Ep 722 - The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling

Summary

Overdue Podcast: Ep 722 – The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling

Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Release Date: September 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Andrew and Craig read and discuss Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book—the collection of stories famously adapted by Disney and referenced throughout pop culture. They explore their own connections to Kipling’s work, dig into its structure and legacy, assess its imperialist undertones, review various adaptations, and dissect both the Mowgli and non-Mowgli stories in the original collection.

With their typical humor and thoroughness, the hosts tackle the book’s themes of belonging, hierarchy, and morality, while not shying from the more uncomfortable corners of Kipling’s worldview. Whether you’re new to Kipling or only familiar with Baloo and Bagheera from Disney, this episode breaks the book down into its essential (and “bare”) necessities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Histories with The Jungle Book

• Discussion of Disney Adaptations [03:34–05:22]:
  • Both hosts grew up exposed more to Disney’s Robin Hood than to the original Jungle Book movie but are familiar with its characters—especially Baloo—and note how Disney recycled character models and voice actors.
  • Discussion of the odd continuity where Baloo appears as a pilot in TailSpin and the confusion with other anthropomorphic animal pilots in Disney animation.

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2. Rudyard Kipling: Biography and Legacy

• Kipling’s Background & Ideology [07:13–13:26]:
  • Kipling was born in British-controlled India, raised in the UK by a host family he loathed, and spent his life shuttling between imperial centers.
    • “Children tell little more than animals for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.” – Kipling [08:51]
  • The hosts emphasize Kipling’s well-documented pro-imperialist stance, noting such controversial works as “The White Man’s Burden” (1899):
    • “The burden… is the task of conquering and civilizing non-white people.” – Andrew [12:13]
    • Orwell's perspective: Kipling is "a jingo imperialist who is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting. ... While every enlightened person has despised him, 9/10 of those enlightened persons are forgotten, and Kipling is in some sense still there." [14:01]
• Tension with Kipling’s Enduring Influence [14:01–15:56]:
  • Andrew and Craig note the challenge of reading Kipling with modern sensibilities, but admit the whimsy and imagination of his stories endures, even as its worldview often frustrates.

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3. The Jungle Book Structure and Adaptations

• Original Book Composition & Sources [17:22–19:00]:
  • First published in 1894; consists primarily of short stories, only three of which feature Mowgli.
  • Influenced by Indian fables like the Jataka tales and Panchatantra.
• Disney and Other Adaptations [19:00–27:29]:
  • Disney's 1967 animated film: last animated movie produced by Walt Disney, greatly refocused for family audiences.
    • Bill Peet initially wanted a darker, more faithful adaptation but clashed with Disney over tone.
  • King Louie controversy and cultural disclaimers:
    • "Defenders point out... [King Louie] is explicitly based on a white jazz performer, but... white jazz in the '60s owed a lot to Black culture, so that's not much of a defense." – Andrew [24:37]
    • Disney+ has since appended a stereotype warning to the film.
  • Multiple sequels, remakes, and live-action adaptations exist—including Jon Favreau’s 2016 "live-action-ish" version.
  • For deeper reading: Slate’s How Disney’s New Jungle Book Subverts the Gross Colonialism of Rudyard Kipling by Katie Waldman [25:20].

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4. The Stories Themselves: Mowgli and Beyond

• Breakdown of the Collection [28:15–34:03]:

  • Seven stories: three with Mowgli (“Mowgli’s Brothers,” “Ka’s Hunting,” “Tiger! Tiger!”), the remaining four featuring different animal protagonists ("The White Seal," "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," “Toomai of the Elephants,” “Her Majesty’s Servants”).
  • Notable Quote:
    “There’s three stories right in a row of Mowgli, my boy Mowgli…. And then there’s all these other ones.” – Craig [28:28]

• Non-Mowgli Stories

  • Toomai of the Elephants:
    • Craig describes this as the least compelling—focusing on a boy destined to work with elephants but lacking animal dialogue.
    • “It was the first story that was about a kid that wasn’t Mowgli. And I was a little annoyed… There aren’t any animal thoughts… which I thought was a bit of a bummer.” [29:32]
  • Her Majesty’s Servants:
    • A “hangout” story about military animals discussing their jobs and anxieties.
    • “Kipling is using the presumed different levels of intelligence among the animals to describe why this animal has a different experience of war than the cows… ‘Listen, man, I can see the bullet in my head. You don’t understand.’” – Craig [37:21]
  • The White Seal:
    • A white seal witnesses the brutal clubbing of his kind and sets out to find a safer home—parallels themes of belonging and difference.
  • Rikki-Tikki-Tavi:
    • Famous tale of a mongoose defending a human family from cobras.
    • “It’s about a mongoose who likes to kill snakes. I don’t know if you knew this. Mongooses kill snakes.” – Craig [44:36]

• Story Structure & Moral Lessons

  • "The main concern of these stories is, with one exception, the main character finding their place in the world." – Craig [32:04]

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5. Mowgli Stories: Key Arcs & Themes

• “Mowgli’s Brothers” [46:58–55:56]:

  • Mowgli is adopted by wolves after being orphaned; predators make up the book’s primary "personhood" caste.
  • The law forbids animals from eating humans, allegedly out of “sporting” fairness but really due to the repercussions of colonial firepower.
    • “The real reason is that man-killing means sooner or later the arrival of white men on elephants with guns and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches.” – Craig quoting Kipling [48:55]
  • Mowgli finds belonging with wolves but is ultimately pushed out as he grows and proves “human”—reflecting Kipling’s own cultural displacement.

• “Ka’s Hunting” [56:02–61:00]:

  • Mowgli, learning “the master words of the jungle,” is kidnapped by monkeys—the Bandar-log—who are vehemently ‘othered.’
  • Baloo’s withering rant about the monkeys serves as the clearest textual evidence of Kipling’s capacity for dehumanizing cultural “others”:
    • “They have no law. They are outcasts. They have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear … They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. … Even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads, we do not notice them…” – Baloo [57:58]
  • Ka the python is enlisted for a high-stakes animal rescue, leading to dizzy, dangerous encounters.

• “Tiger! Tiger!” [61:00–63:23]:

  • Cast out by both jungle and man, Mowgli engineers Shere Khan’s demise with help from wolves.
  • Ultimately, Mowgli is rejected by humans—deemed uncanny for his wolf-like powers and language.
  • “He doesn’t have a home… He is neither wolf nor man. Like, where does he belong?” – Craig [63:13]

• Overarching Mowgli Themes

  • Displacement and belonging: Mowgli is Kipling’s most resonant commentary on bicultural identity.
  • The stories’ tension and loneliness stem from Kipling’s own childhood—torn between colonial and “native” worlds.
  • Note: The hosts highlight parallels with other British-Indian fiction and diaspora writing.

