptruck for the Air Pirates.
  • Girl of the Week: This was a standard theme in the show, and many of them have pretty generous fan bases.
  • Girls with Moustaches: Rebecca disguises herself with a moustache and beard in both "Plunder and Lightning" and "The Balooest of the Bluebloods".
  • Goo Goo Getup: In "The Bigger They Are, The Louder They Oink", as part of her plan to retrieve truffles from the Island of Zibaldo, Rebecca disguises a large ugly pig (not-so-affectionately named "Hogzilla" by Baloo) as a baby in order to get him past a security checkpoint that doesn't allow pigs.
  • The Grinch: In "Jolly Molly Christmas", Don Karnage decides the Sky Pirates will show the true spirit of giving; by making others give presents to them.
    Don Karnage: I am not usually this generous, but Christmas comes only once a year.

    H 
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Baloo, Kit and Louie, among others. Baloo calls Kit "Little Britches" (breeches) in spite of neither of them wearing pants at all, presumably as a Shout-Out to the Jungle Book Baloo calling Mowgli by the same nickname.
    • This even applies to the one episode where Baloo has to wear a tuxedo. Said tuxedo consists of a jacket, shirt, tie, cummerbund... and that's it.
  • Hard Truth Aesop: The message in "Save the Tiger": Be careful with what you promise. People might exploit the hell out of it.
  • Harmless Freezing: In "Bygones", Rick Sky and the rest of his squadron survived being frozen in ice for twenty years.
  • Hate Sink: The High Marshal of Thembria is the one character that's unanimously disliked among the fanbase. His whole purpose is to make Colonel Spigot slightly sympathetic by comparison.
  • He Knows Too Much: In “The Balooest of the Bluebloods”, Rebecca finds out the reason behind the mysterious deaths of the castle’s previous owners was not a curse, but were murders committed by the servants and their descendants in order to claim the inheritance. Unfortunately, Rebecca gets caught listening in by the latest servants and decide to kill her along with Baloo.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Kit, who leaves the Air Pirates before the series begins.
  • Hero of Another Story: The pilot and "Jumping the Guns" make it clear that the cliff gunners have thwarted several of Karnage's attempts to sneak into the city or attack it by force without any help from Baloo. In the latter episode, two guards playing checkers easily see through Karnage's latest disguise (covering his airship in smoke to seem like a cloud) and casually load their cannon to drive him off while laughing about a Noodle Incident where Karnage tried to sneak past them disguised as a parade float.
  • Heroic BSoD: Baloo does this in "A Bad Reflection On You".
    • Rebecca has a lighter variant in "I Only Have Ice For You".
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Baloo does this in the end of "Plunder And Lightning" where he rams the Sea Duck into Don Karnage's lightning gun and destroys it along with his plane that he had just reclaimed ownership for.
    • Rebecca also attempts this in "A Star Is Torn" by driving a booby trapped plane that Baloo was intended to fly for a stunt. However, Baloo saves her in time. She also does so in "Save The Tiger" by selling Higher For Hire to pay for ransom money after Baloo is supposedly kidnapped in Shere Khan's Evil Plan.
  • Hero Insurance: Subverted, this is often the reason Baloo comes off just as penniless following his good deeds than beforehand, with him often being rewarded, and then charged for his rather hazardous acts of heroism. Depending on how neccessary his acts of destruction were, this can lead some of his clients to come off as Ungrateful Bastards.
  • High-Class Glass: Rich Baloo in "Save the Tiger" acquires a monocle along with his fancy suit.
  • Hindenburg Incendiary Principle: In one episode, the villain specifically mentions that his fleet of zeppelins currently holding the city hostage is filled with highly explosive hydrogen, and therefore attempting to shoot them down would destroy the town as surely as not meeting his demands would.
  • Homage: Thembria, the USSR Expy, is populated by warthogs. Anyone remember Animal Farm?
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Rebecca occasionally takes deals from rather shifty clients to say the least.
    Rebecca: Jack is on a mission for the government, can't you understand?
    Baloo: Oh I understand, I just don't believe. I don't think he's really a spy.
    Rebecca: Oh? Then how do you explain the trench coat, huh? That's a spy's trench coat!
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Considering Baloo's size, this is a given with most females on the show, but he and Rebecca are the most common example. (Rebecca sometimes goes from being "relatively-tall-but-not-as-tall-as-Baloo" to being positively short overall and miniscule standing next to him, in part due to their exact sizes shifting sometimes when animated by different studios.)
  • Humanoid Female Animal:
    • Kitten Kaboodle and Clementine Clevenger look more humanoid than the others.
    • Rebecca, a female bear, has more human-like body proportions than Baloo, a male bear.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Much like DuckTales, everything original to the series has a name which has some level of puniness to it.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • "From Here to Machinery" has Rebecca telling Baloo he shouldn't lose his cool at every insult, rather he should be "calm and composed like her". When Baloo tells her seconds later that the same guy who insulted him is stealing her client, Rebecca loses it.
    • This starts the plot in "A Spy In The Ointment". Rebecca chastises Baloo for trusting her car to a "valet" (really a thief) without asking for credentials. Not five minutes later, she accepts the job of Jack Case, who says he's a secret agent, without asking for credentials. Baloo calls her out on this.
    • "Sheepskin Deep" has a kangaroo mailman insist that the postal service never loses letters...right before dropping several letters as he hops away.
    • "The Incredible Shrinking Molly" ends with the scientist having an idea to invent television, with Baloo, Rebecca, and Kit immediately ridiculing the idea, unaware that their adventures are a television show. Keep in mind that the series takes place in an era similar to the 1930s, when television was a laboratory stunt.

