TaleSpin

**TaleSpin** is an American television series created by Jymn Magon and Mark Zaslove.

It focuses on characters from The Jungle Book including Baloo the bear, Louie the orangutan and Shere Khan the tiger.

The series premiered on The Disney Channel on September 7, 1990 and aired for one season on Syndication until August 8, 1991.

## Plot

TaleSpin is primarily set in the city of Cape Suzette (a pun on the dish Crêpe Suzette). The city lies on an unnamed island, in an unspecified body of water, on a large harbour or bay enclosed by a high cliff wall. A single cleft in the wall is the harbour's only means of access. The cleft is guarded by anti-aircraft artillery, preventing flying rabble-rousers or air pirates from entering the city. The characters in the world of TaleSpin are anthropomorphic animals, though normal wild animals exist as well. The time frame of the series is never specifically addressed, but the helicopter, television, and jet engine are experimental devices. In the episode "Bygones", Baloo comments that "The Great War ended 20 years ago", thus suggesting that the series takes place around 1938. Radio is the primary mass medium, and the episode, "The Incredible Shrinking Molly" briefly alludes to the characters having never heard of television.

The series centres on the adventures of bush pilot, Baloo the bear, whose air cargo freight business, "Baloo's Air Service", is taken up by Rebecca Cunningham who has a young daughter named Molly. Upon his default on delinquent bills with the bank, and his perceived irresponsibility in running a business by Rebecca, she takes over the business and renames it "Higher for Hire", making her Baloo’s boss. An orphan boy and former air pirate, the ambitious grizzly bear Kit Cloudkicker, attaches to Baloo and becomes his navigator. He sometimes calls Baloo "Papa Bear". Together, they are the crew of Higher for Hire's only aircraft, a 20-year-old modified Conwing L-16 (a fictitious twin-boom cargo plane using elements from the Fairchild C-82 transport, Grumman G-21 Goose amphibian, and a Consolidated PBY-3) named the Sea Duck. The series follows the ups and downs of Higher for Hire and its staff, sometimes in the vein of old action-adventure film serials of the 1930s and 1940s, like the Tailspin Tommy movies, and contemporary variations, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Their adventures often involve encounters with a gang of air pirates led by Don Karnage, as well as with representatives of Thembria (a parody of the Stalinist Soviet Union inhabited by anthropomorphic Warthogs), or other, often even stranger obstacles. In deference to contemporary sensitivities, there is no equivalent of the Nazis in the series, although one story in Disney Adventures Magazine, "The Dogs of War!", had the heroes encounter members of the "Houn" nationality, a menacing militaristic nationality of dogs from "Hounsland" who wear uniforms that are clearly based on German ones and who speak in a mock-German accent.

The relationship between Baloo and Rebecca owes something to the screwball comedy films of the Great Depression. More precisely, according to Jymn Magon (co-creator of the series), the two characters were fashioned after Sam Malone and Rebecca Howe from the then-popular sitcom Cheers.

## Cast and Characters

### Higher for Hire

* Ed Gilbert as Baloo von Bruinwald XIII
* R. J. Williams as Kit Cloudkicker
* Sally Struthers as Rebecca Cunningham
* Hanna Michaels as Molly Elizabeth Cunningham
* Pat Fraley as Wildcat

### Air Pirates

* Jim Cummings as Don Karnage
* Charlie Adler as Mad Dog / Hacksaw
* Chuck McCann as Dumptruck / Gibber / Sadie
* Rob Paulsen as Ratchet
* Frank Welker as Hal
* Tony Jay as Jock

### Thembrians

* Michael Gough as Colonel Ivanod Spigot
* Lorenzo Music as Sergeant Dunder
* Jack Angel as The High Marshal / Wally
* John Stephenson as Professor Boris Crackpotkin
* Allan Melvin as Warden Slammer
* Edan Gross as Bobbo
* Jim MacGeorge as Mick

### Khan Industries

* Tony Jay as Shere Khan
* Kenneth Mars as Buzz
* Jennifer Darling as Mrs. Laslie Snarly
* Rob Paulsen as Doctor Debolt
* Mark L. Taylor as Douglas "Dougie" Benson
* Phil Crowley as Walters
* Michael Bell as Mr. Simon Perry
* Patric Zimmerman as Garth
* Frank Welker as Captain Hotspur

## Video Games

* TaleSpin (Video Game)
* TaleSpin (Sega Video Game)

## Production

### Development

The series was largely developed by writers Jymn Magon and Mark Zaslove, who were also the supervising producers on the series as well as story editors. There were four production teams, each one headed by a producer/director: Robert Taylor, Larry Latham, Jamie Mitchell, and Ed Ghertner.

