139 Fun Facts About The Jungle Book

Walt Disney died during The Jungle Book's production; which animated feature did his studio release next?

The Aristocats (1970) was a story Walt had bought and approved himself, yet after his death its director rewrote the plot Walt had signed off.

In Kipling's Jungle Book stories, what kind of snake is Kaa?

Indian python Kaa is Mowgli's friend and rescuer in Kipling's books; it was Disney's films that turned him into a would-be predator.

Who voiced Baloo in Disney's 2016 live-action Jungle Book?

Bill Murray's distinctive lifted eyebrow was even worked into Baloo's face, so audiences could see the actor in the bear.

Which actor voiced Shere Khan in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?

Idris Elba's Shere Khan shows his power as he walks because the film's artists wrote new software to simulate the animals' muscles and skin.

Who voiced Kaa, rewritten as a female snake, in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?

Scarlett Johansson got the part because the director felt the 1967 film was too male-heavy, so the snake became a woman.

Who voiced King Louie in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?

Christopher Walken sings the ape's big number himself, and the effects artists worked the actor's own facial lines and wrinkles into the creature.

In Kipling's stories, Mowgli's name is said to mean which animal, because of his lack of fur?

Frog is what Mother Wolf calls the hairless baby, yet Kipling later admitted he made 'Mowgli' up and that it means frog in no language he knew.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, hero of one of The Jungle Book's non-Mowgli stories, is what kind of animal?

Mongoose Rikki-tikki is named for his chattering war cry, and he defends an English family in India from a pair of cobras.

Who directed Disney's 2016 live-action remake of The Jungle Book?

Jon Favreau had some of the animals built 150 percent larger than life, so the jungle would feel the way a big world feels to a child.

Kipling wrote The Jungle Book while living in which US state?

Vermont was home to his American wife's family; Arthur Conan Doyle visited the house Kipling built there and gave him a golf lesson.

In Disney's 1967 Jungle Book film, King Louie is what kind of ape?

Orangutan Louie was Disney's invention, not Kipling's, and since no orangutans live in India the 2016 remake turned him into an ape species long extinct.

Which bandleader and comedian voiced Baloo in Disney's 1967 Jungle Book film?

Phil Harris nearly turned the part down after a test recording, then improvised many of Baloo's lines once he was told to just be himself.

Scout packs for younger children traditionally call their leader by the name of which Jungle Book wolf?

Akela, whose name means 'alone', leads the wolf pack in the stories, and many Cub packs still open their meetings by greeting their own Akela with the Grand Howl.

Which child star voiced Mowgli in The Jungle Book 2 (2003)?

Haley Joel Osment's Mowgli now lives in the man-village, but he misses the jungle and slips back to it with his old friend Baloo.

Warner Bros. sold Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) to which service before release?

Netflix bought the finished film in 2018 after Disney's remake won the race to cinemas, sparing it a wide cinema release in the shadow of that hit.

Baloo, the bear who teaches Mowgli in Kipling's Jungle Book, is usually identified as which species?

Sloth bear is the usual reading, though Kipling himself describes Baloo simply as 'the sleepy brown bear' who eats only nuts, roots and honey.

The four vultures in Disney's 1967 Jungle Book were designed to resemble which band?

The Beatles were meant to voice the vultures and sing a quartet written for them, but the band said no, so only the mop-tops and Liverpool accents stayed.

In Disney's 1967 Jungle Book, how does Mowgli finally drive off Shere Khan?

Ties a burning branch to his tail while the tiger is mauling Baloo: Shere Khan bolts in terror, and Baloo, mourned as dead, turns out to be alive.

In which Indian city was Rudyard Kipling born?

Bombay was home only in his earliest years: his parents then sent him to board in a foster home in England, where he was ill treated.

Which Indian-born actor played Mowgli in the 1942 Technicolor Jungle Book?

Sabu, an orphaned stable boy in the service of the Maharajah of Mysore, was spotted by film-maker Robert Flaherty and became a star in Britain and Hollywood.

Who voiced Bagheera in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?

Ben Kingsley's Bagheera is the panther who finds the orphaned baby and gives him to the wolves, then sets out to guide him to the man-village once the tiger wants him dead.

Which jazz legend did Disney first consider to voice the ape king of the 1967 Jungle Book?