    I 
  • If I Can't Have You…: Done rather ridiculously in "Feminine Air", an episode where Baloo dresses as a woman in order to enter a females-only flying contest. One of his rivals is so besotted with his female persona that he proposes and, when he's turned down, invokes this trope and starts trying to kill "her".
  • Ignored Expert: Dr. Debolt (for about two seconds) in the pilot after saying Karnage may have built a lightning gun.
  • I Know You Know I Know: In "Waiders of the Wost Tweasure":
    Baloo: You're the one with the map. Which is the door to the treasure?
    Plane Jane: That one.
    Baloo: Hold it! You wouldn't tell me the right door. But you know that I know that you wouldn't tell me the right door, so this is the right door.
  • Impoverished Patrician: In "The Balooest of the Bluebloods" Baloo discovers that he's the heir to the Von Bruinwald Barony, which comes with a mansion, lands...and incredible debt.
  • Improbable Piloting Skills: Baloo is so good a pilot he can pilot a plane even if he has to resort to directly manipulating the control cables to a craft's flaps and rudder when the yoke was broke. Furthermore, in one episode, he was able to quickly learn how to fly a prototype helicopter, despite the fact that operating that kind of vehicle is a completely different (not to mention revolutionary for the 1930s) concept in aviation. And don't forget, he was able to successfully "pilot" a prototype jet engine merely by hanging on to it and tugging on it real hard. No wings, no rudder, no plane. Just the engine. He even broke the sound barrier while riding it.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: Molly (and later Baloo and Rebecca) in "The Incredible Shrinking Molly".
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: The following exchange from "In Search of Ancient Blunders":
    Don Karnage: Fire at will!
    (Will runs away, screaming, as the other pirates try to shoot him)
    Don Karnage: No, no, no, don't fire at Will, he is my second mate. Fire at the Sea Duck!
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: Rebecca is something of a pompous know-it-all who has nothing against pushing her weight around to get Baloo to follow orders. Whenever Baloo is taken out of the picture, however, things often fall apart due to Rebecca's physical and emotional dependance on him to help run the company. Some obvious dents left from being a single mother are also apparent.
  • Inferred Survival: Due to the setting, airplanes crashing down happens quite often. Due to the fact that this is a Disney series aimed at kids, you can always see the pilots escaping just in time via parachute. Even though they didn't wear a parachute-backpack before and didn't have time to put one on... (Granted, the slapstick tone means any exceptions to this merely lead to Amusing Injuries).
  • Innocent Prodigy: Kit has his moments of this.
  • Insistent Terminology:
    • Baloo prefers to call Rebecca "Becky;" early episodes show her arguing with him about it, wanting him to call her Rebecca, but when he finally does she says "It's Becky."
    • According to Don Karnage, he and his men don't rob. They plunder. Why? Because they are pirates, not robbers.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: In one episode Baloo decides to do the one thing left he wants to do, fly across the Bearmuda Trapezoid. At the end, Rebecca assured him that she knew he'd come back and never doubted him for a moment, right before another pilot comes in asking about the job she had listed for Baloo's replacement.
  • Interspecies Romance
    • There are three or four episodes which cast Baloo and Louie as competing, bumbling suitors for the Girl of the Week, who is neither a bear nor an orangutan.
    • Implied by Princess Lotta Lamour's father, a rabbit. She is a fox, meaning that her mother must be a fox also.
      • Unless Lotta was adopted.
  • I Take Offense to That Last One:
    Baloo: Because, [the pig is] messy, loud, obnoxious, ugly, and... *sniff* smelly.
    Rebecca: Well, so are you. Besides, it's my plane.
    Baloo: Who is she callin' messy?
  • It Will Never Catch On: At the end of "The Incredible Shrinking Molly", the episode's Mad Scientist mentions that he's working on a new medium called "television", and Baloo scoffs at the notion of "Radio with pictures". Curiously, movie serials and newsreels are shown to be a legitimate medium in the show. Said mad scientist may actually be the inventor of Television in their world. However, due to him being a one-off character, it's anyone's guess, especially seeing as the show has long since gone off the air.

    J-K 
  • Jerkass:
    • Ace London is an arrogant blowhard who believes himself the best pilot ever and demeans everyone else.
    • Dan Dawson, who takes on Kit to be the star of his air circus with talks of fame and fortune. In reality, he purposely skimps him on the promised payment in order to keep the biggest cuts for himself, then later revealed he doesn't mind getting people hurt or worse in doing his insanely dangerous stunts if it gets him big money.
    • Cool Hands is a sexist prick who demeans Baloo simply for having a woman for a boss and paints him and Higher for Hire in a bad light for the very same reason.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Both Baloo and Rebecca, though the extent of both the "Jerk" and the "heart of gold" element for both varies from episode to episode.
  • Job-Stealing Robot: Baloo deals with one in "From Here to Machinery".
  • Kangaroo Court: This is apparently the preferred "justice" system of the warthog-run Soviet Union expy Thembria. As Colonel Spigot explains to Rebecca Cunningham at one point (when she's just been arrested), the system is very simple and efficient: "First you will be given a fair trial. Then you will be shot."
  • Kitchen Sink Included:
    • In the episode, "Bringing Down Babyface", Baloo, Kit, and Rebecca are on the run from the law and are being chased through the sewers. The police try to stop them by stuffing items from stop signs and lights to a tree down the manholes. Baloo comments that the police used everything but the kitchen sink. They then dodge a kitchen sink, after which, Rebecca tells Baloo not to give them any more ideas. Baloo then comments that they didn't use a bathtub, and a bathtub falls on the Sea Duck. After which, Rebecca tells Baloo to be quiet.
    • In the episode, "It Came From Beneath the Sea Duck", Don Karnage sends Mad Dog and Dump Truck into the city, telling them to steal everything, including the kitchen sink. Later, when the heroes have a confrontation with a giant squid, the squid accidentally rips the sink from Rebecca's kitchen and drops it into Mad Dog and Dump Truck's submarine. Don Karnage is not amused when they bring it to him.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: An amusing literal example in "The Balooest of the Blue Bloods". Paranoid about inheriting a bad-luck curse, Baloo protects himself with medieval armor. This later becomes pivotal in saving Rebecca after she learns the truth behind the supposed curse.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Baloo on occasion acts as this. In "My Fair Baloo", for example, he is chastised for acting like a "buffoon" at a high-class ball in the Spruce Moose. Almost immediately following this, he saves the guests from two attempted hijackings, a plane crash and being stranded on an isolated island.
    Baloo: Now give me one good reason why I should bail those snot nosed money-grubbers.
    Rebecca: Because you're better than them?
    Baloo: ...Hmm, good answer. Let's go.
    • He and Rebecca often trade this role with each other. For all they suffer from each other, they will go to great lengths to keep the other safe.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Shere Khan is far less bumbling compared to the rest of the Rogues Gallery and can be pretty effective and dangerous if pushed hard enough. Of course, the show did like to poke fun of his supposed "seriousness" at times. Interestingly, this trope made its way into his Jungle Book incarnation for the sequel (in contrast to his counterpart in the original film, who was fearsome but too hammy and whimsical to count).
    • Klang in "From Whom the Bell Klangs" seeking out a weapon of mass destruction with the intention of selling it off to the highest bidder, being voiced by Tim Curry, and resembling a serpentine version of Darth Vader.

    L 
  • Large Ham: As is the case with most Disney Afternoon characters voiced by Jim Cummings, Don Karnage (Speaking to you now! In his own voice!) fits this to a tee.
    • About half the cast fits this trope to an extent, even some of the more Closer to Earth characters can't help hamming it up at times.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: "The Old Man and the Sea Duck".
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Happens quite a few times in the series, and when it strikes, it strikes hard.
  • Laughably Evil:
  • Lava Pot Volcano: "Pizza Pie in the Sky" has Baloo team up with Louie to run a pizza delivery service, using the Sea Duck as a flying kitchen. When Baloo loses the pizza oven out the loading ramp, he decides to cook the pizzas by flying around in an active volcano's caldera, depicted as a rocky bowl filled with a large lake of molten rock. Baloo and Kit survive the process with ice blocks tied to their heads. Convection, Schmonvection proves highly arbitrary, as the volcano's heat does indeed cook the pizzas, but doesn't make the Sea Duck's hull sizzling hot, overheat its engines, nor set ablaze its tanks of aviation fuel. Toon Physics at their finest.
  • Leitmotif:
    • Wildcat frequently has a quirky flute melody accompany many of his appearances. The Disney Afternoon OST disk also includes numerous one shot tracks that signaled different characters and locations.
    • The Seaduck itself has a recurring heroic swell that plays nearly every episode, typically when either Baloo's pulling off an impressive stunt or the characters return to it for an escape.
  • Let There Be Snow: Molly's wish in "Jolly Molly Christmas".
  • Line-of-Sight Name: While trying to come up with a name for the "deceased uncle" that left him $50,000, Baloo's eyes alight upon a vacuum cleaner and goes with "Hoover".
  • Literal Metaphor: When Don Karnage tells his crew to "fire at will", they first shoot at Will, the second mate.
  • Little Miss Badass: Molly in several episodes. Some of them being "Molly Coddled", "Mommy For A Day", and "The Incredible Shrinking Molly".
  • Local Hangout: Louie's is this for pilots, except that it's not really local, being out in the middle of the ocean. This gets justified in one episode, where it turns out that Louie's is about one tankful of airplane fuel away from Cape Suzette (and presumably near a major air route.)
  • Lonely Rich Kid: Oscar Vandershnoot in "Captains Outrageous".
  • Loves Only Gold: The episode "Vowel Play" has the villain Heimlich Minudo, a Funny Animal leopard with an obsession for diamonds, to the point where he has implanted diamonds in place of his teeth. His Evil Plan involves holding Cape Suzette hostage unless he's given all of its diamonds.
  • Luke Noun Verber: Kit Cloudkicker.
    • They poke a little fun at the naming convention when Kit reads it from the local newspaper:
    Kit (reading): "Kit CLOWN-KICKER?!"