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6. Whimsy, Rules, and Talking Animals

• On the Book’s Enduring Appeal

  • The hosts agree that the book’s animal dialogue, invented rules, and found-family camaraderie are the reasons for its enduring popularity, even if its worldview is dated.
  • "I'm interested in the rules. ... it's kind of fun to have, like, you know, Wolf Congress happen … and why they let this tiger onto the floor of the capital even though he’s not elected.” – Craig [67:42]

• On Kipling’s Literary Contradictions

  • “That’s why these stories have connected with people over the years... Even if you can connect them to some of Kipling’s more odious writing.” – Craig [65:11]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• [08:51] Kipling on his childhood trauma: “Children tell little more than animals for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison house before they are clear of it.”
• [12:56] Andrew, quoting “The White Man’s Burden”: “Take up the white man’s burden, send forth the best ye breed… your new caught sullen peoples half devil and half child.”
• [14:01] Orwell on Kipling: “Morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting… while every enlightened person has despised him, 9/10 of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there.”
• [37:21] Craig on animal intelligence: “You and your feeble mind cannot comprehend the horrors of war.”
• [57:58] Baloo on the Bandar-log: “They have no law. They are outcasts. … They are very many. Evil, dirty, shameless. And they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the jungle people. But we do not notice them.”
• [63:13] On Mowgli: “He is neither wolf nor man. Like, where does he belong?”
• [67:15] On the rules: “What are the rules? ... I'm interested in the rules.”

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Segment Timestamps

• Intro & Childhood Jungle Book Memories: [02:27–06:24]
• Rudyard Kipling’s Biography & Imperial Context: [07:13–15:56]
• Kipling’s Literary Output & Legacy: [09:42–13:26]
• Disney (and other) Adaptations: [19:00–27:29]
• Overview of the Collection's Structure: [28:14–34:03]
• Summaries of Non-Mowgli Stories: [34:03–46:22]
• Mowgli Stories in Detail: [46:58–63:23]
• Themes of Displacement and Belonging: [63:23–65:11]
• Final Thoughts & Endearing Features: [66:32–68:19]

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Episode Summary

Andrew and Craig’s episode on The Jungle Book is a thorough, humorous, and nuanced journey through both the legacy and the text of Kipling’s collection. The hosts acknowledge the colonial baggage Kipling brings, but find genuine merit in the whimsy and pathos of the Mowgli stories—especially as they wrestle with exile, found families, and the quest to belong. The non-Mowgli tales are more uneven and less memorable, though “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” remains a highlight.

The book’s most problematic sections, especially regarding the Bandar-log, are called out directly and serve as reminders that beloved classics can have difficult—and essential—histories to confront. If you want all the charm of talking-animal politics, wolf councils, and animal workplace comedies—and the context needed to read them today—this episode delivers.

In short: if you’ve only seen the Disney movies (or haven’t even done that), this episode gives you everything you “OUGHT” to know about Kipling’s jungle—and then some.

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Transcript

[Andrew]

Craig, I know you love audiobooks.

[Craig]

I do love audiobooks.

[Andrew]

So the good news for you and for anybody else who likes audiobooks is that this episode of Overdue is brought to you by Audible and the Audible original Pride and Prejudice. You want to know more about this thing?

[Craig]

Please tell me more.

[Andrew]

The Audible original Pride and Prejudice is an intimate performance that will have you falling in love with the Jane Austen classic all over again. Pride and Prejudice stars a full cast including Marisa Abilla from industry and Black Bag as Elizabeth Bennett and Harris Dickinson Baby Girl and Where the crawdads sing as Mr. Darcy. Plus Marianne Jean Baptiste, Will Poulter, Bill Nighy and Glenn Close as Lady Catherine de Burgh. Marisa Abella brings you inside the stubborn and complicated mind of Elizabeth Bennet as she navigates family expectations, societal pressures and her own misconceptions when she meets the enigmatic Mr. Darcy.

[Craig]

This new adaptation, Andrew, is vibrant. It sounds like to me you're just telling me about it. It's vibrant and it's modern. With an original new score by Grammy nominated composer. Whether you're fresh to Pride and Prejudice or you want to revisit a cherished favorite, you're in for a new and delightful listening experience. Before enemies to lovers, there was Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Pride and Prejudice is globally recognized as one of the greatest romance novels ever written. So listen to the new Pride and [e-mail] Jane Austin that's audible.com J A N E A U S T E N.

[Andrew]

This is a Headgum podcast.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew. Everybody at home knows that we do all kinds of stuff in every episode. But the the bare necessity for an overdue episode is that one of us has read a book that we've never read before and we tell the other person about it. And also you, the listener. And that's where. And that's where the content is made. That's where the content is found on this one.

[Craig]

Hey Andrew.

[Andrew]

Yes, what?

[Craig]

I want to be like you. I want to have a nice clean intro to an episode. No shenanigans.

[Andrew]

Yeah, let's just get right.

[Craig]

Feels very civil.

[Andrew]

It's very indulgent.

[Craig]

We were last time. Yes.

[Andrew]

Just getting, just thinking, thinking Big thoughts.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Being another year closer to the grave, you know?

[Craig]

Well, I'm glad that you had a good punny intro for this week's episode on the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, because I was probably just going to read lyrics from welcome to the Jungle instead.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm glad that's less thematically relevant. It also has the word jungle in it.

[Craig]

It does. It. We've made more out of less, so.

[Andrew]

We have not. Not against the advice of our lawyers.

[Craig]

We've made more out of less, so I have. Let's, like, do a quick, like, check in on. On our relationship to the Jungle Book, Andrew, and then you're going to tell me about Rudyard Kipling. Yeah, I've seen this film.

[Andrew]

I watched the 1967 Disney movie.

[Craig]

Did you watch it recently?

[Andrew]

Not recently.

[Craig]

Okay, okay, okay. Yes. No. But I've seen Jon Favreau's photorealistic one.

[Andrew]

Their live action. Even though, like, everything in those movies is.

[Craig]

But that one did have a human boy in it. It's not like the lion. Yeah, sure, I suppose. But no, I haven't seen that. But I did. But the Jungle Book was not a cartoon that, like, I recall watching a lot. Like, I watched a lot. I watched vhs.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, it was one of the. We had a weird assortment of, like, classic Disney movies. I don't know. We didn't watch a ton of Bambi. Didn't watch a ton of Cinderella. Like those.

[Craig]

Probably watched more. Robin Hood.

[Andrew]

We watched a lot of Robin Hood. Yeah, we watched Jungle Book a lot. But we also didn't have, like, the Aristocats or that one Escaped Me. Any of the other, like, weird. I don't know, the weird, slumpy 70s Disney zone.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Movies. We didn't have a lot of those, so.

[Craig]

But I say that it picked up.

[Andrew]

Again in the Renaissance.

[Craig]

Yeah, I say that because this is not like I'm familiar with who Baloo is. I know.

[Andrew]

I know about Baloo. I know. It's weird, though, that Baloo was also. That they just reused. It's not Baloo in Robin Hood, but he's the same character, model, voice by the same person. And then Baloo also was the bear in Tailspin where he was a pilot.

[Craig]

That's weird, huh?

[Andrew]

Are we meant to believe. And I'm sure we're. That we're not. But I don't know how to make sense of it otherwise. Are we to believe that he gets Mowgli to the village and then goes and gets his pilot's license after that?

[Craig]

He's just been waiting the whole time. It's very possible. I. I've never read.

[Andrew]

Then also, wasn't. He was the pilot in DuckTales too, right. Or was that somebody else that I.

[Craig]

Don'T know, that might have just been Tails?

[Andrew]

Oh, was just Launchpad McQuack.

[Craig]

That's Launchpad.

[Andrew]

Okay. Sorry.

[Craig]

Sorry, Launch.