Louis Armstrong was the first idea, but a writer warned that casting a Black star as an ape would be 'politically terrible', so the studio looked elsewhere.

Disney's artists deliberately drew Shere Khan in the 1967 Jungle Book to resemble whom?

George Sanders, his voice actor, gave the tiger his looks, while the movements were copied from live-action big cats in two earlier Disney productions.

Sterling Holloway, the voice of Kaa in 1967, was also Disney's original voice of which character?

Winnie the Pooh first spoke in Holloway's raspy tenor in 1966, and a year later the same childlike voice belonged to a snake hypnotising Mowgli in order to eat him.

The 1967 Jungle Book premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre doubled as a fundraiser for what?

The Los Angeles Zoo had opened only the year before, and its gala came ten months after Walt Disney's death, so the last animated feature he supervised premiered without him.

Disney's 1967 Jungle Book has sold more cinema tickets than any other film in which country?

Germany had bought 27.3 million tickets by 2016, helped by Heinrich Riethmüller's freewheeling German dub, which rewrote the songs in slang and dialect.

In Kipling's stories, why is Shere Khan nicknamed 'Lungri'?

He was born with a crippled leg: 'Lungri' means the Lame One, a name his own mother gave him, and it is why he hunts cattle instead of wild game.

What did Walt Disney tell writer Larry Clemmons when handing him a copy of Kipling's book?

Not to read it, Walt said: the first, book-faithful treatment had come out too dark, so the new team kept its characters and made a lighter film.

What is unusual about the animals in Disney's 1994 live-action Jungle Book?

They do not talk or sing: Disney used dozens of real trained animals, from tigers and wolves to bears and elephants, and left the talking to the humans.

Who played the adult Mowgli in Disney's 1994 live-action Jungle Book?

Jason Scott Lee was called 'too old' by Disney executives until the director argued that an unknown teenager would be far less believable as a leading man.

Which British comedian played Dr. Julius Plumford in Disney's 1994 Jungle Book film?

John Cleese's army doctor helps teach the jungle-raised Mowgli the ways of English society, before a greedy officer forces the boy to lead him to hidden treasure.

Where was principal photography for Disney's 2016 Jungle Book carried out?

Los Angeles: the film was shot on blue-screen stages downtown, and the boy playing Mowgli was the only live-action element in a computer-built jungle.

The 2016 Jungle Book's director reused its virtual-production methods for which 2019 Disney remake?

The Lion King took the idea further: its crew filmed the whole story inside a virtual-reality set built with video-game engines.

Which Academy Award did Disney's 2016 Jungle Book win?

Best Visual Effects was a natural win: apart from one boy, almost everything on screen, animals and jungle alike, was created in computers.

What discipline did Neel Sethi train in to prepare for playing Mowgli in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book?

Parkour training sharpened his natural athleticism for the role; he had never acted before and was picked from thousands of hopefuls.

Who directed Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)?

Andy Serkis, the actor behind Gollum, signed on for what was to be his first feature as a director and also played Baloo through performance capture.

Which actor voiced Bagheera in Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle?

Christian Bale's panther is one of the two mentors who save Mowgli from Shere Khan and teach him the law of the jungle.

Why was King Louie left out of The Jungle Book 2 (2003)?

A legal dispute with Louis Prima's widow, who had sued Disney over royalties from the 1967 film's video release, kept the ape out; he appears only as a shadow puppet.

Which rock star, fresh from writing the songs for Disney's Tarzan, voiced Lucky the vulture in The Jungle Book 2?

Phil Collins had won an Oscar for a Tarzan song a few years earlier; his vulture Lucky makes the mistake of teasing Shere Khan.

In TaleSpin, what job does Baloo hold?

Cargo pilot is honest work for the jungle's carefree loafer: TaleSpin lifts Baloo out of the jungle and has him fly deliveries for a boss, a bear named Rebecca Cunningham.

TaleSpin is set in which fictional harbour city?

Cape Suzette shelters behind towering cliffs armed with anti-aircraft guns, built to keep the air pirates out of its harbour.

In Kipling's Jungle Book, how does Shere Khan finally meet his death?

Trampled by a buffalo herd that Mowgli and the wolves stampede into a ravine; Mowgli skins the tiger and is then stoned out of the village as a sorcerer.