    M 
  • Macross Missile Massacre: The pandas try this on Baloo. However, the missiles don't lock on the Sea Duck to perform a full-fledged Itano Circus because they're heat-seeking, and Baloo has loaded his plane with ice.
  • Mad Scientist: At least three of them.
  • Malaproper: Much of Don Karnage's dialogue fits the trope.
  • Mama Bear: Rebecca is a literal example to Molly.
  • Manchild: Wildcat. There are also times when Baloo and Rebecca don't quite act their age.
  • Mathematician's Answer: Whenever it would be funny.
    Kit (viewing a pair of 400'-tall mirrors): How did you build such enormous mirrors??
    Don Karnage: We did not "build" them... we stole them!
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Kit Cloudkicker. "Kit" can mean both "kite" (as he is when Sky Surfing and towed by the Sea Duck) and "small animal," which he is. "Cloudkicker" refers more overtly to his Sky Surfing.
      • It also harkens to how he wants to kick the clouds of his troubled past away.
    • Don Karnage, a pirate lord whose name evokes "carnage." Also overlaps with Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
  • Mega-Maw Maneuver: In the first episode, the air pirates are harassing a Khan cargo plane, which ducks into a cloud bank, only to be swallowed by the Iron Vulture.
  • Men of Sherwood:
    • Cape Suzette has a large staff of artillery gunners stationed on the cliffs outside the city to fight invaders. They don’t appear often, but when they do, they’re just as likely to drive invaders (usually Karnage and his air pirates) away as they are to fail due to some trick or super weapon. Even when they are defeated, they always survive. The airplane pilots who make up the city’s second line of defense are also quite competent, but whenever a threat is dire enough to send them against it, it will also be formidable enough to shoot down the planes (although the pilots always bail out) and require Baloo to save the day.
    • Shere Khan's private air force tends to be defeated, either by Baloo or the air pirates, but his navy is an impressive force in "A Bad Reflection on You." The villains' only hope of bating them is a minefield trick, and when that fails, they play a decent role in routing their enemies.
    • Rick Sky's old military squadron from "Bygones" only show up at the end of the episode, after being thawed out of an iceberg, and only have two or three lines of dialogue between them. However, when they fight the Air Pirates in their antique planes, they subject Don Karnage to a devastating defeat and only one squadron member is (non-fatally) shot down.
    Baloo: There's five times as many of them as you.
    Sky: I know it seems a tad unfair, but we'll let them have the first shot.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Colonel Spigot and ACE LONDON!
  • Militaries Are Useless: Zigzagged. The first episode establishes that the Cape Suzette cliff guns are a credible defense capable of driving back Don Karnage. Karnage (and the Panda-La army) are able to get past them from time to time with significant trickery or a super-weapon of some kind but in general the cliff gunners are portrayed as brave in the middle of battle and savvy enough to see through a lot of Karnage's attempts to get past them (like by covering the Iron Vulture in a cloud of smoke). The pilots for the city's air defense are also no slouches fighting bravely in the face of danger (with one making a particularly good showing in the Panda-La episode until the heat-seeking rockets come out) but in the end they'll get overwhelmed and Baloo is the one who will save the day with a flying trick.
  • The Millstone: Played around with Baloo. Though genuinely heroic, he is often as much the cause of the show's problems as he is the savior of them.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: Sgt. Dunder, though astoundingly loyal to Col. Spigot, has a meek, friendly disposition and is friendly towards Baloo and Kit when he's on his own time. Spigot himself (as a minion to the glorious Peoples' Republic of Thembria!) is more of a Jerkass, a Well-Intentioned Extremist and/or a Punch-Clock Villain than outright evil.
  • Missing Mom: Both of Kit's parents are missing and Princess Lotta Lamour's mother also.
  • Mister Big: Trader Moe, a diminutive alligator mafia boss with two Dumb Muscle goons.
  • Mobile City: Panda-La can rise off the ground using giant balloons and fly through the air. This was done to suit its inhabitants' taste for conquest — when the pandas decided they wanted to take over a new land, they moved their city to their target location, subjugated it, and landed there until they set their eyes somewhere else.
  • Mood Whiplash: "Her Chance To Dream" is fairly light hearted and comical for the most part, with Rebecca obliviously becoming infatuated with a ghost that is tormenting Baloo and Louie. However, when Baloo finally convinces her who he is, he realises the terrible decision she now has to make...
  • Morality Pet: Molly to Rebecca. Word of God says that Molly was written essentially to offset Rebecca's nagging tendencies towards Baloo, and bring out her softer and often more protective sides. Kit often brings out this element in Baloo as well.
  • More Dakka: Don Karnage's Tri-Wing Terror consists of little more than an engine, a small cockpit, and six stubby wings which seem to be little more than mounts for the six large-caliber machine guns.
  • Motive Decay: Somewhat. Depending on the Writer, Baloo could be insistent on working for Higher For Hire solely to get the Sea Duck back from Rebecca, or has grown accustomed to (if not outright enjoys) working for her. In "Save The Tiger", he basically retcons his insured wealth and ownership of the plane just so she can have her business back.
  • Mummy: "In Search of Ancient Blunders".
  • The Mutiny: Karnage's men try to overthrow their captain on a couple odd occasions, though they admittedly aren't brilliant at it.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • In "On a Wing and a Bear", Baloo uses the phrase "Bear Necessities", which calls back to the song of the same name he sung in The Jungle Book.
    • In his first appearance in "Plunder and Lightning Part 1", Baloo sings a song about how great his life is without any resposibilities, which is broadly the same theme as "Bear Necessities". He also dons a makeshift skirt and hat to do so, similar to his disguise when he joins in "I Wanna Be Like You".