[Andrew]

I'm really. I'm really sorry, Launchpad.

[Craig]

Launchpad stands are coming. No. And then. I've never read this book before. I've never had it read to me. I've never been exposed to any of Kipling's stuff. I am. I'm aware. I know his name. I've heard his name before. I think this is a book I've thought about doing for the show for a while, and. Yeah, here we are. That's. I. You've never read this, have you?

[Andrew]

I've never read it.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay. So, yeah, it's interesting. It's. It's a. It's a collection of stories, and I don't remember the film well enough to know what the arc of that story is of the. Of the movie. Of the movie, rather.

[Andrew]

The movie is mostly, there are animals who are raising a boy, and some of the animals are nicer than the other animals, but mainly Baloo and Bagheera. The panther are nice. Yeah, they're nice. And they need to get Mowgli back to. Back to human civilization before a big tiger can come.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Ruin everything.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

There's also a snake. Yeah, I remember what the snake deal is. Yeah.

[Craig]

And King Louis, who is king, was not a problem at all.

[Andrew]

We could talk about King Louis.

[Craig]

Okay, well, tell me about.

[Andrew]

First, let's. First, let's talk about Joseph Rudyard Kipling, who was born in 1865, died in 1936. An English writer of fiction and nonfiction and poetry, he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1907. This is the first English language writer to receive it.

[Craig]

At the time, they were pretty new at that. At that point. Right.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, listen. Sure. At the time, he was also the youngest at age 41. We got to do. It's just like Booth Tarkington. Like, you just take the. Take the. The acclamations that you can get.

[Craig]

Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right.

[Andrew]

Other notable novels and stories. I mean, he wrote a lot of stuff, but just so stories in 1902 was one I had heard of.

[Craig]

That's like how the leopard got his spots, right? Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

I don't know. The man who Would Be King is a short story from 1888 that I had heard of also. Okay, just going on, Just going on. I just read a list of things. I was like, oh, I heard of that one. I don't know anything about it, but I know that title.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

He was born in Bombay, which is modern day Mumbai, during the British colonial rule of India. And his identity as a, quote, Anglo Indian would inform his worldview and his writing for the rest of his life. Notably pro imperialism is Rudyard Kipling.

[Craig]

Yeah, talk about that a little bit.

[Andrew]

As a young boy, he was sent to live in the UK with some. He boarded with a. With a family. And this is an experience that he absolutely hated. He accuses caretakers of, quote, calculated torture. Here's a quote from him about his experience when asked by a relative why he didn't tell anybody that he was being mistreated. Children tell little more than animals for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison house before they are clear of it.

[Craig]

Oh, my God.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Woof.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

I do like children accept what comes to them as eternally established. Like, that is true to my experience of parenting. I'm not. I'm not, you know, doing. I hope I'm treating Henry better than Roger Kipling was treated at the Sporting House. But. But yeah, that is kind of how they roll is literally, you do something a couple times, it's just like that's how it's always been.

[Craig]

Just how it's always been. We got.

[Andrew]

We got to play 45 minutes of Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Plus Star Crossed World every single day.

[Craig]

When you have to call it. Until the.

[Andrew]

He.

[Craig]

Call it anything else.

[Andrew]

Well, because it was. Yeah, we have the expansion pack now, so. Yes, that's the whole name of it. He returned to India as a teenager, and in 1883, he started working for British newspapers in India, Most. Most importantly the Civil and Military Gazette. He publishes his first book of poems in 1886. It's called Departmental Ditties. This is just how people named stuff Merrie Melodies. Departmental ditties.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And he started contributing short stories to the newspaper around this time. Everybody just loved to talk about how much Richard Kipling like to write. He was just writing all the time. He was. He looked like a Dalmatian because he'd wear a white suit and he'd get ink all over it.

[Craig]

A real Alexander.

[Andrew]

He loved writing so much. Yeah. He wrote dozens of short stories in the late 1880s, including six collections that comprise a total of 41 stories. In 1888 alone, with the money that he earns from. From this. After he is fired from the newspaper.

[Craig]

Maybe for not doing enough newspaper, who knows?

[Andrew]

He moves back to London. He travels a bunch. He gets married. He and his wife move to the US Partly because their bank failed as they were traveling around. So they just kind of went. Decided to be in the US For a few years. And as they are living in a cottage in Vermont in the 1890s, he starts having the idea. And then they'd start having their. Their children. He begins having the ideas that would become the Jungle Book. Like so many authors, they have their genesis in these tales that these authors are telling their. Their kids this. Wait, what else do I have about him? I don't. I don't have a ton of stuff about his, like, post Jungle Book biography just because there's so much of it. I don't know if you.

[Craig]

I know he goes.

[Andrew]

Highlights you wanted to hit.

[Craig]

I just know that he goes back to England.

[Andrew]

Well, he went back to England because the people in the US Were too anti British.

[Craig]

Yes. And he was a little fair. Huh. Okay. And I'm sure we'll talk about white man's burden, which is his big, like, I mean, he gives that to Teddy Roosevelt at one point.

[Andrew]

Yeah. He's. He's really pushing this poem on anybody in a position of power who is. It's. Yes, it's. It's called the White Man's Burden. Published in 1899. It encourages the US to annex and colonize the Philippine Islands.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

The burden, if you are wondering, is the task of conquering and civilizing non white people.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

This is just the thing that white. That white man owes the world.

[Craig]

You can read individual lines of that poem as like, man, this would kind of stink to have to do this. But if you read the whole thing, like, you just kind of feel like he was pretty sure it was a good idea. And the fact that he gave it to people in power in the United States as a like way to sway.

[Andrew]

Trying to encourage US Imperialism from a. From a country that was already doing a lot of imperial.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Take up the white man's burden. Send forth the best ye breed. Go bind your sons to exile to serve your captives. Need to wait in heavy harness on fluttered folk and wild your new caught sullen peoples Half devil and half child.

[Craig]

Yeah, maybe don't these.

[Andrew]

Yeah. These people, these people you've subjugated are bad, but also they're your children. They don't know any better. You got to teach them. You got to teach them, white man. This is your burden. When that's as much as I want to talk about the white man's birds, I don't know if you got anymore.

[Craig]

No, there's not much more to say other than like, it's hard to read this book, the Jungle Book, and not be aware of Kipling's legacy as, huh, that guy had some stuff to say. Huh?

[Andrew]

Yeah. And to note, the general consensus on this is like the, the whimsy and imagination of it sort of carries it worth wading through, you know, the. The bits and pieces of the white man's burden worldview that you'll encounter as you read it.

[Craig]

Yeah, I have two thoughts on that. One. Well, two bits to share on that before my own thoughts. One is. Oh, a New York Times obit. Rudyard Kipling dies at age of 70, conscious at end. And then the subhead says, authors works. A Saga of the Glory of the Empire. M. Dash stirred many controversies is an interesting way to put it. And then there was a quote, I think from George Orwell about him. Let me see if I can find it. Who said. Who called him morally, called him a jingo imperialist who is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting. His work had many qualities which ensured that quote, while every enlightened person has despised him, 9/10 of those enlightened persons are forgotten. And Kipling is in some sense still there. And he go, he goes on to talk about how he is like, through and through a conservative, which is a thing that Orwell doesn't think really exists. There's just like fascists and liberals and that he was always operating from the position of those in power and not necessarily from a like, you know, you could read at its best, just a perspective that says, huh, well, if I have power, what should I do next? Like, what should I do with it if a problem arises, which is a question that those in power always have to answer, or they should. Anyway, that's Orwell being like, listen, I don't. I. I don't like this, but I can't deny him that he's here kind of thing. I think this book, I was so. I was really prepared for it to be gross in here.