'The White Seal', the one Jungle Book story not set in India, takes place in which sea?

The Bering Sea: Kotick the white seal is born on St. Paul Island, where the hunters take him for a ghost, and he spends years seeking a beach no man can reach.

'Seeonee', the district named repeatedly in the Mowgli stories, lies in which landlocked Indian state?

Madhya Pradesh is home to the real Seoni district, and Kipling also borrowed the Waingunga, a real river of central India, for his jungle.

In Kipling's 'Kaa's Hunting', the Bandar-log carry Mowgli off to which place?

The Cold Lairs is a ruined city lost in the jungle, so named, Kipling explained, because a den goes cold once its owners abandon it.

The Jungle Book 2 was originally produced for what?

Direct-to-video release was the plan until Disney sent it to cinemas first, as it had just done with the Peter Pan sequel Return to Never Land.

Which duo wrote most songs for Disney's 1967 Jungle Book?

The Sherman Brothers wrote five of the six songs: Disney called them in, fresh from Mary Poppins, after throwing out an earlier songwriter's darker score.

Which tune alone survived Terry Gilkyson's rejected score for Disney's Jungle Book?

The Bare Necessities was the only tune kept when Walt Disney threw out Gilkyson's darker songs, and the lone survivor went on to an Oscar nomination.

Disney's 1967 Jungle Book lost the Best Song Oscar to a number from which Rex Harrison musical?

Doctor Dolittle disappointed at the box office while The Jungle Book was a hit, yet its 'Talk to the Animals' beat Baloo's song to the Oscar.

Which later Disney film reused Baloo's dance with King Louie for one of its own bears?

Robin Hood's animators recycled old dance scenes for its big dance number, so Little John, a bear with Baloo's own voice, repeats Baloo's steps.

Bagheera is a black panther, the dark-coated form of which big cat found in India?

Leopard: Kipling wrote that Bagheera was inky black all over, yet in certain lights his spots still showed like the pattern of watered silk.

Disney's 1967 Jungle Book redrew its wolf cubs from puppies in which earlier film?

One Hundred and One Dalmatians supplied the puppies: reusing earlier animation was the director's habit, so the cubs of Mowgli's wolf family move like Dalmatian pups.

In Disney's 1967 Jungle Book, what does King Louie want Mowgli to teach him?

How to make fire: the ape king believes 'man's red fire' is the one secret that would let him live like a human.

Which future Game of Thrones star played Kitty, Mowgli's childhood friend, in Disney's 1994 Jungle Book?

Lena Headey, later Cersei Lannister, plays the colonel's daughter who teaches the grown Mowgli the ways of mankind when he walks back out of the jungle.

Rocky the rhino, cut from the 1967 Jungle Book, finally appeared in 2016 voiced by which Canadian comedian?

Russell Peters gave Rocky a voice half a century after Walt Disney cut the short-sighted rhino from the 1967 film as one character too many.

King Louie in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book was partly modelled on Marlon Brando's character in which film?

Apocalypse Now's Colonel Kurtz, a huge figure brooding in the shadows of a jungle temple, was the model for the ape king's first scene.

In The Jungle Book 2, what is the name of the village girl who befriends Mowgli?

Shanti is the girl whose song lured Mowgli into the village at the end of the 1967 film, where she was credited only as 'the Girl'.

In the Hindi dub of Disney's 2016 Jungle Book, who voiced Kaa?

Priyanka Chopra's Kaa joined a starry Hindi cast led by Irrfan Khan's Baloo, for a release timed to open in India a week before the United States.

Who directed the 1942 Technicolor Jungle Book for producer Alexander Korda?

Zoltan Korda directed while one brother produced and another, Vincent, designed the sets, all in Hollywood because the war had driven the family's studio from Britain.

Which honour did Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling receive in 1907, aged 41?

The Nobel Prize was the exception: Kipling turned down many honours in his lifetime, including a knighthood and the poet laureateship, but accepted this one.

The Indian-born star of the 1942 Jungle Book won a US Distinguished Flying Cross in which wartime role?

Tail gunner: he became an American citizen in 1944, joined the Army Air Forces and flew combat missions over the Pacific.

Disney's 1994 Jungle Book shot jungle scenes on a South Carolina island that had just doubled as Vietnam in which film?

