Prod. 2179 - Jungle Book (V) - Seq. 004 - Bear
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Animation by Milt Kahl (first Mowgli close-up, otherwise Bagheera), Ollie Johnston (Mowgli, Baloo) and Frank Thomas (Mowgli, Baloo), Dick Lucas (two scenes with monkeys).
Of course, the Bear Necessities is a classic. The song by Terry Gilkyson (often confused for the Sherman Brothers who wrote the rest of the songs) is very much part of the '67 Zeitgeist, and the animation by Frank and Ollie is a staple of the Christmas shows.
I always found it interesting to see how rough some of the drawings on the bear are. Though this would not have been much to Walt's liking, I wonder how much of it was due to the animators liking it, and how much was because of deadlines.
Thanks, John and Steven, for the insightful comments!
Keep 'em coming! Others are welcome, too, of course!
Completely off-topic, the beams are slowly turned on at the LHC.
It's the largest machine in the world... Happy Easter!
Labels: Draft, JungleBook
posted by Hans Perk at 12:00 PM
4 Comments:
"Leopard" again.
After a few shots by Ollie Johnston where Mowgli and Baloo meet, Frank Thomas animates all of their interaction up until the song, which is all Ollie Johnston.
During Ollie's section, he also animates Bagheera, but during Frank's section all the shots of the panther were by Milt Kahl. This is similar to what happened on the Kaa sequence. I guess Frank Thomas never learned how to draw Bagheera. Time will tell.
As Hans mentioned, this is the only song not by the Sherman Brothers, which means it gets singled out in the opening credits. "Songs by RICHARD M SHERMAN and ROBERT B SHERMAN. The Bare Necessities by TERRY GILKYSON, Sung by PHIL HARRIS." I wonder why they needed to credit Phil Harris a second time for singing the song, an honour they didn't give to any of the other voice cast.
Until you mentioned it, I hadn't really noticed the rough drawings of Baloo. I had noticed it with Col. Hathi in the earlier scenes, but I guess Baloo's hairier appearance makes it less noticeable.
I'm sure Frank was capable of drawing and animating Bagheera, but I think this is more of an animation casting decision. If anything, Mowgli is a much more difficult character to animate, because of his proportions. Frank would've lobbied to animate a lot of the chemistry between Baloo and Mowgli, so this was right up his alley.
Nevertheless, It's a great sequence for both Frank and Ollie, and their talent is put to excellent use.
Ollie does all of Bear Necessities himself! That's quite a feat.
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