[Andrew]

I think we've kind of. We've.

[Craig]

We maybe oversold.

[Andrew]

We alluded to that a couple of. A couple of times.

[Craig]

There's one paragraph about some monkeys that I'm going to read after the break that, oh, Boy, is really something. And then there's. Then you kind of have to read into some of the other stuff in the rest of the book. So the Mowgli stuff, like, it's, it's not overt racism. It's just a sense of hierarchy and authority that clean. That. That maps pretty well to existing structures of imperialist, racist domination.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Well, they're intended as like moral tales, right?

[Craig]

Yeah. About kind of the goodness of finding yourself and finding your place in the world or. And sometimes that is like going out and finding your place in the world. And sometimes that is coming to a better understanding of the place that you are meant to be in the world, whether that's within a kind of rigid status system or not. So. Yeah. And then I think people connect it with other things that he's written and you're like, oh, yeah, this is bad. We don't need, we don't want all of this. But the Jungle Book is. Yes. It's so full of whimsy and it's so interesting to think about animals talking.

[Andrew]

It's got talking animals.

[Craig]

People love talking and thinking animals.

[Andrew]

The original book, I just, just, just a little bit more on the book and then we can talk. However much you want about adaptations, please. But the. The original book is published in 1894 as a collection of short stories. And the second jungle book book. The second jungle book is published in 1895.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

These are inspired in part by Indian fables like the Jakarta tales and the Panchatantra, which I do not have any exposure to. But.

[Craig]

Yeah, but he's.

[Andrew]

He's drawing from what he imagines to be his heritage as an. As a self described Anglo Indian.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

To put these stories together. And the stories do take place in India, though I don't think it's super specific about where.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. And there's one story that just takes place in the Pacific Ocean up by the Bering Strait just for fun that was. That's. There's no jungle there. I was really surprised. Yeah. It's. The one that I know is like more directly related to a story I've ever heard of is the Rikki Tikki Tavi Mongoose story is definitely riffing on an existing that I knew of as a. Like a folktale about a mongoose and a snake that I think comes from the Panchatantra. So we'll talk about that one briefly. But like, the Mowgli stuff, I'm sure is pulling from all sorts of things I don't have reference for, but tell me about the, the adaptations, Andrew.

[Andrew]

I'll try to be quick. I mean, the big one is the. The 1967 Disney adaptation. This is the final animated film produced by Walt Disney himself. He died while it was in production. Speaking of white guys with, with problematic.

[Craig]

History or burdens.

[Andrew]

And the movie, it was a dish. There's this. I am not, I'm emphatically not a Disney adult and I will be when. When Henry goes to Disney World for the first time. I am happy for that to be a fun thing that Henry and his grandparents do. While I do not. I'm just not interested. But you find the history of animation super interesting.

[Craig]

Yes. I'm all about to dive into Disney movies. Yes.

[Andrew]

So there's this guy. There's this guy, Bill Pete P E E T who had worked with Disney since the 30s. He is. He's got, you know, both, both good things and bad things on his, on his resume as far as like financial and critical successes go. He does 101 Dalmatians, which is super revered and then remembered pretty well. And he's also responsible for the Sword in the Stone, which is like, yeah, whatever. But the Sword in the Stone is his is the last movie he had done before rolling into Jungle Book. And Walt Disney looks at the like the critical response to the Sword in the Stone and it's like, why don't I come in and supervise this a little more?

[Craig]

Oh, why don't I be a little.

[Andrew]

More hands on with this, this one? So Bill Peat imagines that he tries to do an adaptation that is a little bit closer to the book and a little bit maturer and a little darker in, like, tone and content. Disney comes in is like, I don't know about this. We need to make a family movie. You need Bill Pete, you need to go watch Mary Poppins if you want to know what a real good movie is. Is basically what he said. And they had a big fight and Bill Pete left the company and they didn't talk again, I don't think.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But Pete still had input on the, on the movie that, that survived through to the version that we, that we have like the King Louie character who was invented for the movie. That was a Bill Pete thing. Baloo being kind of softened up and being made into kind of a goofball figure. Was. Was Bill Pete the general just giving the story more of a through line rather than just having it be a series of vignettes like that. Focusing on the Mowgli goes back to the humans shape of the story. I think was. Was Bill Peet's thing.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

So yeah, like, like that's the, that's the main thing. Like Disney had been interested in adapting this since like the 30s. We've talked a bunch of times about the, the company's penchant for taking novels or folk tales and adapting them into an animated films. He likes to draw on the public domain a lot, but this was one that he had to get the rights from.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

That is some people who did like a live action movie in the 40s.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

That's like not. I don't think it's super important in like the history of film, but it is out there. It does exist.

[Craig]

I like that.

[Andrew]

The, the thing about the King Louie character. So this movie, if you go to watch it now on Disney+1, you cannot apparently access it on a kid's like a profile that's set up just for kids. Really?

[Craig]

Does it have one of those? Like.

[Andrew]

Yes, yes, it has a 20 disclaimer since 2019. And listen, this is. I haven't gone. I didn't go to queue it up now maybe all that because you canceled.

[Craig]

Your Disney plus subscription to support Jimmy Kimmel.

[Andrew]

We are. We're extricating ourselves is what I'll say. There's some, there's some stuff we need to make sure that we're all.

[Craig]

I am familiar with what people need to know that they have.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Anyway, thanks for.

[Andrew]

Thanks for putting me on blast about that.

[Craig]

No, I'm just joking. People are doing what they need to do.

[Andrew]

So any. It has starting in 2019, it got one of those, you know, these, this movie presents outdated characters and they were wrong then and they're wrong now.

[Craig]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

Just like the disclaimer about cultural stereotypes. And at issue is the King Louie character. He's been criticized as a black caricature. Defenders point out that this character's mannerisms. And this is the thing about the movie is that Walt Disney wanted to bring in some like known performers. Like instead of using kind of people who, who didn't have big names. Like, this is kind of a departure from the studio and, and builds toward the, the hell that we live in now where just like voice actors don't exist anymore.

[Craig]

And Zendaya is Michi.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's all just like people who are famous from other stuff who are airlifted in to record lines for 45 minutes. And that's what movies are.

[Craig]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Andrew]

But the King Louise, a lot of the mannerisms of the performers were kind of adapted for this for the, the movie. And the. The guy that King Louie is based on is this Italian American jazz performer named Louis Prima.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

And on the one hand, sure, like, yes, it. He's. He is explicitly based on a white guy.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But on the other hand, I got. I gotta think that it is at least plausible the white jazz performer in the 1960s would have owed a lot to black performers.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Of that particular art form.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

So I don't know that that's the defense that. That people think it is. But that's. That's. As far as I. I have not.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

I've not written a thesis on this. This.

[Craig]

As far as I've got, no. And. And I've also like, I've read. There's a. You can go and read. Neither of us are qualified nor do we want to be to talk about the Jon Favreau 2017 adaptation.