Forrest Gump's Vietnam was Fripp Island; Disney's crew paired it with a Tennessee state park to stand in for the Indian jungle.

Kipling's American home Naulakha shares its name with a marble pavilion in which city's Mughal fort?

Lahore has the Naulakha Pavilion; Kipling named the house in memory of Wolcott Balestier, his wife's brother, with whom he had written a novel called The Naulahka.

A first edition of The Jungle Book found at Wimpole Hall in 2010 carried Kipling's handwritten note to whom?

His daughter Josephine, who died aged six in 1899: the note says the book 'belongs to Josephine Kipling for whom it was written by her father'.

Who provided illustrations for the earliest editions of The Jungle Book?

Kipling's father, the artist John Lockwood Kipling, drew pictures for his son's stories and designed the embossed cover of the first edition.

A Jungle Book chapter takes its title, 'Tiger!' cried twice, from the opening line of a poem by whom?

William Blake's 'The Tyger' opens 'Tyger Tyger, burning bright'; Kipling borrowed the cry for the chapter in which Mowgli finally kills Shere Khan.

Which 1937 film adapted 'Toomai of the Elephants' from The Jungle Book?

Elephant Boy made a star of its young mahout, found working with a maharajah's elephants, and five years later he was playing Mowgli.

Which friend of Kipling built the Wolf Cubs on his Jungle Book stories?

Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement, wrote to ask Kipling's permission and themed The Wolf Cub's Handbook on The Jungle Book.

In Kipling's Jungle Book, Shere Khan's fawning sidekick Tabaqui is which animal?

Jackal Tabaqui, 'the Dish-licker', lives on scraps, and even the wolves fear him because he is the likeliest creature in the jungle to go mad.

In Disney's TaleSpin, who is the vain captain of the air pirates?

Don Karnage's pirates share the show with familiar faces in new jobs: Shere Khan is a ruthless tycoon and Louie runs a nightclub.

Which Neil Gaiman novel was modelled on Kipling's Mowgli stories?

The Graveyard Book came to Gaiman as he watched his small son cycle among gravestones: a child adopted by the dead, as Mowgli is by wild animals.

Which sci-fi classic grew from a suggestion to retell The Jungle Book with a child raised by Martians?

Stranger in a Strange Land began with an idea from Robert Heinlein's wife Virginia; its hero is a human baby raised on Mars who comes back to Earth.

Who narrated Chuck Jones's 1975 television adaptation of 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi'?

Orson Welles narrated and also voiced the male cobra; a Soviet cartoon of the story ten years earlier had made the English family Indian instead.

In Kipling's 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi', what are the two cobras called?

Nag and Nagaina are husband and wife; once Nag is dead, Nagaina flees down their hole with Rikki-tikki's teeth clenched on her tail.

In Kipling's Jungle Book, the lawless Bandar-log who kidnap Mowgli are which animals?

Monkeys: 'Bandar-log' means Monkey People, and the other animals shun them because they have no law, no leaders and no memory.

In 'In the Rukh', Kipling's first Mowgli story, the grown Mowgli takes which job?

Forest guard: the head of India's forest department takes the wolf-raised young man into government service, and the tales of his jungle childhood were published only afterwards.

In 'Red Dog' from The Second Jungle Book, Mowgli and the wolves fight off a rampaging pack of what?

Dholes, the red wild dogs of India, are lured by Mowgli over a gorge hung with the hives of wild bees and into the river, where the wolves are waiting.

Kipling admitted part of the Law of the Jungle was lifted from the spoils-sharing rules of which Arctic people?

Inuit hunters, 'Esquimaux' in his words, supplied a little of the code, Kipling confessed in a letter, adding that he could not recall whose other stories he had stolen.

Kipling took several animal names from Indian words for the species; 'Hathi' means which animal?

Elephant: Hathi is one of the Indian names for the animal, Kipling noted, just as Baloo means bear; Disney turned him into a pompous colonel.

Stephen Sommers, director of Disney's 1994 live-action Jungle Book, went on to make which blockbuster adventure?

The Mummy (1999) was Sommers's own script, which turned a 1932 horror classic into a romantic adventure closer to Indiana Jones than to a monster film.

In Kipling's Jungle Book, Bagheera tells Mowgli he was born where, which is why he understands men?