    N-O 
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Don Karnage.
  • The Napoleon: Colonel Spigot.
    • Also Trader Moe.
  • National Animal Stereotypes:
    • Thembrians (Russians) are boars.
    • Panda-La (Yellow Peril Chinese) are pandas; notability this got the episode pulled from official releases.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: Between Rebecca Cunningham, Katie Dodd, and Myra, this was inevitable.
  • Never My Fault: The punishment for lot of offenses in Thembria, regardless of who is responsible for them, tend involve Spigot getting shot, who in turn blames a lot of his blunders on Dunder.
  • Never Win the Lottery: In "Your Baloo's in the Mail", Rebecca wins a big prize from a radio station, then trusts lazy Baloo to deliver her winning ticket—without telling him how important it is. Hilarity Ensues. ..but as noted above, some fans don't appreciate that the Downer Ending, where Baloo delivers the ticket just a few seconds too late, is Played for Laughs.
    • Or for that matter, the same radio station offering to purchase the one-of-a-kind stamp on the ticket's envelope for the cost of the prize... which they discover after Baloo throws it away - and just as the garbage truck pulls away after collecting it.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: The Thembrians, Sgt. Dunder, the High Marshall, and Col. Spigot have this respective dynamic. Dunder is gregarious and respectful to Baloo and his friends. The High Marshall is a Bad Boss who threatens to shoot those who fail their task and disappoint him in any way, most commonly Spigot. Spigot is short and ill-tempered, but does everything he can to please the High Marshall and has a frenemy relationship with Baloo.
  • The Nicknamer: Baloo.
  • No Antagonist: There are a few episodes that lack a proper villain.
    • "For a Fuel Dollars More" is about a rivalry between Baloo and Louie, after Rebecca's new middair refuelling station takes business away from Louie's place.
    • "The Old Man and the Sea Duck" involves Baloo getting amnesia and trying to relearn how to fly.
    • "Sheepskin Deep" has Principal Pomeroy, who at worst comes off as "annoying". He's really just a stickler for rules who doesn't think highly of Baloo and his shenanigans.
    • "Pizza Pie in the Sky" has the health inspector. He gives Baloo a hard time and ultimately fines him, but in actuality he's just doing his job.
    • "Your Baloo's in the Mail" is about Baloo struggling to get a letter delivered on time after not paying for express shipping.
    • "The Incredible Shrinking Molly" has a rat that terrorizes the shrunken characters. However, it comes off as being a wild animal and not a proper villain.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: In "A Star Is Torn", several celebrities from The '30s (or at least their furry equivalents) make cameos.
  • No Kill like Overkill: Thembria's preferred method of execution is the six-gun salute. Said guns come in the form of either cannons or tanks. And then they just might hang you afterwards.
    Spigot: We're very thorough.
  • No Waterproofing in the Future: Martin Torque's Auto-Aviators may by decades ahead of their time, but one soda bottle's enough to put them down for the count.
  • Non-Indicative Name: The "gorilla birds" from the first half of the pilot aren't the Mix-and-Match Critters their names would suggest - they are just large flightless vulture-like birds. The only thing they have in common with gorillas is their size and their tropical habitat.
  • Noodle Implements: In the pilot Don Karnage plans to... somehow... use turnips and sandpaper to get Kit to talk. Naturally he is rescued before we can find out the details.
    • Just before the rescue takes effect, however, Kit throws out an angry retort to the implied threat; Karnage responds by dropping these items and drawing his sword, which suggests he may have been bluffing up until that point.
    Karnage: Now, my boy, I want some answers.
    Kit: Stuff it in your windsock!
  • Not So Above It All: Rebecca in a rather extensive manner (though she is toned down slightly in later episodes).
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Similarly, the Thembrian military usually consisted largely of bumblers whose favored ammunition is stacks of bologna; however, when set on actually offing someone, they take it to torturous extremes.
  • Not Where They Thought:
    • In "Gruel and Unusual Punishment", Baloo decides to visit a weight loss clinic so he can lose enough weight to escort Rebecca to the Pilot's Ball in a slimming tuxedo. However, due to having mistaken a guacamole stain on the map for the location, he ends up in a Thembrian prison, which he mistakes for the weight loss clinic.
    • Invoked in "A Jolly Molly Christmas"; Baloo gets Louie to disguise his nightclub as Santa's workshop, himself as Santa Claus, and his employees as Santa's elves to trick Molly into thinking she's at the North Pole. For a while, this works, but once Louie's customers end up exposing his ruse, Molly runs out of the club crying.
  • Object-Shaped Landmass: Inverted in "The Idol Rich" when Baloo and Kit take part in a treasure hunt. The treasure is said to be "right under your nose." A map of the area shows a lake that's shaped like a moose's head. An exchange with Colonel Spigot and some troops from Thembria results in Baloo being held upside down. When they do, Baloo sees that Moose Lake resembles a nose with a moustache under it.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "From Here to Machinery", Baloo fails a contest that decides a mass buyout of a mechanical pilot. Since Higher For Hire is consequently out of business, Rebecca notes sadly that she has to sell the Sea Duck, Baloo's beloved plane, in order to keep a roof under her and Molly's head. While Kit is mortified, a guilt ridden Baloo just solemnly tells him to let it go.
  • Offscreen Villainy: During the pilot there are more than a few mentions of Don Karnage being famous for never letting anyone go, never taking anyone prisoner, and never leaving any evidence, the time he did let some pilots alive being due to him wanting to send a message. Of course, he never kills anyone over the course of the show (unless you count collateral damage from the Lightning Gun), mostly either due to his men's incompetence (or his own, occasionally), or Baloo and the gang being just that good.
  • Old-Fashioned Fruit Stomping: A variant in the episode; when Louie turns his nightclub into a pizza air delivery service, he puts tomatoes in a vat and stomps on them to make pizza sauce.
  • Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List
  • On One Condition: "The Balooest of the Bluebloods".
  • The One Who Wears Shoes: Don Karnage and Gibber of the Air Pirates, as well as some guest star characters such as Katie Dodd ("For Whom the Bell Klangs") and Clementine Clevenger ("Citizen Khan").
  • Only in It for the Money: Baloo insists to Becky he's only working at Higher For Hire until he's earned enough to buy back the Sea Duck. While he holds up to that deal a couple of times he earns big, it's often implied to be a bit more complex than that.
  • Or My Name's Not: "...Ace London!" "Ya got that right."
  • Out of Focus/Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Many of the later episodes stray from the goings on of Higher For Hire and focus more on Baloo adventuring outside Cape Suzette. While Rebecca, Molly and Kit feature less as a result, Wildcat and Louie gain more prominent roles in later episodes.
  • Overdrive: Used in the first episode. Combines Nitro Boost with Explosive Overclocking if left on too long.
    • The Iron Vulture has Full Throttle mode, which gives it extra lift and is needed when it's carrying something extremely heavy (like a pyramid or iceberg) but causes the ship to rocket out of control if used during normal flight. Naturally the extra weight is always ejected before they can shut it off, sending them comically blasting off.
  • Overly Polite Pals: Baloo and Kit have one of these moments in one episode.

