BALOO

Baloo is a Zhu-Fari pet

**Baloo** is the deuteragonist of Disney's 1967 animated feature film, *The Jungle Book*. He is a fun-loving, easygoing, loyal, and good-natured sloth bear who becomes best friends with a “man-cub" named Mowgli.

## Background

### Development

In the original book by Rudyard Kipling, Baloo was very different from his Disney incarnation. In the book, Baloo was a humorless, serious, and strict aging sloth bear who utilized militant discipline while mentoring Mowgli and the wolf cubs. When Walt Disney began to develop a film based on the novel, Bill Peet originally wrote a version that was set to be darker and slightly closer to the source material, but many changes were made, including Baloo's personality, which was changed into a fun-loving, humble personality. While that version of the film was scraped, the final version still utilized many of the characterizations featured in Bill Peet's version including Baloo's, with his relationship with Mowgli serving as the heart of the film.

Baloo's trademark song, "The Bare Necessities", was actually written for Bill Peet's original draft of the film. When Walt overtook the project, "The Bare Necessities" and the accompanying songs were cut, with the Sherman Brothers being brought on to write the new songs. However, the filmmakers loved "The Bare Necessities" and pleaded to have it remain in the film; Walt would eventually agree.

### Voice

When it came to casting Baloo, Walt suggested television personality and social friend, Phil Harris, to provide the voice. This was met with controversy amongst the filmmakers, as they believed Harris was unfit to star in a Rudyard Kipling-inspired film. Walt, nevertheless, encouraged the team to move forth with the idea, additionally using it as a means to further separate the tones of Kipling's stories and the Disney adaptation. Once Harris came into the studio, he felt out of place and hesitant to fully accept the role. To make himself more comfortable, he asked the directors permission to approach the role with his own unique flair and mannerisms. The results were universally beloved, and the character of Baloo was largely shaped to match the personality of Harris, himself, from that moment forward.

### Personality

Baloo is easily characterized by his laid-back, gentle nature. Often speaking with a soft, smooth tone, the sloth bear is known for his ideals of remaining relaxed as often as possible, and preventing the pressures and responsibilities of life holding one down, as vocalized through his song, "The Bare Necessities". Bagheera, the wise panther, describes him as a "jungle bum"; a seemingly useless member of animal society, only focused on lounging, snacking, scratching his back, and other minimal activities labeled as lazy pastimes. Though lazy, stubborn, and foreign to true responsibility, Baloo has a large heart, often taking his ideals (which are seen to have successfully led him to a happy lifestyle) and sharing it with others, including Mowgli, the man-cub, in hopes of spreading the happiness he's been fortunate enough to experience.

Though Baloo enjoys relaxation and tranquility, he is also a socialite—an unabashed lover of parties, jazz music, and jungle beats. Through the sound of bouncy rhythms alone, Baloo can be seduced into joining a party, going as far as to becoming the center of attention, as seen during the climax of "I Wanna Be Like You". In *The Jungle Book 2*, Baloo has a reputation of being the "life of the party" and is extremely popular with the jungle's social gatherings because of this and has taken over King Louie's abandoned palace as a result, turning it into a hangout.

However, in spite of his loyalty to his "bare necessities", Baloo is above abandoning morals and disregarding the safety of others for himself, or in what he believes, as evidenced by his decision to ultimately join Bagheera in escorting Mowgli to the Man Village, where he belonged, despite the bond the two had formed by that time, showing the sloth bear is capable of taking responsibility should the circumstances reach a valid level of importance. He is also extremely selfless as he risked his own life to protect Mowgli from Shere Khan despite knowing he would not stand a chance against the tiger's full fury. For this, Bagheera admitted that he was wrong about the bear and the two became good friends after successfully escorting Mowgli to the Man Village.

In the sequel, Baloo is more social than ever and feels his life is somewhat empty without Mowgli, the only one who truly understood him. Overcome with nostalgia, Baloo sneaks into the Man Village where he reunites with the man-cub and takes him back to the jungle. However, he sees later on that Mowgli has matured since their last time together; the man-cub now has grown attached to his own kind and is not as threatened by responsibilities as he once was despite his carefree nature. As a result, Baloo realizes he was wrong to take the boy back to the jungle and after gaining respect for Shanti, Mowgli's close friend, he encourages the man-cub to go back with her to the civilization where he truly belongs.