The king's cages at Oodeypore held him until he broke the lock one night; having known captivity among men, he paid the price for Mowgli's life at the Council.

In Disney's 2016 Jungle Book, King Louie was reimagined as which extinct ape?

Gigantopithecus replaced the 1967 film's species, which never lived in the Indian jungle; the film-makers treated Louie as the last of his kind.

Which comedian's final role was Ikki the porcupine in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book?

Garry Shandling died in March 2016, three weeks before the film opened; Ikki comes from Kipling's book and had no part in the 1967 cartoon.

Which live-action Disney remake followed the 2016 Jungle Book into cinemas a year later and out-grossed it?

Beauty and the Beast starred Emma Watson as Belle, after her talks to play Disney's live-action Cinderella had fallen through.

In Kipling's Jungle Book, what name does Mowgli's fierce wolf mother give herself?

Raksha, which Kipling glosses as 'the Demon', is the name she throws at Shere Khan when he comes to her cave demanding the man-cub and she refuses to give him up.

Why was child actor David Bailey replaced as Mowgli during production of Disney's 1967 Jungle Book?

He hit puberty and his voice changed mid-production, so the director gave the part to his own son Bruce, who had just voiced Christopher Robin.

Which song do the four vultures sing in Disney's 1967 Jungle Book?

That's What Friends Are For was written as a rock-style quartet for a famous band, who turned the film down, so the vultures sing it without them.

Who took over as the voice of Baloo in The Jungle Book 2 (2003)?

John Goodman's Baloo pines for his man-cub Mowgli, while Shere Khan, beaten in the first film, is back and waiting for his revenge.

Story artist Bill Peet quit Disney in a row over The Jungle Book; what did he become known for afterwards?

Children's picture books: Peet, who had proposed the film and drafted its first, darker story, went on to write and illustrate more than 30 of them.

Kipling's Mowgli is cited as a major influence on which hero created by Edgar Rice Burroughs?

Tarzan reached print in 1912. Kipling wrote that Burroughs had jazzed up the Jungle Books' idea, and was reported to have wanted to see how bad a book he could get away with.

Kipling noted that the first syllable of Mowgli, a name he said he made up, rhymes with which word?

Cow is the rhyme Kipling gave in a pronunciation guide to his characters, with the stress on that first syllable: MOW-glee.

Which superhero is raised by wolves in a DC Comics Elseworlds tale modelled on The Jungle Book?

Superman is the wolf-child of 'The Feral Man of Steel', a story in which Bagheera and Shere Khan also make appearances.

Bagheera, the black panther who mentors Mowgli in The Jungle Book, is a dark form of which big cat?

Leopard markings show through on Bagheera in Kipling's telling: in certain lights his inky coat reveals a pattern like watered silk.

Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, was only 41 when he won which literary award in 1907?

The Nobel Prize in Literature made Kipling its first English-language winner. He also declined a knighthood and the Poet Laureateship.

Which Sherlock star voiced the tiger Shere Khan in the 2018 film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle?

Benedict Cumberbatch played the villain through voice and motion capture, opposite Cate Blanchett as the snake Kaa.

Which 12 Years a Slave Oscar winner voiced Mowgli's wolf mother in Disney's 2016 The Jungle Book?

Lupita Nyong'o voiced a part the filmmakers deliberately enlarged, giving the wolf Raksha a more prominent role that was closer to Kipling's original tales.

Which country produced Adventures of Mowgli, a darker animated rival to Disney's The Jungle Book, from 1967?

Soviet Union studio Soyuzmultfilm issued the tale as five shorts, later joined into one feature, and stayed far closer to the fights and deaths of Kipling's original.

Which future Game of Thrones star played Mowgli's love interest Kitty in 1994's The Jungle Book?

Lena Headey played Kitty Brydon, a British colonel's daughter whose suitor, a big game hunter played by Cary Elwes, is the film's villain.

Which singer, a Catwoman in the 1960s Batman series, voiced Kaa in BBC Radio's 1994 The Jungle Book?

Eartha Kitt gave the snake a woman's voice 22 years before Disney's 2016 remake did, in a cast with Freddie Jones as Baloo.

In Kipling's "Mowgli's Brothers", what name do the jungle animals give to fire, which they all dread?