    P-Q 
  • Papa Bear: Baloo, of the surrogate kind to Kit (and to a lesser extent Molly). Kit even calls him Papa Bear, as Mowgli did in The Jungle Book.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise:
    • Rebecca tries to enter a restaurant exclusive to movie stars and is immediately booted out by the doorman. She managed to get in seconds later by simply adding a feather boa to herself.
    • Baloo tends to be very successful with these.
  • Parental Substitute: Baloo and to a much lesser extent Rebecca, to Kit. Baloo also has moments with Molly.
  • Perilous Old Fool: Whistlestop Jack was the best pilot in the world...at the very dawn of aviation. Some twenty or thirtyish years later, his inability to adapt to those strange new monowing aircraft (even relics like the Sea Duck) makes his piloting dangerous. Notably, Rebecca had him in a publicity position until he offered to help out/cover for Baloo. After nearly getting shot down by Khan's men, he comes to his senses.
  • Ping Pong NaĂŻvetĂ©: Kit's view of Baloo varies from episode to episode, in some episodes he is completely oblivious to Baloo's faults and idolizes him blindly; in others he is the Only Sane Man and The Smart Guy of the team; in others still he's easily manipulated by con men or "too good to be true" deals that even Baloo sees right through.
  • Pity the Kidnapper: Karnage in "The Ransom of Red Chimp".
  • Platonic Co-Parenting: Baloo and Rebecca Cunningham are not a married couple and on many occasions are at each other's throats, especially when running Hire for Hire, with Rebecca being bossy and Baloo being lazy. Nonetheless, they both act as parental figures to Baloo's adopted son, Kit, and Rebecca's biological daughter, Molly.
  • Poke the Poodle: Both Don Karnage and the Thembrian Army have shown occasional tactics such as this. Subverted slightly as acts such as scratching your nails on a chalkboard and forcing you through a cheesy chat show are actually considered all manner of hell for their hostages.
  • Polly Wants a Microphone: Ignatz in "Polly Wants a Treasure".
  • Poor Communication Kills: The entire episode "Your Baloo's In The Mail" proves this.
  • Portal Statue Pairs: The lost city of Tenabulon has a giant pair of stone scarabs on either side of its main entry. The wings of the scarabs function as the city's gates and will open or close depending on what notes are played on the control bells.
  • Poverty Food: The staple diet of Thembria is "gruel", it looks like something used as glue more than food. When Baloo is trapped in a Thembrian prison camp, he's roped into a plot by one of the inmates to blow off Thembria's "Strategic Gruel Reserves".
  • Prestige Peril: In "The Balooest of the Bluebloods", work-a-day pilot Baloo learns that he's the last survivor of the Bruinwald bloodline, and thus, heir to a barony. Suddenly, Baloo is living large, and loving it. However, Baloo is shown portraits of his predecessors, each of whom died under peculiar circumstances. It's revealed that the Bruinwalds were all murdered by the one who would have stewardship of the barony in the absence of any Bruinwald.
  • Pretentious Pronunciation: Mr. Weasel in "Vowel Play" demands people pronounce it wee-ZEL, not WEE-sel.
  • Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Princess Lotta Lamour from "The Road to Macadamia". She's not afraid to confront her kingdom's Evil Chancellor ("Touch me and you're dust, buster!"), and during a fight she knocks out several of the chancellor's Mooks with a big mallet.
  • Product Delivery Ordeal: The episode "A Spy In The Ointment" involves Jack Case as a covert agent charged with delivering a package to the Thembrian High Marshall. Case hires Higher For Hire to fly himself into hostile Thembria, which is modeled somewhat after the Soviet Union, paranoia included. During the process, it's discovered that the package meant for the High Marshall is just fishing lures, and that Case isn't a covert agent. He's just a mailman that screwed up his deliveries, and is trying to right his wrong without anyone finding out.
  • Pronouncing My Name for You: One episode features a weasel client named Weezelle. He insists that his name be properly pronounced ("wee-ZEL!"). Naturally, everyone just called him "Weasel". Eventually, this annoys him so much that he refuses to do any more work until his name is correctly pronounced.
  • Properly Paranoid: In "The Balooest of the Bluebloods," someone is clearly trying to kill Baloo after he's inherited a vast mansion and fortune so he asks Rebecca and Wildcat to spend the night at his place for safety. Rebecca doesn't believe Baloo until she hears his screaming and, intending to give him shit for imagining things, is horrified when she enters the room and finds Baloo pinned to the wall with arrows and about to be impaled.
  • Pun-Based Title: In the DuckTales tradition, Tale Spin is a pun on "Tailspin".
  • Punishment Box: Baloo stays at a Thembrian penal colony which he has mistaken for a fitness camp. He is frequently sent to what he calls a "solar powered sauna."
  • Punny Name: All over the place. For starters, lampshaded by Baloo that Rebecca renaming his business "Higher for Hire" was an Incredibly Lame Pun. Then there are area names like Cape Suzette (CrĂŞpe Suzette), episode titles like "The Idol Rich" (The Idle Rich) and "The Sound and the Furry", and some major and minor characters' names.
  • Putting on the Reich: The nation of Thembria resembles the Soviet Union.

    R 
  • Ramming Always Works: How the Lightning Gun from "Plunder and Lightning" was destroyed.
    • Averted a few minutes earlier when the Sky Pirates attempt to ram the door in order to prevent Kit from sending the message to Baloo about his efforts to sabotage the Lightning Gun.
  • Rash Promise: Done by Shere Khan in "Save the Tiger" after Baloo saves his life and he promises to repay Baloo's act under his personal code to "Always repay your debts, and never go back on a deal." Unfortunately, Baloo begins milking Khan's generosity for all it's worth and demands all sorts of exorbitant favors from Khan. Khan ends up having to manipulate events to have Baloo kidnapped so he would willingly ask Khan to return things to normal and demand no further favors.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Captain William Stansbury from "Her Chance To Dream".
  • Refuse to Rescue the Disliked:
    • The manipulative Covington from the episode "Molly Coddled" makes an Accidental Public Confession that he's been courting Rebecca solely to gain access to Molly's new doll, which is actually the key to a treasure cave. After dressing Covington down for toying with her, Rebecca and company leave Covington to the mercy of his two accomplices, who have had an ax to grind with Covington since the episode's outset.
    • In "My Fair Baloo", after a snobby dinner party throws out Baloo for rescuing them in a hap hazardous manner they are captured again. Baloo pulls off this trope, but is convinced out of it rather quickly by Rebecca.
  • Reminder Failure: In the episode "Vowel Play", Kit Cloudkicker helps Baloo skywrite the message "Weight until dark" [sic], but remembers only half the spelling mnemonic of I before E except after C. The message appears as "Wieght until dark," which would be the code for "bombard City Hall." Fortunately, Kit remembers the second half of the mnemonic in time: "Or when sounding like A, as in neighbor or weigh." Baloo deftly corrects the fault in time.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Klang, the Knight of Cerebus villain in the two-part episode "For Whom the Bell Klangs," who is revealed at the end of the episode to be a snake, rather than a lizard as he first appeared. Another recurring reptile villain was Trader Moe, a crocodile.
    • The episode "Bullethead Baloo" featured a oneshot villain named Dr. Axolotl, a mad scientist salamander who created a robot to kidnap Shere Khan.
  • Requisite Royal Regalia: The land of Wallawallabingbang has a pair of "ruby wings". They really are wings, but some assumed they were rings due to the dialect of the kingdom's people.
  • Reset Button: Baloo has managed to save up enough money to buy back his plane more than a few times, but even when events didn't conspire to put him back to work for Becky, the fact of the matter is that he is a lousy businessman and usually ends up asking for his job back anyway. On the other hand, after an early episode ("I Only Have Ice for You") where Rebecca has trouble learning how to pilot a plane (from a book), a later story shows that she's learned a lot from Baloo and is now a capable pilot on her own. Of course, she still gladly hands the controls to the Ace Pilot when there's any crazy stunts to be pulled.
  • Restaurant-Owning Episode: In "Pizza Pie in the Sky", Baloo and Kit decide to turn Louie's nightclub into a pizza air delivery business called Pizza Pie in the Sky. The business gets an order for 200 pizzas, one of which has anchovies. When the irregular anchovies that Baloo and Kit get make Louie sick, Baloo and Kit are left to try and make the pizzas themselves. In the end, it is revealed that the delivery was for the Better Business seminar that Rebecca was attending, and Rebecca was the one who ordered the anchovy pizza. Baloo and Kit make $500.00 from the delivery, but are forced to pay $499.00 worth of fines to the Health Inspector for all the health and safety violations they racked up.
  • Reused Character Design: The kitten that appears at the beginning of "Paradise Lost" is identical to Spunky, who is from an episode of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers entitled "Catteries Not Included".
  • Ridiculous Exchange Rates: When Baloo recovers an idol from Colonel Spigot he trades it in for a 13 million torbit reward. He calls Rebecca, bragging that he's going to buy the Sea Duck back, while Louie figures out the exchange rate from torbits to shaboozis (Cape Suzette currency). Eight shaboozis worth of gas (plus ice cream tab, tax, and tip) wipes out the whole reward. Suddenly completely broke, Baloo is forced to do an immediate about-face, meekly telling Rebecca he'll be back to work tomorrow and asking if he can reverse charges on the call.
  • The Rival: Plane Jane and Ace London to Baloo.
  • Rocket Ride: In "Mach One for the Gipper", Baloo flies a newly invented jet engine. No, not a plane with a jet engine—literally just the engine.
  • Rotten Robotic Replacement: "From Here to Machinery" revolves around an attempt by Khan Industries to replace all pilots with a robot, the "Auto-Aviator", and Baloo's fight to not be put out of business. While he's unfortunately unable to beat the Auto-Aviator in a Man Versus Machine competition, the Auto-Aviator showcases a very fatal flaw on in the episode's final act: it is completely unable to change from its preset course and will not accept orders to do so, even when not doing so endangers the plane and everybody in it from being shot down by air pirates.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Princess Lotta Lamour helps Baloo and Louie save her kingdom from Chancellor Trample.
  • Rule of Cool: A general staple of the show, but most evident with Kit's airfoil. To be clear, it assumes a 12 year-old boy can hang on to a rope behind an airplane (travelling at a minimum of 150 mph), while coordinating a piece of metal below his feet.
  • Ruritania: Thembria.

