YMMV / The Jungle Book (1967)

• Adaptation Displacement: More people know about the aforementioned Disney movie than Kipling's books. In fact, most people really only know it was a book thanks to the title!
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Shere Khan could be interpreted as an avenger against Man, seeing how they have hunted and killed his species purely for their striped pelts. Bagheera does mention at one point that Shere Kahn will not let Mowgli grow up to be "another hunter with a gun". A storybook adaptation of the film even stated that Shere Khan had once been shot at by a hunter, however it never states that the hunter had managed to hit him nor the circumstances that led him to be shot at.
  • There's a lot of debate on This Very Wiki whether Shere Khan is Affably Evil or Faux Affably Evil.
  • In the Mowgli stories, Shere Khan was born crippled, meaning he finds it easier to hunt humans. This is a common explanation for many man-eating predators. The film removes his lameness, and therefore his reason for attacking humans.
  • As some have noted, King Louie's desire to "be human" may be less playful than he implies. What do most animals in the jungle fear? The power of fire. If an animal has the power over fire, they could rule the jungle uncontested. He even says himself that he's the king of the apes, and that's not enough for him. Being a king over other primates is not where he wants to cap out. This is exactly the direction the 2016 live-action / CGI movie took the character into, making him a fully-fledged villain who wants to take over the jungle with the power of fire.
• Angst? What Angst?: Mowgli seems far more choked up about leaving Baloo (who he's known for all of a couple of days) than his wolf family that raised him for about a decade.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kaa is praised as one of the most entertaining villains in Disney Animated Canon. A second scene was in fact produced for the movie after he proved popular with test audiences.
  • While Shere Khan had little screen-time for a Disney baddie, his build-up and mannerism made him quite the scene-stealer when he finally made his appearances. He even stole a scene from Kaa.
  • King Louie, who has just one scene (and musical number), but is very fondly remembered as a highlight of the movie.
  • The Vultures have gained a large following and are fondly remembered by fans, because they are based on The Beatles, and because they are not evil vultures, they are represented as kind and helpful to Mowgli, even comfort him with their song "That's What Friends Are For".
  • Shanti originally wasn't very popular, but fans warmed considerably up to her after she'd been given a name and a personality, and became one of the main characters in The Jungle Book 2. The sequel itself is considered average at best, but Shanti got a sizeable fanbase.
• Ehtnic Scrappy: King Louie, a laid-back, devil-may-care orangutan who sings a catchy jazz song about wanting to be human, is kind of pushing it but not overtly based on Black stereotypes otherwise, so most viewers give him a pass. He was originally slated to be voiced by Louis Armstrong, but was recast as fellow jazz singer Louis Prima (thus maintaining The Danza) when somebody at Disney realized that having a lazy ape who wants to be human being voiced by an African-American man at the height of the Civil Rights movement would be a very bad look.
• Evil Is Cool: Shere Khan the tiger arguably personifies this trope. It’s kind of funny considering he’s a lesser evil Disney Villain and can still encompass this trope. This is what happens when you’re portrayed as a big, brutal badass and a well-mannered gentleman.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The film is the most popular of Disney's animated films in Germany and still remains a box office record holder there, the result of Superlative Dubbing.
  • Sweden also has a huge love for the film, as it is the most viewed movie of all time in the country. The movie, more specifically Bare Necessities, also plays an integral part in the beloved Christmas Special From All of Us to All of You, which itself is its own can of worms.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Baloo's concern that the Man Village "will make a man out of [Mowgli]" becomes funnier once you've seen the film's spinoff series TaleSpin, which stars a fully-anthropomorphized Baloo.
    • That particular phrase was later used for a song in another Disney film.
  • Shere Khan is a tiger with a British voice and is implied to be somewhat insane. Richard Waugh later mentions that he used Shere Khan's voice as the inspiration for how he would voice Albert Wesker from the Resident Evil series, who is a really bad individual and also happens to possess feline eyes after a certain incident involving a serum.
  • "That's What Friends Are For" was originally going to be more faithful to what The Beatles were doing, but Walt thought it would make the movie dated.
    • More specifically, the song is sung in a barbershop style. Coincidentally, The Simpsons would later devote an an episode to homaging the Beatles' career, in the form of a barbershop quartet.
  • The reason for Kaa's Adaptational Villainy was because of Disney believing that snakes are sinister. Years later, Disney would release The Princess and the Frog, where one of the characters is a snake... who is not sinister at all.
    • Before that, Disney released The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue, Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, and The Wild, all of which included a good snake in the main cast.
    • Even before that, the film's other spinoff series Jungle Cubs more or less portrayed Kaa as a good guy like his book counterpart.
