By all rights, TaleSpin should not work.
Don’t get me wrong, TaleSpin does work. But on paper, it sounds like one of the worst ideas ever. It takes a few of the characters from an existing Disney movie and transplants them to a completely different setting, one that is totally incompatible with their lives in the original film. Let’s say you were an executive at Disney Television Animation and I came with you with a pitch for a show featuring characters from Lady and the Tramp. Except Tramp is now a truck driver, Lady runs the local trucker’s diner, the beaver is Tramp’s wacky mechanic, and Si and Am run a rival trucking company. Oh, and the story is vaguely set in the 1970s. How long would it take for you to politely escort me to the door with the parting words “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”?
And yet TaleSpin, which does pretty much the same thing to characters from The Jungle Book, is actually a good show. The familiar characters may have helped to convince audiences to give the series a first look and to convince Disney decision makers to greenlight the show. (The idea that pre-established Disney characters could help a show find its audience also played a role in the development of a show about team of crimefighting animals. Then-CEO Michael Eisner suggested that the main character be replaced with Disney’s famous chipmunk duo and the series evolved into Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers.) But what kept the show going and fans tuning in was the adventure filled plots and engaging character relationships. Using the Jungle Book characters as a starting point may have helped, but they were not the key element that made the show work. Anyone remember Jungle Cubs? Didn’t think so.
TaleSpin follows the adventures of the crew of an air cargo business called Higher for Hire. Baloo is Higher for Hire’s sole pilot. Eleven-year-old orphan Kit Cloudkicker is Baloo’s navigator and best pal. Business savvy Rebecca Cunningham is the brains of the operation and single parent to her young daughter Molly. Handling the frequently necessary repairs on Baloo’s plane the Sea Duck is Wildcat, something of an idiot savant with a brain for fixing planes and not much else. Shere Khan is head of rival shipping company Khan industries while Louie the orangutan owns the favorite rest stop of local pirates. Throughout the series, the Higher for Hire crew tangles with air pirates, Shere Khan’s schemes to gain domination of the air cargo market, and various other hazards. An equal number of problems arise from the characters’ own personalities and their disagreements with one another.
There is a rather persistent rumor about the development of TaleSpin that states that the role ultimately given to Baloo was originally written for crash-prone pilot Launchpad McQuack from DuckTales. The name “TaleSpin,” the rumor argues, is a leftover from this version of the series, intended to further connect the show to its predecessor. As well as this theory seems to fit, it isn’t true. Series co-creator Jymn Magon has repeatedly stated that Launchpad was never intended to be the main character in TaleSpin. The confusion comes from the fact that Magon got the idea for a show about an air cargo service from a never-used idea for DuckTales in which Launchpad would have had his own business transporting cargo rather than just being Scrooge McDuck’s personal pilot. Baloo was lifted from a never-produced series concept called “B Players” – about a group of out-of-work Disney toons seeking employment – and given the cargo pilot job. The name “TaleSpin” is a play on both “tailspin” – the out-of-control downward descent of an aircraft, featured in the climax of the show’s five-part pilot – and “spinning tales,” meaning “telling stories.” The similarity to DuckTales is just a coincidence.
Baloo and Kit’s relationship is one of the key components of TaleSpin. It is very similar to the relationship between Baloo and Mowgli from The Jungle Book, right down to Kit calling Baloo “Papa Bear” and Baloo referring to Kit as “Little Britches,” a particularly odd nickname when you consider that Kit doesn’t wear pants. Like the jungle bear and the man cub, Baloo and Kit act something like father and son, but also best buddies. They frequently treat each other as equals, despite their age difference. Baloo is the older of the two, but his laid-back attitude towards life and tendency to seek out the easy road to success usually keep him from being a reliable authority figure or role model. There are several episodes where Kit is actually the mature and sensible one of the pair, balancing out Baloo’s ill-advised schemes. But in “Stormy Weather,” they fall into the more traditional roles for their respective ages. Kit is eager to embark upon a new venture he believes will lead to fame and fortune, while Baloo acts as the worldly voice of experience as he desperately tries to retain his place in Kit’s life.
The Episode:
As with any half-hour television show, economical storytelling is key here. Everything the audience needs to know has to be established in the first few minutes. The episode quickly points out that Kit is not merely Baloo’s junior sidekick; he is Baloo’s navigator. And judging from how Baloo is struggling to even handle the map, let alone read it, he hasn’t given Kit a meaningless title. Kit easily wrangles the map and figures out their location. Baloo affectionately calls his young partner an “ace” – a term we’ll see again later – and remarks that he doesn’t know where he’d be without Kit. Based on this, any viewer could easily tell how important Kit is to Baloo without ever having seen an episode before, and most could guess that before long, Baloo will discover exactly where he would be without Kit.
