TALESPIN
(The Disney Channel, Syndication, September 7,
1990-August 8, 1991)
Walt Disney Television Animation
You can take the animal out of the
jungle…and put them in a seaplane.
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Higher for Hire in the city of Cape Suzette. |
Disney
tasked Jymn Magon and Mark Zaslove with coming up with
a new animated series. They were stuck for an idea until the theatrical
re-release of Disney’s The Jungle Book hit
theaters, inspiring them to make a show around the character of Baloo (Phil Harris in the film) and
incorporate all the characters.
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TaleSpin cast: Louie, Wildcat, Baloo, Kit, Molly, Rebecca, Khan, and Air Pirates Don Karnage, Gibber, Mad Dog and Dumptruck. |
They updated the setting from the jungle
to the fictional city of Cape
Suzette, which was set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s, with the
primary form of entertainment coming from radio programs. The manga Hikotei Jidai inspired
them to make Baloo (Ed Gilbert)
a pigheaded seaplane cargo pilot who often encountered air pirates, led
by the egotistical Don
Karnage (Jim Cummings,
using inspiration from Desi Arnaz’s
Ricky Ricardo). Cheers, the most
popular television show at the time, led to the creation of Rebecca Cunningham (Sally Struthers) as an
ambitious, yet inexperienced, manager who took over Baloo’s business and became
his boss and influenced their relationship dynamic. Casablanca saw
the creation of Louie’s
Place, an island neutral zone where everyone could gather for a respite
with Louie (also
Cummings) taking the place of Humphrey
Bogart’s Rick. Late in the show’s development, it was decided to add Shere Khan (Tony Jay) as a ruthless
businessman whose schemes often led to paths being crossed with Baloo and his
friends. Looking to keep the impressionable son/bad father dynamic prevalent in
the film, they replaced Mowgli with new character Kit Cloudkicker (R.J. Williams & Alan Roberts);
a young cub who was Don Karange’s protégé until he decided to quit the air
pirates, meeting up with Baloo and becoming his navigator. Other characters
included Rebecca’s daughter Molly (Janna Michaels), and their
mechanical genius (though ultimately clueless) mechanic, Wildcat (Pat Fraley).
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The Sea Duck at the mercy of the air pirates. |
After a preview run from May 5-July
15, 1990 on The Disney Channel, TaleSpin officially began that September
with the television movie “Plunder & Lightning”. The movie saw Baloo meet
Kit and lose his business to Rebecca. Baloo stayed on as a pilot for Higher for Hire after
Rebecca paid to rebuild his plane, the Sea Duck, after it was
destroyed saving the city from the air pirates. The film was the only nominee
for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated
Program in 1991 and was later broken up into four episodes for syndicated
reruns. The series followed Baloo on his adventures that came with his
deliveries and schemes to get rich and get his plane back, often finding him at
odds with the air pirates, the nation of Thembria (loosely based on the
Soviet Union) or Shere Khan. The show ran for 65 episodes on the syndicated
programming block The
Disney Afternoon. It remained there until 1994 before returning to
Disney-owned cable channels for further reruns, where episodes were extensively
edited due to their content such as instances of terrorism, particularly after
9/11. When the series was finally released
to DVD, however, the original syndicated episodes were restored.
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