[Andrew]

I just wrote down the Jon Favreau live action ish release from 2016. One in Disney's continuing series of. But why, though? Live action CG remakes of their classic films. A sequel to this was in development in the late 2010s, but it seems to have been hung up in development hell since like 2018.

[Craig]

Okay, cool.

[Andrew]

Probably not happening.

[Craig]

There is. You can go read a Slate article called by Katie Waldman called How Disney's New junk Jungle Book Subverts the Gross Colonialism of Rudyard Kipling, largely arguing that there's like some kind of collectivism and recognition of the larger natural ecosystem that is not present in the novel. Doesn't really talk about the original movie that much other than to say that it is kind of improving on some of those elements that the movie just kind of took for granted. So you can read more about what you could do with this as a movie if you like. It's out there in the world. Maybe make your own movie enough people.

[Andrew]

Have a lot of people mids. So there's the 1942 live action Jungle Book movie.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

There is 2003's the Jungle Book 2, originally planned as a direct to video sequel, but given a theatrical release, this was that period where.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

Where Disney was doing a lot of direct to video stuff like the Return of Jafar and Man. There are definitely other ones. I mean there was that other like third Aladdin movie that they.

[Craig]

Well, because I don't know that they.

[Andrew]

Did any Lion King, like one and a half.

[Craig]

Well, that's. That's. Timon and Pumbaa are dead is what that one is. I don't know that they did theatrical releases of the Lion King sequels.

[Andrew]

They didn't, not, not especially the 90s ones. Didn't get theatrical releases, but a bunch, a bunch of the projects that started as direct to video. And this is actually the story of Toy Story 2 as well as it started and then was. It then was expanded. So yeah, that, that there's, that there is a live action Jungle book film from 1994 starring Jason Scott Lee, Carrie Elwood's Lena Headey, Sam Neill and John Cleese, which is a weird.

[Craig]

What is going on in that movie.

[Andrew]

Which is adapted mostly from the second Jungle Book book, which is called, as you recall, the second Jungle Book does not have talking animals on it.

[Craig]

Great adventure, great thrills, great fun. Says Good Morning America.

[Andrew]

Oh, boy.

[Craig]

Here's the, here's the poster.

[Andrew]

That's. That's the main thing. That, that's, that's the stuff about adaptations. Okay, Those are, those are the big ones, the tent poles. Well, thanks for bearing the bare necessity.

[Craig]

Oh my goodness. Thanks for telling me about that, Andrew. We will take a quick break and I will tell you about the seven stories in the first Jungle Book. And we're back. The Jungle Book at overdue. We're back.

[Andrew]

We're back. We never left.

[Craig]

We never left. There are seven stories in this book, Andrew.

[Andrew]

How many of them is Mowgli? 3. You said that there was less Mowgli than you want.

[Craig]

3.

[Andrew]

You rolled in here wanting Mowgli. You didn't. You didn't really get.

[Craig]

I don't think I understood what I was getting, what I was signing up for here. There's three stories right in a row of Mowgli, my boy Mowgli, Mowgli's brothers.

[Andrew]

Little boy in the red Diaper, who we all love, know and love from the Jungle Book.

[Craig]

I don't think he wears a diaper in any of this. He wears a little red diaper in the third story. I guess he does wear some clothes. Three stories. Mowgli's Brothers, Ka's Hunting and Tiger. Tiger. Those are our three Mowgli stories. Then there is a story called the White Seal. Then there's a story called Rikki Tiki Tavi. Then there's to my of the Elephants, perhaps my least favorite of the bunch. Not for any like my. I was least interested in that story, let's say. And then Her Majesty's Servants. Which of the non Mowgli stories would you like to hear about?

[Andrew]

Tell me about the one that you hated the most. Just get it out of the way. Why didn't you like these elephants?

[Craig]

I didn't dislike the elephants. It's just. It was the first story that was about a kid that wasn't Mowgli. And I was a little annoyed that there. I don't think there's any animal thoughts or talking in that. In that story either, which I thought was a bit of a bummer.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It seems like the main thing that you come to this for is like, give me the talking animals.

[Craig]

Yeah. And they're like. They all have. He's got some different modes of animals talking throughout these stories. And to my. Of the elephants is about, like, a little boy who is like, his dad takes care of these elephants and he gets into a scrape and he's, like, forbidden to be in the enclosure until, quote, he sees the elephants dance, which is like an aphorism. Like, it's like when pigs fly. Like, apparently it's a thing that never happens. Nobody's ever seen it. And then, of course, at some point, all the elephants in the camp get not seduced, but they, like, they smell wild elephants and they all just, like, leave to go check out the wild elephants.

[Andrew]

Nice. Nice. There are elephants in the. There are elements of elephants in the Jungle Book movie, but I don't remember anything about it. I remember there's a little one with hair.

[Craig]

There is. Oh, there is, isn't there?

[Andrew]

There's that little one with hair. And then there are some, like, vultures with bowl cuts who are supposed to be the Beatles. And Walt Disney was like, hey, the be you come and voice these vultures in our movie. And this is in the 60s, before the point of art became to sell out. And the Beatles were like, no, we're not going to be doing that. Thank you very much.

[Craig]

Okay, okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

No, there. I think there's an elephant from the in. There's like, a prominent elephant in the second collection of stories that is referenced in these but is not a main character. But no, to. To my. The elephants. All the elephants go to smell the sexy elephants out in the woods. And to my bears witness to the dance of the elephants where they all stomp around. And then he goes back to town. He's like, I saw the dance. And they follow him and they see the Prince. And, like, he's right. This kid's gonna be great at elephants. That's the story. That's it. Welcome to the Jungle Book to mind the Elephants.

[Andrew]

Doesn't sound like there's a lot going on there.

[Craig]

No, it's really. Just believe this boy. He cares for the elephants and you should respect him for that.

[Andrew]

It.

[Craig]

It maps to the larger concern of these stories, which is, like, with like, one exception. The. Our main. The main character finding their place in the world, like, finding what they are good at or finding what they are, like, kind of meant to do. And this kid is meant to elephant. That's what he's here for.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

The.

[Andrew]

So that one. Check. That one's done.

[Craig]

Check. It was just whatever to my. The elephants.

[Andrew]

Also curious if, other than Mowgli, there are characters who persist through most of these books or if we're all. Or if we're just jumping around a different. Like this one. That elephant one obviously was just elephants. I'm gonna assume the elephants do not appear in future stories. And you're like, oh, yeah, those elephants from that elephant story I didn't like. No.

[Craig]

There is an elephant in the last story, Her Majesty's Servants, but they call that elephant Two Tails. Yeah. Different elephant. None of these, like.

[Andrew]

It's just like Blue and Robin Hood. Different. It's a different. It's a different guy.

[Craig]

Also, it's. All the other animals call it Two Tails because he has a trunk and a tail.

[Andrew]

That's. I'm. I'm sorry, everybody. That's the normal amount of an. Amount and placement of things on an elephant.

[Craig]

Yeah. It seems like they're willfully misunderstanding how elephants work and kind of have given him a crappy name because of it.

[Andrew]

And we call him. Call them Three Tails, if you know what I mean.

[Craig]

Hey.

[Andrew]

I mean, hey.

[Craig]

Hey. No. To answer your. I know what you mean. I. To answer the questions. To answer the question you asked. No. None of these characters persist other than.

