Sunday, August 21, 2016

Literary Toons: Mowgli's Brothers (1976)

Chuck Jones spent most of the 70's making animated specials for ABC & CBS, usually adaptations of various literary works, including A Cricket in Times Square and, in 1976 for CBS, Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli's Brothers.

This is a nearly perfect adaptation of Kipling's original story, except that Shere Khan, the tiger, is not lame or disabled as in the story, and was rebooted from a bengal tiger to a white one. All that remains is that he is the villain of the piece. Roddy McDowell (ex-Planet of the Apes) narrates and voices most of the characters, assisted by June Foray.

All we have is a trailer for the DVD release:



In some respects, Mowgli, raised by wolves, might've been Kipling's answer to Edgar Rice Burroughs' legendary hero, Tarzan, who would return to television, also on CBS, 7 months after this special aired.

No rating. No memory of seeing this one.

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