The Red Flower is their word because no creature will call fire by its proper name, and Mowgli, being human, is the only one in the jungle unafraid to carry it.

What job earns Baloo the bear a seat at the wolf pack's meetings in Kipling's "Mowgli's Brothers"?

Teaching the cubs the Law is his work, a long way from Disney's carefree loafer, and he may come and go freely because he eats only nuts, roots and honey.

Tabaqui the Dish-licker, who trails Shere Khan for scraps in "Mowgli's Brothers", is what kind of animal?

A jackal, Tabaqui is despised by the wolves for his mischief, yet feared too, because he is the creature most likely to run mad and bite everything in his path.

At the end of "Mowgli's Brothers", what new experience makes Mowgli ask Bagheera whether he is dying?

Crying is new to Mowgli, who has never wept before he must leave the pack; Bagheera reassures him that tears are simply something men use.

In "Mowgli's Brothers", what price does Bagheera pay the wolf pack to spare the infant Mowgli?

A freshly killed bull buys his place, which is why Bagheera later tells Mowgli that he must never kill or eat cattle, young or old.

In "Mowgli's Brothers", Bagheera says the wolves hate Mowgli partly because not one of them can do what?

No wolf can meet his stare: any that Mowgli looks at hard is forced to drop its eyes, a power he first used simply for fun.

In "Mowgli's Brothers", Mother Wolf defies Shere Khan as Raksha, a name Kipling translates as what?

The Demon is no idle title: Father Wolf recalls winning her in a fair fight against rival wolves, and even the tiger backs out of the cave rather than face her.

Which Planet of the Apes actor narrated and voiced Chuck Jones's 1976 cartoon of "Mowgli's Brothers"?

Roddy McDowall supplied the narration and voices, with June Foray as Mother Wolf, and the cartoon turned Shere Khan into a white tiger.

In "Mowgli's Brothers", what is the pack's leader called for the rest of his life once he misses a kill?

The Dead Wolf is the name, and Kipling adds that such a leader does not live long, since the pack then has the right to kill him.

Before The Jungle Book collected it, "Mowgli's Brothers" first ran in which American children's magazine?

St. Nicholas printed the tale in January 1894, after its editor, Mary Mapes Dodge, asked Kipling for a fiction series and he sent her the Jungle Book stories.

In Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book, how does the snake Kaa twice overpower Mowgli before trying to eat him?

Hypnosis works through his eyes, and since Kaa has no limbs the animators gave him big expressive ones and let his coils act as hands.

Which jazzy number does the ape King Louie sing to Mowgli in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book?

I Wan'na Be Like You grew from a pun: an ape swings through the trees, so the Sherman Brothers made him a jazz man and gave the number a Dixieland-style melody.

At the end of Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book, what finally lures Mowgli away from Baloo and Bagheera?

A girl fetching water does it: writer Larry Clemmons invented her because the animators felt falling in love was the best excuse for Mowgli to leave.

In Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book, which human weapon does Bagheera say Shere Khan fears?

Guns are what the tiger dreads, and it is this warning from Bagheera that persuades the reluctant Baloo to give Mowgli up to the humans.

Kaa's song "Trust in Me" in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book reworks a tune cut from which earlier Disney musical?

Mary Poppins lost a number called 'The Land of Sand', and the Sherman Brothers recycled its melody when Walt Disney asked for a song for the snake.

Which child star of TV's Gentle Ben voiced the baby elephant in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book?

Clint Howard, younger brother of director Ron Howard, played Hathi Jr., the son of the pompous Colonel Hathi and his wife Winifred.

Which actor, the butler Mr. French in TV's Family Affair, voiced Bagheera in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book?

Sebastian Cabot doubles as the film's narrator, and he won the part over Rod Taylor and Karl Swenson, the animators' other favourites.

Bagheera's eulogy for Baloo in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book reuses organ music from which earlier Disney film?

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs supplied the organ piece, written by Paul J. Smith thirty years earlier, and another cue was borrowed from Sleeping Beauty.

A singer from which 1960s British pop duo voiced Flaps the vulture in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book?

Chad & Jeremy singer Chad Stuart voiced Flaps a year before the duo split, after a run of hits that was far longer in America than at home.

Which voice of Cinderella's Fairy Godmother made her final film as Winifred the elephant in 1967's The Jungle Book?