[Andrew]

Not even, like, Baloo.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

So the Disney people just. Just, like, we. Like some of these characters, we're just going to pull them out and do our own thing with them.

[Craig]

Yes. And I think some of those characters are in the. The Second Jungle Book.

[Andrew]

Oh, you mean the Second Jungle Book.

[Craig]

Yes. Wow. He got me. And so, like, okay, Her Majesty's Servants. Let's knock that one out. Last story.

[Andrew]

Favorite James Bond movie.

[Craig]

This one doesn't have a plot. This one is a real. You know, like, sometimes people refer to a comedy as, like, a hangout comedy where, like, nothing really happens. It's.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Nothing. Yes.

[Craig]

People just vibing and smoke a pot or whatever. This is a story about a bunch of animals who are in, I think, the British army. Just, like, they all have jobs. They all, like, do humans exist? Yes.

[Andrew]

I mean, Mowgli exists. Okay.

[Craig]

Yes. And there's a. There's a human in, like, a tent nearby who has Dr. Dolittle powers that are unexplained, who can hear and understand all the animals, and. Which I guess is set up by the fact that Mowgli can speak the language of the animals and then can also speak human. Like, okay, I guess.

[Andrew]

Do we think that's like a rugrat situation where. Or baby geniuses thing where he can do it because he's a little kid, but then he'll forget as he grows up?

[Craig]

I don't think so. No, it is. Is actually, Mowgli is kind of pitched to us as very. As very good at languages. He's like a little super linguist. But no, there's this man who has, like, Dr. Do Little Powers. He can listen to the animals, and he is just kind of laying in the tent listening to all these animals describe their different jobs in the army. Like, whether or not their job is to pull a cannon or to be a horse for a guy and you have to, like, run at all the knives that all the other guys have.

[Andrew]

Or imagine being Rudyard Kipling and going into your little daughter's room being like, hey, honey, I got. I got a good one for you. I've got. There's all these animals, and they all have. They all have jobs. Yeah, they all go to. They all go to work and they.

[Craig]

They have jobs in the war, in the awful. They're all getting ready for a military parade, and they are all describing what they're gonna do in the parade. But it also means they bring up what they actually do in combat, and you kind of work your way up the. The hierarchy. That's a recurring theme in Kipling stories from, like, the cattle who almost kind of talk as a group, and their job is just to kind of lug stuff around. Some of them are responsible for pulling, like, weapons and, like. And some of them just kind of pull whatever, like supplies.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Then there are horses, and you move up and you move up. And then there's this elephant named Two Tails. The thing I liked about the Two Tails bit is everyone gives Two Tails crap for being scared of everything. He's like a scaredy cat elephant. And when he's defending himself, he says it's because he can see in his mind the terrible things that happen during combat. Like, very clear.

[Andrew]

He just has anxiety.

[Craig]

Well, it's just.

[Andrew]

It's just the elephant with anxiety.

[Craig]

It's. It's that. And Kipling is, like, using the presumed different levels of intelligence among the animals to, like, describe why this Animal has, like, a different experience of war than the cows who are like, I don't know. I pull the gun, then some of the other cows die. The cannons talk to each other, and then maybe my friend dies. I don't know. My job is to pull the gun. And the elephant's like, listen, man, I can see the bullet in my head. You don't understand. You and your feeble mind cannot comprehend the horrors of war.

[Andrew]

This is the graph that Lisa makes in the Simpsons that shows intelligence going down as. Or intelligence going up and happiness going down on the same axis.

[Craig]

Yes, it is that. And meanwhile, you know.

[Andrew]

And then she says, I make a lot of grass, which is just puts a button on the.

[Craig]

And the man in the tent is like, oh, ho. These silly animals. Like, that's kind of what that story is about.

[Andrew]

A workplace comedy.

[Craig]

It is a bit of a workplace. Nothing happens. They just sit there and talk.

[Andrew]

Get Greg Daniels and Mike Shur on the phone to adapt this one. Animals who have jobs in the war.

[Craig]

Do you want to hear about a mongoose or a seal?

[Andrew]

Andrew, Give me the seal.

[Craig]

The seal kiss.

[Andrew]

Give me a kiss from a rose.

[Craig]

Saving Mowgli for last. Of course, there's this story called the White Seal. Something that comes up a couple times in the Mowgli stories is something called the Law of the Jungle, which Baloo explains to us a few times. In the White Seal, they have the rules of the beach. Just got out.

[Andrew]

No, I've. I've. I've gotten an Airbnb on. On the beach. I know. I know what this is. Like. It's a b. It's a big binder.

[Craig]

It's intercapped with a bunch of.

[Andrew]

With a bunch of stuff about taking your shoes off half a mile from.

[Craig]

The house and not using anybody's bikes even though they're in the garage that you rented.

[Andrew]

They're not locked up or anything. Even though bike locks are clearly a thing.

[Craig]

Please don't touch the propane fireplace that is clearly there for someone to use, but not you. Don't do it.

[Andrew]

So you got the. You got the rules of the beach, and then you have the secret rules that they don't know about until you break them.

[Craig]

Trash days on Wednesday. This is a white seal. It's the only white seal in this, like, whole colony of seals.

[Andrew]

So this is not about Kiss from a Rose.

[Craig]

In fact, no. No, it is not. And he has this, like, kind of Cassandra moment where he is swimming with a bunch of other young seals in the Bering Strait or thereabouts, Bering sea. And he sees them all getting lured by men kind of away from the rest of the seals. And he's like, well, this is kind of weird. I'm gonna follow my boys and see what's going on. And a bunch of men come out from the beach to start clubbing. Seals just start clubbing and killing and skinning them right there in the water. And none of the other seals back at home have ever seen this happen. Just like seals go. It's like some weird. Like, what is that movie where Everybody under over 22 dies or whatever it is.

[Andrew]

It's like Logan's Run.

[Craig]

It's like a Logan's Run situation. Like, we don't know what happens to them. They just go. They just leave, and they don't come back.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But this seal does come back, and he go. And he tries to tell everyone that it's terrible.

[Andrew]

Yeah. About the club.

[Craig]

And they don't really believe him or know what they're ever gonna do about it. They have a place where they're supposed to be. Why would we leave? And so he sets off on this long journey to maybe colonize another place to be.

[Andrew]

I'm sure he wouldn't think about it that way. He's a seal.

[Craig]

He's a seal. But he does, like, he hooks up with a couple of different creatures in the. In the ocean. Ultimately. No, not. Hey. And ultimately comes in contact with the sea cows, the manatees, and he does not. The manatees don't really talk. That's another. Like, every once in a while, Kipling's like, this animal's too dumb. They don't talk. And that's a.

[Andrew]

That's a big thing in every property with, like, talking animals, though, is how do you want. Like, which. How do you determine which ones talk and which ones don't? This is a big thing. The octonauts.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

These. Which of these animals have agency and which ones don't?

[Craig]

I thought that.

[Andrew]

Why they. Why did the octonauts spend so much of their time trying to prevent fish from eating other fish, which is a thing that happens. I've seen Star wars, this thing.

[Craig]

The version we're not at octonauts yet. The version that gets me is Daniel Tiger, in his neighborhood, is friends with a giant sentient owl. But they will go on nature walks where they look at little birds that fly around. What's. What are the rules here?