• Ho Yay: So much between Baloo and Bagheera.
  • In particular, this exchange:
    Bagheera: You can't adopt Mowgli as your son.
    Baloo: Why not?
    Bagheera: How can I put it... Baloo, birds of a feather should flock together. You wouldn't marry a panther, would you?
    Baloo: I don't know. [laughs] Come to think of it, no panther ever asked me. [nudges Bagheera in the ribs]
  • The film ends with Baloo and Bagheera walking off into the sunset together. This occurs seconds after Baloo advises Mowgli to swear off women.
• Memetic Badass: One of the main reasons why Shere Khan is so popular.
• Memetic Molester: Kaa is a popular subject for this trope in Rule 34 circles, owing to both being a giant snake (constriction/choking, vore) and his Hypnotic Eyes (mind control). It also does not help that the lisping voice sixty-two-year-old Sterling Holloway gives him has been compared to Herbert from Family Guy.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "What are we gonna do?" "I don't know; whatcha wanna do?" "Hey, don't start that again!"
  • The Jungle Book wedgie (The scene where Bagheera tried to drag Mowgli to the Man Village by his loincloth while Mowgli held onto a tree) is very popular.
  • Bagheera reaching for Mowgli at King Louie's palace, only for Baloo to storm in through the door, smacking Bagheera in the face by accident. The meme labels Bagheera as someone who wants what ever Mowgli is labeled as, while Baloo is some kind of misfortune hindering them.
• Misattributed Song: Due to this film being famous for featuring the work of The Sherman Brothers, and "The Bare Necessities" being the film's Signature Song, it's common for people to mistakenly refer to "Bare Necessities" as a Sherman Brothers song, when the song was actually written by Terry Gilkyson for a Darker and Edgier earlier draft of the film. When the film was reworked into the Lighter and Softer version we know today, all of Gilkyson's songs were scrapped except for "Bare Necessities", which was kept in the final film along with the songs the Shermans wrote.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The portrayal of Shere Khan as a tiger lacking a lame leg originates with the 1942 screen adaptation, Mowgli wearing a red loincloth and the story book opening, a staple of Disney films of the time, was done in that adaptation.
  • The film's main theme "Jungle Beat" was originally written for the 1964 New York World's Fair under the title "Serengeti Serenade".
• One-Scene Wonder: Shanti who just appears at the end to sing a song.
• Padding:
  • The elephants, who contribute next to nothing to keep Shere Khan away even as they march about military-style to defend their jungle.
  • There are two scenes that are nothing but Mowgli wandering the jungle for about a minute or two after he's run away from his current caretaker. While the backgrounds are gorgeous, there is no dialogue and there are no other characters.
• Popular with Furries:
  • Kaa is the most influential snake character for the scaly fandom. Due to him, and to a lesser extent Sir Hiss from Robin Hood, many snake characters have similar Hypnotic Eyes.
  • Baloo for being an archetypal funny, cuddly, friendly bear, which carried over to his appearance in TaleSpin.
  • Elephants are a niche species within the fandom but any furry who likes them is likely to be a fan of Hathi and/or his troop, especially Winifred. Their signature "elephant pile-up" scene has itself garnered a small fanbase among elephant fans.
• Tear Dryer: Baloo is unconscious and Mowgli and Bagheera think he's dead. Bagheera starts doing a speech, but halfway through the speech, Baloo wakes up.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • One of the main criticisms against the movie is that Mowgli himself felt flat, underdeveloped and passive in his own story, making him easily overshadowed by the villains and supporting characters.
  • The wolves, compared to the novels and most adaptations, are fairly minor characters with barely any characterisation. Their relationship with Mowgli is given only passing mention, and they get no appearance or even so much as a mentioning in the sequel. Thankfully, the live-action remake avoids this.
• Toy Ship: Mowgli can't be older than ten, but that doesn't stop the similar-aged village girl Shanti from making goo-goo eyes at him.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Walt Disney attempted to prevent this, specifically the vultures. Hence, the vultures talk like The Beatles (and are caricatures of them) but don't sing like them, as Walt felt that a bunch of Beatles expies would date the film. Instead they sing like a barbershop quartet. Suffice it to say that a Beatles-style number would have aged far better, but considering that barbershop dates back to the early 1880s while the Beatles were still a fairly new fad, how was Walt to know that?
• Vanilla Protagonist: Many people find Kid Hero Mowgli the least interesting character in the movie, in contrast to the funny and entertaining animals he interacts with (all of them, including Bagheera).
• Values Dissonance: Shanti in the original film is portrayed as a shameless Fille Fatale, with the camera lingering over her batting her eyelashes at Mowgli etc., in a way that no kids' film would present a ten-year-old child today.

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