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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 of the featured 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 fantasy version of the 1930s. 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. Their relationship dynamic was influenced by the characters of
Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and
Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley).
Casablanca inspired 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, met 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 frozen 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 presentations were restored.
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