[Andrew]

Do they have culture? I don't know.

[Craig]

They do not. They're just birds. Just like a little robin yeah, that's true. It's just like they don't wear glasses, like. Oh, the owl.

[Andrew]

Anyway, Daniel Tiger's burden is to civilize all the. All the non talking birds.

[Craig]

I do like, I like in her Majesty's servants that the cows kind of have a. Almost like a Salmon Eric thing from Lord of the Flies. Like they have a. A collective self because they're a herd. Like that's kind of neat that if you're playing with animal voices. That's always a thing I'm kind of a sucker for is like different levels of or like different versions of consciousness. Like, that's kind of interesting.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure. Yeah.

[Craig]

But in the white seal, that's not the case. The sea cows are just dumb. But he does learn that they have like a cliffside. There's like a kind of a different place that you could go that is inaccessible by man because the cliffs are so dangerous they would never reach there. And he has to convince a bunch of the seals to come with him, which does involve kicking his dad's butt. It's sort of like he asked, like, is this your king? Like, he. He starts messing up a bunch of the seals to prove that he is worthy of being followed. The cool thing about this seal is that Kotick, I think is his name. Let me double check that.

[Andrew]

President of Activision.

[Craig]

Yes. Bobby Kotick. No, no. Kotick, the white seal. Because he has spent his entire, like, young adult life just swimming all over the earth and has never like, settled down and gotten married or whatever seals call it. Like, he is a peak, like physical specimen. And so he just like, hands all these seals the business. And then his dad comes up and he's like, you don't need to fight anybody else. Just fight me. And if you beat me, then you're probably right. And that does happen. And a bunch of seals go with him. That's the white seal, I guess. Okay, again. What okay, that one had.

[Andrew]

It seemed like it had stuff that you could hang your hat on you. The elephant story.

[Craig]

I was really. That's the first non Mowgli story. I was very confused that I was not in the jungle. Why was I learning about the rules of the beach? What. Where am I in relation to Mowgli? I was very disoriented. Then there's Rikki, Tikki Tavi. It's about a mongoose who likes to kill snakes. I don't know if you knew this. Monkeys kill snakes. And he moves in with some humans because he. I think. I don't remember if he gets Injured or what? He just kind of like starts hanging out with some humans and they have a garden and some cobras are mad that Rikki Tikki Tavi's here and they want to lay a bunch of eggs and have a bunch of more cobras and they want to eat and like the humans don't want them to. And they're setting the mongoose on them and the cobras hatch a scheme to kill the humans because in their logic, there was no mongoose here when there were no humans here.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Craig]

And then the humans showed up and then they got a mongoose. Mm, let's kill the humans.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

And so they attempt what you.

[Andrew]

This is what you get when you don't have good data to make decisions with.

[Craig]

Yes, they attempt to infiltrate the house and kill the humans. It's a real Grendel and Grendel's mom situation where Rikki Tikki Tavi kills the first one or no, he bites it so hard that it's immobile and then his human master shoots it with a shotgun. And then he goes off and he kills the other one in her hole after destroying all of her eggs. And then everyone's happy to have the mongoose around. That's Rikki Tikki Tavi in a nutshell.

[Andrew]

Nice. Good.

[Craig]

So those are the stories that are not about Mowgli. Any questions about all the animals that are not. There's, there's talking animals a bunch in, in the Rikki Tikki Taffy ever.

[Andrew]

No, I think I, I think I get it.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But even so, even in the Mowgli stories you're telling me, there aren't other recurring.

[Craig]

None of them, none of the animals in the Mowgli stories are in any of these other stories.

[Andrew]

No, I mean, but, but. Oh yes, but the Mogul, the Mowgli stories have a consistent.

[Craig]

They have a little.

[Andrew]

That's what I'm talking.

[Craig]

They have a little self contained universe. So let me tell you about it.

[Andrew]

Okay?

[Craig]

Mowgli's brothers, the wolves, father wolf, mother wolf, Aquila, I think, is the leader of their pack. They are concerned that the, the limping tiger, Shere Khan, is changing his territory.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And by the law of the jungle, you're not allowed to do that to change your territory. Yeah. You gotta like negotiate it with everybody. Because if you're. Listen, the animals that we are concerned about mostly talking in the jungle are predators, with some exception. There's some birds that I don't think that we would classify as predators per se. There are monkeys, but we'll talk about the monkeys, but like, we don't get the perspective of a cow in this or a d. Or like some sort of antelope or something or, you know, whatever rodents are running around.

[Andrew]

It's like just, just wondering if this is a law of the jungle or if it's more of a norm of the jungle. And then Sheer Khan is just kind of breaking the norm.

[Craig]

I. I think what I'm trying to say is that the, the only people who get to. The people who have personhood in this jungle with these laws are largely predators.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And another thing that comes up is that Shere Khan might tonight, as he's moved in, be hunting man, which is a dangerous game, which the law of the jungle strictly forbids. Forbids every beast to eat man, except when he is killing to show his children how to kill. And then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his packer tribe. The real reason for this is that man killing means sooner or later the arrival of white men on elephants with guns and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches.

[Andrew]

What I see. Okay, that. Yeah, that, that. Okay. I was gonna ask who, who wrote the. Who wrote these laws? Did a man write this?

[Craig]

Then everybody in the jungle suffered self.

[Andrew]

Interested reasons not to. Yeah.

[Craig]

And then it goes on to say that they also kind of have justified it as man being the weakest and most defenseless. So it is actually unsportsmanlike to even.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay, I like that a lot. Just the cope. The cope version.

[Craig]

Yes, yes. It is law not to eat. It is law not to eat these mushrooms because it will make you sick. Like, don't do it.

[Andrew]

It's law for me not to fight you because I'm too afraid that you kick my butt.

[Craig]

Yes. And so they hear Shere Khan hunting humans. And then a little baby human comes into the wolf cave, the wolf den. And they're like, wow, a man cub is in here. And mama wolf is nursing a bunch of baby wolves. And she is impressed because this little boy is shoving wolves out of the way to get some milk. He is fighting to get food.

[Andrew]

I can go found. He's gonna go found Rome after this.

[Craig]

She is like, wow, this kid is a better wolf than most of my wolves. I want him. He's mine. And Shere Khan is very upset because he wanted to eat this baby. And he basically, like, swears a vow.

[Andrew]

We just watched Austin Powers too. So putting a certain.

[Craig]

He really wants to eat this kid. And he's very upset that the, that the wolves have stopped Him. The wolves refer to themselves as the free people, and they will not do what Shere Khan says. They decide to call this little boy Mowgli, or Little Frog, because of the way that he moves around. The wolves have a tradition, Andrew, that is sort of like a coming out, like a. Like a social. Like, check out our family's babies tradition.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Where you have cubs, and once they can walk on their own, you have to bring them to wolf council.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

And the truck and the. Like, the pack has to be okay with all of them.

[Andrew]

Okay. So what happens if the pack isn't okay with them? You just, like, toss them?

[Craig]

Yeah, you toss. I don't know.

[Andrew]

They get, like.

[Craig]

You might have classes. You might have to kill them. I don't. I don't really remember what the laws of the jungle say. But, of course, this is an interesting one because they're brought. They've brought a boy. They had a baby. It's a boy. And not all the wolves are interested in a man cub being part of the pack, but they. So they. The law that nobody ever is. Like, let's consult the bylaws.