The first scene also introduces Kit’s favorite pastime: cloudsurfing. Cloudsurfing is a sort of high altitude version of waterskiing with Baloo’s plane the Sea Duck substituting for the boat and Kit’s unique curved board in place of the skis. Part of Kit and Baloo’s bond is based on their shared love of flying and since Kit is too young to fly a plane on his own, cloudsurfing is his most direct way of experiencing the freedom of the air.
We’re now just one minute in to the episode and up to speed on our heroes and their roles in one another’s lives. Enter our villain, one Daring Dan Dawson, in a biplane headed straight for Baloo. Baloo’s piloting skills keep the two planes from colliding, but Dan is more interested in the kid surfing behind the plane than the pilot flying it. Happy to have an appreciative audience, Kit starts off by imitating what Dan does with his plane, and then moves on to a few of his own stunts. Baloo grows increasingly annoyed with Kit’s showing off, especially when they fly into a very literal interpretation of the “stormy weather” of the title. Kit ends his routine with a flying dismount onto the back of the Sea Duck. When Baloo looks back and doesn’t see Kit, he fears the worst. Of course Kit is fine, but Baloo is so angry with Kit for performing dangerous stunts in bad weather and scaring him that he switches from Kit’s best pal to a disapproving parent.
With just a few tweaks this could have been a story about Baloo learning a lesson. There are plenty of narratives that center on a parent or other authority figure overzealous in his or her efforts to keep a child safe. But Baloo is not against Kit doing anything remotely dangerous. He is fine with letting Kit cloudsurf. And Baloo is not the poster child for safe behavior as the hero of an adventure cartoon. Kit points out that Baloo is the guy who flew two tons of dynamite through a hurricane. But that, Baloo retorts, was for a job. Kit was doing something dangerous just to show off. It’s Kit’s behavior that is the problem here and much of the episode will deal with Kit learning which risks aren’t worth taking and who is really looking out for his best interests.
Daring Dan shows up at Higher For Hire and reveals that he is the owner and star performer of “Daring Dan’s Dazzling Circus of the Air.” Dan is not the subtlest of villains. He frequently looks and sounds sinister, whether or not he has no reason to. He even appears to be an actual weasel. But to Kit, he is the person who seems to respect and appreciate Kit’s cloudsurfing skills when no one else does. Dan eventually offers Kit a spot in his air circus as “Kit Cloudkicker: Ace of Skies,” promising Kit fame and fortune. Kit may be interested in using his talents for his own gain, but the real draw is being told that he has the potential to be a star by someone who has Kit dazzled with his fancy flying, colored smoke, and confetti.
Dan is sleazy to start with, but what makes him a villain is his total lack of concern for Kit’s safety. Most of Dan’s own stunts involve near brushes with certain disaster and the stunt he begins teaching Kit are much the same. Dan may recognize that Kit has raw talent, but his carelessness with Kit’s safety and his eventually revealed record for getting his co-stars hurt suggests that he doesn’t much care whether Kit will be able to perform long term. If Kit gets hurt, Dan can find a new “ace” to replace him. Baloo, on the other hand, only has one “ace” navigator.
Rebecca Cunningham has a surprisingly minor role in this episode. She is Baloo’s – and, by extension, Kit’s – boss, a woman with a forceful personality who is very good at getting her way. She is also the closest thing to a mom in Kit’s surrogate family. Though she shares Baloo’s concerns that Kit’s aerial stunts are getting dangerous, her reactions are far less emotionally charged than Baloo’s. If Rebecca wanted to try and dissuade Kit from joining the air circus, she could at least make her argument much more calmly than Baloo makes his. So why doesn’t she? The obvious reason is that if Rebecca could convince Kit to stay at Higher for Hire, the story would end prematurely. This is also a Baloo and Kit episode, so the primary focus has to be on their relationship unraveling. If Kit is directly presented with other reasons to stay or go, the story ceases to be about Dan driving a wedge between Kit and Baloo. But to the credit of episode writer Jan Strnad and story editor Karl Guers, Rebecca has an additional reason for not trying to influence Kit’s decision. Rebecca is a pragmatist. In a heart-to-heart with a worried Baloo, she points out that Kit does have a talent for cloudsurfing and if that talent is going to lead Kit to bigger and better things, then maybe they shouldn’t stand in his way. She does end up encouraging Baloo to keep trying to win Kit back, but she does have more parental experience than Baloo and may be more prepared to let Kit go than he is.
Speaking of Rebecca’s parenting experience, her daughter Molly is nowhere to be seen in this episode. The reason is much the same as the reason for Rebecca remaining on the sidelines in the conflict between Kit and Baloo. Kit acts as a big brother to Molly. Not only would Molly be an unnecessary character in the story, she would also present Kit with an extremely compelling reason to stay where he is that has nothing to do with Baloo.