    S 
  • Safe Under Blankets: At the end of "For a Fuel Dollars More", Baloo is recovering in the hospital after Rebecca's last great idea literally blew up (albeit with some help from him). When she starts going on about another crazy scheme, he moans and pulls his blanket up over his head.
  • Sanity Ball: Thrown around frequently, usually between Baloo, Rebecca or Kit for a Straight Man and Wise Guy scenario.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Baloo is often shown to be rather overambitious with money, and is dead set on buying back the Sea Duck from Rebecca, however when he realises some immoral and harmful undertone in a scheme or investment, he turns it down immediately.
    • A frequent scruple for Shere Khan, his moral code preventing him from doing anything truly irredeemable.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: This is the basis behind several of his more petty schemes however.
  • The Shangri-La: Subverted in the TV episode "Last Horizons", used straight in the Disney Adventures comic "The Gates of Shambala".
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Rebecca looks disturbingly good in a fancy dress.
    • Also Katie Dodd when she is having dinner at the restaurant in "For Whom The Bell Klangs".
  • Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Kit is only seen attending school twice, though one has to wonder when he has time to what with all the adventures he goes on.
  • Shout-Out:
    • "Polly Wants A Treasure": Polly is called a "rare Norwegian Blue".
    • Also, in one episode a character warns that "no one dares to face The Wrath of Khan!"
    • And who could forget the "This Was Your Life" execution ceremony in "The Time Bandit", complete with cheesy host and aquaintances from the guest's past.
    • Very frequently in the episode titles. "Citizen Khan", "The Old Man and the Sea Duck", "Last Horizons", the list goes on for miles.
      • The episodes "The Road To Macadamia" and "For Whom the Bell Klangs" are straight up homages to the "Road" movies, with Baloo and Louie taking the places of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
    • Baloo's gypsy costume in the episode "A Spy In The Ointment" is extremely similar to Little John's costume from an early scene in Robin Hood (1973). This is actually Fridge Brilliance when you consider that Phil Harris was both the original voice actor for Baloo and the voice actor for Little John in the movie where the costume originated from.
    • Naturally, the show features a good few Shout Outs to The Jungle Book. Baloo's aforementioned tendency to disguise himself in drag is also likely a reference to a similar scene in the movie. "My Fair Baloo" also has Rebecca caught by a large (somewhat familiar-looking) constrictor snake. Shere Khan's panther pilots bear a striking resemblance to Bagheera.
    • Also in "Gruel And Unusual Punishment", when Baloo lands on Bedevilled Island, he floats on his back in a stream eating food off of his stomach, much like he did in The Jungle Book.
    • In "For Whom The Bell Klangs, Part 1", the restaurant Baloo and Louie visit bears a strong resemblance to Rick's CafĂ© AmĂ©ricain.
    • And a blink and you'll miss it moment in "It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck": Becky is unloading her groceries, including a bucket of Pep (from the DuckTales episode "The Big Flub"). (Yes, "Pep" can also also be peppermint, but seeing that they're both Disney cartoons...)
    • Don Karnage's "Let us not be the hasty puddings!!"
    • An episode about a prototype helicopter is called "Baloo Thunder".
    • "Bullethead Baloo" is an homage to The Rocketeer. Note that this episode came out shortly before Disney released their theatrical adaptation.
      • Also, when Baloo speaks to Dr. Axolotl on the phone, he claims to be Officer Krupke.
    • In at least one story from the Comic-Book Adaptation, Danger Woman is described as "faster than a speeding airship, more powerful than a turbine, able to leap city blocks in a single bound".
  • Singing Telegram: In the episode, "On a Wing and a Bear", Shere Khan hires Don Karnage to fake a fuel shortage so he can raise gas prices. When his plan succeeds, Khan orders his assistant, McWhirtley, to send a telegram to Karnage congratulating him on the highjacking. When McWhirtley arrives at Karnage's hideout, Karnage asks McWhirtley if he will sing the telegram for him, and McWhirtley tells him he can't, as it doesn't even rhyme. Karnage then holds McWhirtley at swordpoint, telling him to make it rhyme and sing it, which McWhirtley does. At the end of the episode, when Khan's plan is foiled by Baloo, Khan orders McWhirtley to send Karnage another telegram. McWhirtley asks Khan if it should be a singing one, but Khan tells him, "Not this time". The telegram Khan has McWhirtley send Karnage is an explosive that explodes when Karnage opens the envelope.
  • Show Within a Show: Danger Woman, Molly's favorite radio series.
  • Single-Season Country: The nation of Thembria, a rough expy of the Soviet Union, with an ongoing winter and a military bent. Most of Thembria's landscape is snow and ice, and one of their national holidays is the Slush Festival. Happy slush, comrade.
  • Sizeshifter: The Yencara species are size-shifting animals. When dehydrated, they shrink to 6 inches, but grow to gigantic size when water touches them.
  • Sky Heist:
    • Don Karnage and his Sky Pirates routinely intercept cargo planes, seize control of them via grappling hooks, board the cargo plane in mid-air, and abscond with its goodies. Karnage prefers to leave the pilot alive and the plane functional so that the two can "bring me more treasures and knickety-knacks, yes?" To judge by the pilot episode "Plunder and Lightning," the air pirates are fearsomely good at airborne piracy.
    • "In Search of Ancient Blunders" takes this up to eleven. Baloo, Wildcat, and Myra the archaeologist discover the legendary upside down pyramid of King Utmost, but end up leading the Sky Pirates to it. When Myra voices her concern about the pirates, Baloo dismissively says "What are they going to do? Take the whole pyramid?". Just as they find their way out, they see the Iron Vulture above using strong cables to tote the entire pyramid out of the ground.
  • The Sky Is an Ocean
  • Sky Pirates: Don Karnage and his crew.
  • Sky Surfing: Hence "Cloudkicker".
  • The Slacker: As competent a pilot as he is, Baloo is not a devoted worker.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: Baloo and Rebecca have this going on big time in several episodes.
  • Slave to PR: Ace London in "Mach One For The Gipper" has it all: worldwide fame, legions of adoring fans, and first in line for testing an experimental jet engine that will make history. One little mistake - ordering the engine loaded aboard Baloo's plane - could have been easily corrected if he'd admitted his mistake, but he has to fix it himself, without anybody knowing. It doesn't turn out well for him.
    Ace: No! No, no, no, no! I'm the one who should be famous! Not him!
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Rebecca a lot of times. Baloo also frequently fell victim to Acquired Situational Narcissism. Colonel Spigot as well.
  • Snap Back: At the end of "A Baloo Switcheroo", a body-switching idol accidentally causes Mad Dog and Dump Truck to switch bodies before falling out of the Iron Vulture and into the sea. The idol had been said to be the only thing capable of undoing its own power, and that its effect will be permanent if not used within a day's time. Mad Dog and Dump Truck are somehow back to normal in their next appearance, so maybe the pirates actually recovered it. Either way, the idol is never seen or mentioned outside of this sole episode.
  • Snobs Vs Slobs: Quite a bit, whether it's between Rebecca and Baloo or someone else and Baloo or Rebecca and someone else.
  • The Sociopath: Daring Dan Dawson from Stormy Weather. Lack of Empathy? He doesn't care if Kit gets hurt or killed during a stunt, cutting his straps and forcing him out of the plane during the climax and it's not the first time this has happened. Manipultive? Constantly feeds off Kit's ego and forces him to do the climactic stunt by pretending to take him home. Need for stimulation? An aerial daredevil by profession. Grandiose sense of self worth? Doesn't have much respect for non-daredevils, using terms like "little people" or "rubes." Shallow emotions? Painfully sycophantic when Kit threatens to quit.
  • Something We Forgot: A Running Gag throughout the episode, "The Balooest of the Blue Bloods" is Wildcat looking for the bathroom in Baloo's inherited mansion. At the end of the episode, the mansion gets repossessed, and when Baloo and Rebecca have lunch, they realize they left Wildcat behind at the mansion (who is still looking for the bathroom at that point).
  • Spare a Messenger: In "Plunder and Lightning Part 3", Karnage looks like he's subjecting two captured Khan fliers to a Disney Villain Death, but they land harmlessly in the ocean because the Iron Vulture is hovering only a few yard above the sea. Mad Dog asks why he let them live, and Karnage says he wants them to tell Khan about the mysterious items he's stealing to worry the business magnate.
  • Specs of Awesome: Myra wears them.
  • Spotting the Thread: Detective Thursday in "Vowel Play" when he begins to notice the misspelled sky writing in the midst of a criminal conspiracy.
  • Stealth Pun: The Sky Pirates are anthropomorphic canines who engage in aerial combat. They are dogfighters.
  • Stewed Alive: In "The Bigger They Are, the Louder They Oink", Rebecca Cunningham, while on a truffle-hunting expedition, is captured by pygmies who try to cook her together with her truffle-hunting pig in a stew with plenty of truffle.
  • Sticky Situation: "Stuck on You", in which Baloo and Don Karnage are glued together. The trope name even appears in the dialogue.
  • The Stoic: Shere Khan, to extremes. Even when abducted by a psychopathic robot, his reaction is to merely fold his arms and groan "I am not amused".
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Don Karnage is pretty much the only competent Air Pirate (or the nearest to one). This tends to put a damper on his plans.