### Physical appearance

Baloo is a large bipedal sloth bear with dark-grey fur, light-grey muzzle, grey belly, periwinkle muzzle, short tail, and big paws with long claws sticking out. He also has a swooped hairstyle on top of his head.

Other names: Papa Bear, Old Iron Paws and Big Oaf

Home: Indian jungle

Likes: fruits, honey, jazzy swing music, being with Mowgli, swimming, having his back scratched, dancing, partying, ants and sleeping

Dislikes: working, too much responsibility, Mowgli in danger, the bandar-log and tigers

Status: active

## Differences from the source material

* In the books, Baloo was the polar opposite of the Disney version. While Disney's Baloo was fun-loving, laid-backed, friendly and easygoing, Kipling's Baloo was strict, no-nonsense, knowledgeable and short-tempered. In many ways, one might say that Disney swapped Baloo and Bagheera's personalities.
* In the books, Baloo was an honorary member of the wolf pack and taught the Law of the Jungle to the wolf cubs. Thus he met Mowgli when he had just been adopted by Raksha. In the Disney version, Baloo had no connections to the wolf pack at all and never met Mowgli until he was 10 years old.
* Baloo was considerably older in the books than his Disney counterpart. By the end of the second book, Baloo had become so old that his eyesight was failing him. While Disney's Baloo was at his best in his prime.
* As Kipling's Baloo was a strict teacher who used military discipline, he would sometimes hit Mowgli and the other students if they misbehaved or paid no attention, earning him the nickname "Old Iron Paws" from Bagheera. While Disney's Baloo only hit Mowgli once by accident, though caused no injuries.
* Like the Disney version, the original Baloo taught Mowgli how to fight. However, the original Baloo taught Mowgli to kill his opponents while Disney's Baloo merely taught him how to defend himself.

## Trivia

* Walt Disney was used as a reference for the dance moves seen when Baloo is introduced in *The Jungle Book*.
* Baloo's full name was given as **Baloo Bear** or **Baloo von Bruinwald XIII** in *TaleSpin*.
* In the 1994 film, Baloo is played by an American black bear.
* In the 2016 film, Bagheera acknowledges that Baloo is a sloth bear. However, his statement is inaccurate as Baloo rather resembles a Himalayan brown bear than a sloth bear, the Himalayan brown bear is a species of bear that also lives in Northern India but it is not native to the Seoni area, where the story takes place.
* Even though Mowgli is the true protagonist, Baloo and the other animals are promoted more than the man cub.
* Baloo actually means "bear" in Hindi, so in a way, Baloo is named after his own species.
* Baloo bears a striking resemblance to Little John from Disney's *Robin Hood*, who were both voiced by Phil Harris, who also voiced Thomas O'Malley in *The Aristocats*.
* Baloo and Little John perform the same dance moves with King Louie in *The Jungle Book* and with Lady Kluck in *Robin Hood*, complete with recycled animation.
	+ Interestingly, Baloo was originally designed with brown fur, as shown in one production cel and original theatrical release posters of the film.
* Although Baloo's species mainly eats plants, they are known to be aggressive, and also the bear species that has the greatest tendency to kill people. Ironically, it is an interesting comparison with a real sloth bear and the fun-loving, completely harmless Baloo.
* When Bagheera was saying his speech about Baloo, he wished his mother heard it, hinting that she is deceased.
* Aside from King Louie, Baloo is the only animal character to walk on two legs in the film.
* There is a bear in the "Say It with a Slap" sequence from *Bongo* that highly resembles Baloo. This is most likely because Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were animators for that scene, and there is a possibility that the bear was a prototype of Baloo.
* Bill Murray, who voices Baloo in the 2016 film, is the younger brother of Brian Doyle-Murray, who also voiced Baloo in *The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story*. In short, both Murray brothers had voiced Baloo in two different live-action *Jungle Book* projects.
* Bing Crosby was considered to voice Baloo but couldn’t due to development issues.
* Baloo is visibly afraid of Shere Khan; as real tigers eat sloth bears, this is not surprising.
* Real sloth bears don't have opposable thumbs. Strangely, in some shots, Baloo is portrayed with opposable thumbs to make him more human.
* Baloo was originally going to appear in a *DuckTales* episode that would have explored his fate alongside those of Rebecca Cunningham, Shere Khan, and the original Don Karnage. However, plans were scrapped after the series wasn't renewed for a fourth season.