Dan’s arrival has forced Baloo to act as Kit’s father while still trying to be his best buddy. Normally, these two roles coexist with ease. Baloo is seldom called on to be mature or responsible and it often falls to Kit to provide those attributes. But now, Baloo is in the awkward position of having to both convince Kit that he is still fun to be around and prevent Kit from doing the dangerous stunts that Kit currently considers fun. Dan may not be aware that seeing Kit performing death defying feats provokes Baloo’s anger and makes him seem like even more of a stick-in-the-mud to Kit, but he is quite adept of marginalizing Baloo and dismissing him as one of the roadblocks between Kit and a life of fame and fortune. The fact that Baloo respects Kit as an equal partner makes their friendship strong, but it also robs Baloo of the authority he needs to keep Kit from leaving. Their father and son relationship is based on both of them wanting to have it. When Kit ends their final argument by yelling “You’re not my dad” (which sounds cheesy, but is actually effective in this context), it underlines the fact that Kit can walk away and choose Dan or anyone else as his new father figure any time he wants to.
Abandoned by his best friend, Baloo becomes visibly depressed. When a police officer comes by looking for Baloo, his immediate reaction is to request to be locked up because “I got nothing to live for anyway.” The moment is played for comedy, helped along by a light hearted score and the fact that Baloo’s criminal activity is nothing worse than a few unpaid parking tickets. (The officer is actually gathering information on Dan and providing Baloo with the crucial knowledge that Dan’s low safety standards have injured his performers before, though I don’t know why he thinks Baloo knows anything about Dan.) But Baloo is being sincere. Kit may be the one thing in Baloo’s life that he loves more than flying or the Sea Duck. Without Kit, Baloo can’t be happy.
Baloo’s declaration that his life is meaningless without Kit makes it all the more understandable that Baloo is so quick to rush to the rescue when he learns that Kit is in serious danger. He may lack the parental authority to be an effective disciplinarian, but when his surrogate son is threatened, Baloo’s anger goes from ineffectual sputtering to focused action. Kit’s earlier outburst aside, the guy flying to his aide while snarling that Dan will soon have just one tooth to his name is clearly Kit’s Papa Bear.
I won’t spoil the details of the ending for you, though I’ll doubt you’ll be surprised to learn that the status quo is restored. What makes TaleSpin so entertaining to watch is not unpredictable stories, but the well-defined characters and the way they interact with one another. Since the ending is not going to shock anyone, this episode depends on the audience caring about Baloo and Kit’s relationship enough to really empathize with what the characters are going through. Succeeding in that is a big accomplishment, especially for a TV series with a premise that sounds like the worst idea ever.
All images in this article are copyright Disney.
Tags: disney
I always found it interesting how the plot for this show reflected Cheer’s sixth season so effectively.
Right down to Rebbecca’s name.
I admit that my knowledge of Cheers is somewhat lacking, but the influence of the show on Baloo and Rebecca’s relationship seems to be confirmed. Rebecca may have even been named after the character from Cheers.
Rebecca and Baloo have one of those relationships where becoming a couple would require a fundemental change in one of the two. Baloo is never going to take things seriously and Rebecca is never going to lighten up, so at best, they’re good friends who care about each other very much. At worst, they’re at each others’ throats.
There’s a scene in this episode where Dan initially mistakes Baloo and Rebecca for Kit’s parents. Rebecca gets offended, not at the idea that she is Kit’s mother, but at the suggestion that she is married to Baloo.
You gave me a broken link there. ^^;
Basically cliff’s notes version of Cheers (sixth season anyway) is this:
*Diane leaves the bar. Sam gets depressed. Sam sells bar to go and sail around the world. Ship sinks and he comes home to find that the bar has been taken over by a serious, husky-voiced, somewhat taciturn business woman. Well-educated in business and very ambitious. His fun-loving care-free personality often brings him into conflict with her. There was some romantic tension between them but it didn’t amount to much. (I think mostly because the relationship between Sam and Diane in the first five seasons had been so strong.)
And Rebecca would of course frequently scoff at the idea of hooking up with Sam. :p
I would watch that Lady and the Tramp show so hard.
It makes even less sense than TaleSpin, so logically, it would be an even better show. Maybe I should pitch it.
You know, most of the shows that hit it off don’t sound good on paper. And so, even if you think your Lady and the Tramp spinoff makes no sense, you could be surprised. It could be quite a hit with the right engaging storyline.
Good point, though I still think TaleSpin‘s premise is stranger than most. Weird concepts can definitely work. That said, I think my Lady and the Tramp spinoff is an idea best left unmade.
Here’s the good link to Jymn’s answer : http://www.animationsource.org/talespin/en/custom_questions/Does_Baloo_have_feelings_for_Rebecca/149.html&nump=1338
Good article, I’ll refer to it on our Talespin forums