    T 
  • Taking Advantage of Generosity: In one episode, Baloo saves Shere Khan, and Khan says he owes Baloo "everything", which Baloo takes almost literally in making demands.
  • Taxman Takes the Winnings: The ending of "The Balooest of the Blue Bloods". Baloo stands to inherit a ton of money from a distant relative, while the servants try to kill him. After he survives the night, all the money is lost due to the "real family curse" - decades of unpaid land taxes.
    • Similarly, when he manages to claim a huge reward for a recovered artifact, the bulk of it is taken up by the bar tab he ran up at Louie's. Though considering that Louie regularly lets him run up a tab that size, it's still a net gain.
    • Again, Baloo receives a huge cash reward for the capture of Babyface Halfnelson, but then the police immediately takes it back to evenly cover all his unpaid parking tickets he's accumulated.
    • And again, Baloo gets a huge cash reward from Shere Khan for recovering his company's top secret project and keeping it from getting stolen by a rival. Then he gives a silent command to his secretary, who takes it all back from Baloo to cover the collateral damages done on his building.
  • That Makes Me Feel Angry: His specific way of announcing this is one of Don Carnage's catch phrases.
  • The Cameo: Other than the reuse of Kaa's design for certain snakes, Jock appears as one of Don Karnage's pirates and Tick-Tock appears in the episode "The Sound and the Furry" as Crazy Edie's pet alligator.
  • Those Magnificent Flying Machines: As should be expected from a show starring an Ace Pilot who pilots all sorts of crazy machines and regularly contends with Sky Pirates. Airplanes and airships are so prominent in the setting, that a guy can run a successful hangout for pilots in the middle of the ocean.
  • Those Wacky Nazis: In one Disney Adventures comic story, "The Dogs of War", Baloo and Kit were briefly held hostage by a zeppelin full of smug, militaristic, German-accented dogs who kept mixing up their "v's" and their "w's".
  • Tickle Torture: Don Karnage does it to Kit in "Polly Wants a Treasure".
  • Title Theme Tune: Played with. While the song itself is a straight example, it's actually called "Spin it".
  • Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In "The Ransom of Red Chimp", Don Karnage kidnaps Louie's aunt and tries to ransom her for an insane amount of money. However, she develops an irresistible attraction to him becoming a crazed Stalker with a Crush, much to Karnage's horror. He's spent a good portion of the episode trying to get away from her, trapped in his own airship. When Baloo and Louie arrive to rescue Louie's aunt, Karnage begs them to take her back, even paying them to do so.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Baloo is often shown to act more selfish and egotistical than his original Jungle Book interpretation (albeit Depending on the Writer and balanced by his role in some other episodes).
  • Total Eclipse of the Plot: In "The Time Bandit".
  • Tribal Carry: Rebecca when captured by pygmies in "The Bigger They Are, the Louder They Oink".
  • Tropical Island Adventure: Cape Suzette and Louie's are both located on tropical islands.
  • True Companions: Baloo and his friends. Best shown in Lost Horizons where Cape Suzette was on the verge of a total invasion by Panda-La. While the city was set to surrender to the invaders, Baloo launches a lone strike against them. He gets captured, but is saved by Kit, then later by Louie, then by Rebecca, and finally by Wildcat, who all had secretly followed him to help take down the Panda-La invaders.
  • TV Genius: Rebecca, in contrast to Book Dumb but streetwise Baloo, has an MBA and is refined in terms of social inequity, but is a borderline Ditz in terms of the outside world.
  • Two-Fisted Tales: A Lighter and Softer example.