Verna Felton died ten months before the film opened, just one day before Walt Disney himself.

In Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", what is the name of the English boy whose family takes Rikki in?

Teddy first takes the half-drowned Rikki for dead and proposes a funeral, until his mother suggests drying the little animal off instead.

In Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", what carries the young Rikki from his parents' burrow to the bungalow garden?

A summer flood washes him out of the burrow and down a roadside ditch, where he clings to a wisp of grass until he loses his senses.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", in which room of the bungalow does Rikki ambush the male cobra as it sleeps?

The bathroom is where the cobra lies in wait for the boy's father; Rikki clamps his teeth on the snake's head and hangs on until a shotgun blast ends the fight.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", what injury does Darzee's wife fake to lure the female cobra away from her eggs?

A broken wing is her trick: she flutters along the ground just out of reach, careful never to look at the snake's eyes, which can freeze a bird with fright.

In Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", what colour do Rikki's eyes turn whenever he is angry and ready to fight?

Red eyes are the sign that one of his kind is angry, Kipling explains, and Rikki's stay that way all through his long struggle in the dark.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", where does Rikki chase the last cobra for a final fight that nobody sees?

Down a rat hole he goes, clinging to her tail, and Darzee is already singing a death song for him when Rikki crawls out covered in dirt.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", where in the garden has the female cobra hidden the eggs that Rikki destroys?

In the melon bed, near the sunny wall, Rikki finds 25 eggs and crushes all but one, which he carries to the veranda as bait.

In Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", Darzee, who sings of every victory in the garden, is what kind of bird?

A tailorbird, Darzee has a name that simply means tailor, and his nest is two big leaves stitched together at the edges with fibres.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", which small dust-brown snake does Rikki kill on the garden path to save the family's son?

Karait is so small that nobody thinks of him, yet his bite is as dangerous as a cobra's, so the fight is riskier than Rikki knows.

Kipling set "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" in which real Indian garrison town, where an 1816 treaty fixed Nepal's border?

Segowlee, now spelled Sugauli, lies in Bihar, and Rikki's mother is said to have once lived in the general's house there.

In Kipling's "Tiger! Tiger!", which village woman takes Mowgli in, believing he may be her lost son?

Messua is the wife of the richest man in the place, and she alone runs out to warn Mowgli when the rest of the village turns on him.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", what do the villagers accuse Mowgli of when they drive him away with stones?

Sorcery is the charge, spread by a frightened hunter who saw a wolf obey the boy: the pack cast Mowgli out for being a man, and now men cast him out as a wolf.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", where is Shere Khan resting when Mowgli springs the trap that finally kills him?

In a dry ravine of the Waingunga the tiger waits, between walls so nearly straight up and down that the creepers on them give no foothold.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", which of Mother Wolf's cubs brings Mowgli news of Shere Khan while he lives among men?

Grey Brother, the eldest of the cubs, trails Mowgli twenty miles to the village and later forces Shere Khan's plan out of Tabaqui.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", where does Mowgli spread out Shere Khan's hide to keep an old promise?

On the Council Rock he pegs the skin to the flat stone where the old pack leader used to sit, then dances on it while the wolves howl.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", why is Shere Khan in no state to fight or climb when Mowgli's trap closes on him?

He is full of food and water, having killed a pig at dawn and drunk his fill, because Shere Khan could never fast, even for revenge.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", which boastful village hunter tries to claim Shere Khan's skin for the government reward?

Buldeo wants the hundred rupees on the tiger's head, but a wolf pins him to the ground until Mowgli lets him hobble back to the village.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", the village elders say Shere Khan's body holds the ghost of a man of which trade?

A money-lender named Purun Dass is their tale, and Mowgli, who knows the tiger at first hand, laughs at it and is scolded for cheeking his elders.

Which later Kipling story continues "Tiger! Tiger!", as Mowgli takes revenge on the village that drove him out?

Letting in the Jungle has Mowgli free his adoptive parents, whom the villagers have locked up for fostering him, then call in the elephants to flatten the fields.

In "Tiger! Tiger!", by what name does Mowgli's adoptive mother call him, after the son a tiger carried off?

Nathoo is the lost boy's name, and though she sees from his hardened feet that Mowgli has never worn shoes, she takes him as her son anyway.