Initially, Disney simply commissioned Magon and Zaslove with creating a thirty-minute animated program for them, with no requirements as to what the show should be about. Nearing the deadline for a pitch without having come up with anything, Magon hit upon the idea of making the story about Baloo, one of the central characters of Disney's The Jungle Book, which had recently been theatrically rereleased. The show Tales of the Gold Monkey was an inspiration according to creator/supervising producer, Jymn Magon. Similar to the main character in that show, they decided to have Baloo work for an air cargo delivery service, a concept also occasionally featured on Disney's successful DuckTales. In order to add dramatic tension, they decided to maintain the impressionable son / bad father dynamic which had driven part of the plot of The Jungle Book, replacing the human Mowgli with the anthropomorphic bear Kit. Inspired by Cheers — then one of the most popular programs on television — Magon and Zaslove created the character Rebecca (voiced by actress Sally Struthers), basing her on the character Rebecca Howe and giving her that character's arc of being an intelligent and headstrong yet inexperienced manager put in charge of a fledgling business. Deciding to make the show a period piece, the pair lastly decided to make one of the show's primary locations a neutral zone inspired by Rick Blaine's bar in Casablanca, where they inserted the character of Louie in place of Rick. The decision to add Shere Khan to the cast was not made until later in the show's development. Magon and Zaslove also took inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 manga Hikōtei Jidai, about a pig-headed man who flies a seaplane and fights air pirates. Two years after TaleSpin premiered, Miyazaki released an anime adaptation called Porco Rosso, which Zaslove felt took cues from TaleSpin. Phil Harris, who voiced Baloo for the film, was initially hired to reprise the role; at age 85, however, Harris had lost some of his comic timing and had to be chauffeured from his home in Palm Springs for each recording session. His work was discarded and Ed Gilbert took over the role for the rest of the series.

Famed Uncle Scrooge comic writer and artist Don Rosa wrote episode 6, "It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck", and episode 9, "I Only Have Ice for You".

The series was animated by Walt Disney Animation (Japan) Inc., Hanho Heung-Up Co., Ltd., Jade Animation, Tama Productions, Walt Disney Animation (France) S.A., Sunwoo Entertainment, and Wang Film Productions.

Gilbert would continue to voice Baloo in other Disney projects, commercials, promos, miscellaneous, until his death.

Harris, who continued to do occasional voice acting until 1991, died of a heart attack on August 11, 1995, five years after TaleSpin premiered. Three years later, in August 1998, Gilbert fell ill from lung cancer and never recovered, Gilbert died on May 8, 1999, nine years after TaleSpin premiered.

## Release

After a preview of TaleSpin aired on The Disney Channel from May 5 to July 15, 1990, the series began its syndicated run in September of the same year. The original concept was embodied in the pilot episode and introductory television movie Plunder & Lightning which was the sole nominee for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming More Than One Hour) in 1991. After its premiere on September 7, 1990, Plunder & Lightning was re-edited into four half-hour episodes for reruns. The show was often seen either on its own as a half-hour show, or as part of the two-hour syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon. TaleSpin ended on its 65th episode which aired on August 8, 1991. However, reruns continued to be shown on The Disney Afternoon until September 1994. On October 2, 1995, TaleSpin began reruns on The Disney Channel as part of a two-hour programming block called "Block Party" which aired on weekdays in the late-afternoon/early-evening and which also included Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. Later, the show was aired on Toon Disney, where it was first aired from April 1998 until January 2006 (with a hiatus between 2001 and 2002) and later from January 2007 until May 2008. Throughout its broadcast history, the series has been subjected to numerous edits.

## Reception

IGN listed TaleSpin as the 81st best cartoon in the Top 100 Animated TV Shows.