    U-V 
  • Unconventional Food Usage: When not at war, Thembrians drop bologna on enemy planes instead of bombs.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Plenty of people towards the Higher for Hire crew. In the final part of Plunder and lightning Karnage also has this towers the ordinary pilots for a moment, mocking the idea that their "puny type planes" are daring to come after him before having to dive for cover when they make a firing run.
  • The Unintelligible: Gibber didn't speak out loud, he whispered into people's ears. All the viewer heard was a bit of, well, gibberish. Since his name is Gibber... yeah.
    • He said one intelligible word in the entire show, calling Karnage "crazy" in "Stuck On You". Needless to say, it was a poor choice.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Though the characters are generally loveable and redeemable, they have their moments of this, Baloo and occasionally Rebecca are perhaps the biggest players.
  • UST: A number of fans saw this in Baloo and Becky's interaction, despite having nothing outright romantic in the series.
    • Well, some episodes did show some obvious Ship Tease (Baloo's Post-Kiss Catatonia in "Your Baloo's In The Mail" may be a plausible canon example).
      • Word of God claims they intended to show infatuation between the two, though the creators admit it may have ultimately came out "lop-sided" in Rebecca's favor, who is occasionally shown to take bigger extremes in her devotion to Baloo.
  • Upside-Down Blueprints: In "In Search Of Ancient Blunders", Baloo and Wildcat encounter a mummy inside an upside down pyramid. It's revealed that the mummy was the pyramid's foreman, having read the blueprints wrong, and as such was cursed by the embarrassed Pharaoh.
  • [Verb] This!: Baloo in "From Here to Machinery".
    Martin Torque: You and your [normal pilot] kind are like the dinosaurs: decaying, defective, and defunct!
    Baloo: Oh yeah? Well defunct THIS!
    (Baloo punches Torque, which gets caught on camera and put on the front page of the newspaper)
  • Villain Song: "Sky Pirates," performed by Don Karnage and his crew during the pilot.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Baloo and Louie's friendship is often shown to be this, particularly in "buddy" episodes like "For Whom the Bell Klangs" and "The Road to Macadamia". They even have a fairly catchy tune dedicated to their status as such in "Friends for Life," but it never made it into the show, just the soundtrack.
    Baloo: I got moves, son—
    Louie: You learned from me, I got a song to sing—
    Baloo: If you can find the key
    Both: Whatever he's got, I've got more of
    But there's one thing we both are sure of, we're
    Friends for life [etc.]

    W-Z 
  • Walk into Mordor: Funnily enough, Baloo once mentions that 'you don't just flit into Thembria!' And, sure enough, the Sea Duck is attacked within seconds of intruding in Thembrian airspace.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: The Lightning Gun from "Plunder and Lightning".
    • Also the weapon from Tinabula in the episode "For Whom The Bell Klangs".
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Louie is usually an active and healthy guy, until he's exposed to his one weakness, anchovies in "Pizza Pie in the Sky" and instantly becomes sick and delusional.
  • Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Arguably happens in multiple scenarios between Baloo and Rebecca. Kit and Molly actually have a brief similar moment in "Mommy For A Day".
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The impression one gets of Cape Suzette while watching the show. The warm climate and the decor at Louie's would seem to place it somewhere not unlike Hawaii, yet the episode "The Balooest of the Bluebloods" shows that it is within driving distance of Germany or a place akin to it. The best explanation of this ambiguous location may be that the country itself is not the actual United States, as one would be likely to assume initially, but a fictional counterpart thereof, a point confirmed by Word of God - Baloo and his friends are supposed to live in "Usland".
  • White-Collar Crime: In "Baloo Thunder" one of Shere Khan's executives, Mr. Perry, is secretly The Mole for a rival company known as the Miniversal Corporation, who frames Buzz the inventor for stealing their top-secret project.
  • Who Would Be Stupid Enough?:
    Don Karnage: Fools! Surely they would not be so stupid as to attack the Iron Vulture! (Ship rocks with impact) ...They are more stupid than I thought!
    • Also in "Polly Wants a Treasure"
    Ignatz: We gotta get Kit outta there before one of those idiots [the pirates] sets off Captain Juan Toomanie's big trap!
    Baloo: (leaning backwards) Relax, that would take somebody really dumb.
    (the stalagmite he's leaning against falls back with a click)
    Ignatz: (Long-suffering sigh) Right again, Baloo.
  • Whole-Plot Reference:
    • "The Time Bandit" follows many of the same plot points the DuckTales episode "Allowance Day" did. Both involve a character making everyone believe that a day has passed in order to get paid sooner which results in another believing it's cost them an important business deal, eventually spiraling into a disaster that nearly gets them executed by a firing squad.
    • "Her Chance to Dream" uses the plot of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Baloo as "Tan-Margaret" in "Feminine Air". Feminine clothes are, in fact, one of his go-to disguises.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: Dougie Benson, the diminutive Corrupt Corporate Executive in "Louie's Last Stand". Averted by episode's end where he winds up blowing himself off the island.
  • Wicked Cultured: Shere Khan was the page picture for a reason.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Kit often comes off as the most sensible member of Higher For Hire. That said there are several points his childishness does come into play.
  • With Friends Like These...: Used a fair few times, usually with Baloo or Rebecca.
  • Women Are Wiser: Becky, to an extent - especially since a lot of her chemistry with Baloo came from sharing the same character flaws.
  • World of Funny Animals: The cast consists of a broad range of anthropomorphic animals (who coexist with non-anthropomorphic ones) with not a single human in sight.
    • Although "The Old Man & the Sea Duck" and "Flight of the Snow Duck" had a few humans.
  • World War I: Part of the Squadron of Seven's Backstory in "Bygones".
  • Wronski Feint/Aerial Canyon Chase: Baloo's main defense against attackers in the air since his cargo plane is unarmed.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Shere Khan always finds some measure of victory even in defeat - even in plots that don't involve him.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Many of Baloo's Get Rich Quick Schemes are successful, but the prize is always taken away by some unfortunate stroke of luck. "Your Baloo's In The Mail" is a particularly cruel example.
  • Yellow Peril: In "Last Horizons", Baloo ventures to discover a lost Shambhala-like civilization known as Panda-La, and, upon finding it, is treated as a welcome guest, but the inhabitants secretly plan to invade Cape Suzette upon hearing about it from Baloo, clearly jibing at Pearl Harbor. There is a line indicating that other pandas hate Panda-la, however.
  • You Didn't Ask: Wildcat uses this exact phrase during "In Search of Ancient Blunders".
  • You Go, Girl!: "Feminine Air" may count as a mercifully non-Anvilicious example, with Baloo pulling his own male to-female-variation of a Sweet Polly Oliver.
  • You Owe Me: "Save the Tiger" both subverts this and plays it straight.
  • You're Not My Father: Played very seriously in "Stormy Weather".
  • Zany Scheme:
    • Baloo was a big fan of the get-rich-quick scheme.
    • Rebecca was no slouch herself. Remember "The Bigger They Are, The Louder They Oink", the Truffle-hunt episode?
  • Zero-Approval Gambit: In the episode "Plunder And Lightning", Kit pretends to betray Baloo, Rebecca, and Molly to gain Don Karnage's trust and allow them to escape the air pirates.

 
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Don Karnage's Lightning Gun

Using the electricity-generating stone stolen from Sher Khan, the Sky Pirates build a weapon to enable them to get past the blockade into Cape Suezette.

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