[Andrew]

But that really feels like they're making this up as they go along.

[Craig]

They say they need two people other than their parents to vouch for them. And one of them can be Baloo the bear, who is, like, nice part of the council because he does not compete as a predator, but he does teach all the wolf cubs, like, the laws of the jungle and how to fight and stuff. And. And blue. And Blue is like, whatever, man. It's a little man. That's kind of cool.

[Andrew]

Is just like, a teacher at the vocational school for these wolves, I guess.

[Craig]

Yes, he is. He's a good role model. He is like, I will. I will teach this kid whatever you want me to teach him. Like, whatever. And then they need another person. And Bagheera, the panther, I believe. Or is Bagheera Jaguar. Bagheera is a panther. Probably.

[Andrew]

I think Panther.

[Craig]

Black panther, yes. It's like, hey, I will also vouch for this child, and I will give the wolves one cow as payment to vouch for it.

[Andrew]

He has cows. They can own things.

[Craig]

No, I think, like.

[Andrew]

Or just go out and find a cow.

[Craig]

Found a cow, killed it for the wolves to have sort of thing. You find out later that Bagheera was raised in captivity and then released and has kind of like the inverse experience of Mowgli, but thus feels a kinship with Mowgli for that reason.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Which is kind of neat. I hadn't really. I Don't recall that from the film if that's in the film. And it is an interesting little wrinkle that explains Bagheera's behavior. And so then the rest of this story, there's a. There's a time jump now, because Shere Khan.

[Andrew]

Just be a little baby.

[Craig]

No. And. And Shere Khan attends the council. I don't know why they countenance him at the council meetings. He shouldn't be allowed, but.

[Andrew]

Well, they just believe in diplomacy.

[Craig]

Yeah. And he's like, well, I'm gonna kill this kid later, so just buckle up. And Kipling writes, now, you must be content to skip 10 or 11 whole years and only guess at all the wonderful life that Mowgli led among the wolves. Because if it were written out, it would fill ever so many books. And the rest of this story is Mowgli's smart and clever. Shere Khan is trying to poison. He's trying to pull, like, a morgoth, Andrew, and, like, poison the wolves against Mowgli, like, kind of foment unrest among the wolves. And Bagheera's like, yo, you got to take Shere Khan out. You gotta go down to the. To the other humans. You gotta get the red flower. Fire. Fire flower.

[Andrew]

Oh, nice. Okay.

[Craig]

You gotta bring it back. You gotta get Shere Khan.

[Andrew]

You gotta eat it. You gotta become fire Mowgli, and you gotta spit fireballs until Shere Khan goes away.

[Craig]

There's a weird, like, political attempted coup thing that happens where the wolves, led by Shere Khan, have their leader, Akela, try to kill this. I think it's a deer or an antelope or something. And he fails to because he's kind of old. And when that happens, then he can be challenged for leadership. But there's a couple lines in the book that, like, insinuate that it was a setup. Like, they specifically made him go after something that nobody had, like, tested before. And they kind of knew it was beyond his capabilities. It's a very strange. I don't know what. I don't know what Kipling's after there, but at that council, Mowgli yells a lot and kind of asserts his humanness and hits Shere Khan with the fire a bit. But then he has to leave because he's clearly no longer a wolf. Even if he's no longer. If he's not really a man.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Because he can wield fire.

[Craig]

Yeah. And he starts to cry as he's leaving. And he does say to Bagheera, he's. As he's crying for the. Literally the first time in his whole life as an 11 or 12 year old, he goes, am I dying? Like, he doesn't understand what it is to cry, which is kind of an interesting thing. And he's like, no, you're just sad. You got to leave the jungle. Jungle's close to you now. You're a man. There's two more stories. In the second one, you jump back in time, Andrew, because clearly you loved Mowgli so much, you actually want more Mowgli stories.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we can't just. We can't just eject him. We gotta.

[Craig]

Yeah, this is all about kind of.

[Andrew]

Like Kipling wrote that bit about man. It'd be so. It would fill so many books if I wrote all these stories about Mowgli and how he grew up among the animals. Maybe I should actually go back and do that.

[Craig]

Write one of those.

[Andrew]

Maybe I should do that.

[Craig]

So this one is a little more centered on Mowgli, Baloo and Bagheera. Mowgli's learning from Baloo. He's learning the master words of the jungle. No, those are some words that you could put together in a row where predators say to one another, we are of one blood, ye and I. And Mowgli learns to say it, like to snakes and to birds and everything sets up the fact that he can speak different languages. He's given blue lip and blue hits him and he's a corp. He's like a Catholic nun school teacher, basically. And he, you know, in the trophy way. And Mowgli runs away and hangs out with some monkeys and blues, like, why you're not supposed to hang out with the monkeys. And Mowgli's like, why, here we go, Andrew. Okay, listen, man cub. I have taught the all the law of the jungle. For all of the peoples of the jungle except the monkey folk who live in the trees. They have no law. They are outcasts. They have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen and peep and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the jungle. But the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink. We do not go where the monkeys go. We do not hunt where they hunt. We do not die where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the Bandar log, which is what he calls them till today. No, the jungle people put them out of their mouths and out of their minds. They are very many. Evil, dirty, shameless. And they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the jungle people. But we do not notice them. Even when they throw nuts and filth.

[Andrew]

On our heads, we don't notice them or think about them at all, which is why we have all of these extremely specific beliefs about the way that they act and are. Yes.

[Craig]

Now, of course, the story does nothing to subvert Baloo's assertions about the monkey people. They are as terrible as he says. And it is the most overt thing that I read in this book that was like. Well, it's. Kipling has the capability to create a demonic other that he doesn't care for and would put it in the mouth of one of his most beloved characters, Blue the bear. Yeah, the monkeys are bad. They don't have culture. They're awful.

[Andrew]

They just steal everybody else's culture.

[Craig]

Yeah. The thing where he says they have no leaders, they have no remembrances, is like, really? Oh, you think some people aren't people? Like, that's. That's what that is to me. And this is a story.

[Andrew]

Yeah, go.

[Craig]

Go ahead.

[Andrew]

No, no, I was just gonna say. Let's just. Maybe. Maybe you just don't understand the monkeys.

[Craig]

That's what I think. This is a story about how the monkeys steal Mowgli because he looks like them, and they think maybe he's going to teach them stuff. And so Baloo and Bagheera enlist the help of the snake, Ka, to help them, and they kind of go on a rescue mission, which is really fun. Like, this is the stuff that's just fun to read. Like, Baloo can't.

[Andrew]

Like a panthered beard snake.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Funny comedy. Yeah.

[Craig]

Like, Ka is not a poison snake. Quote. He rather despised the poison snakes as cowards because he's like a python and he kills people with his own body. And when they go to the cold layers, which are like. Like from the film, it's like kind of deserted human settlements. Like, they all get separated. Like, Baloo is too slow. Ka can't get up this one wall. So, like, everybody's fighting at different parts with the monkeys, but ultimately they save Mowgli and they leave Ka to hypnotize and then eat a bunch of monkeys. And they're like, that might be the last time we work with that guy. I don't know. I don't know if that's. And then the last Mowgli story.

[Andrew]

I mean, do you hate the monkeys or not? Like, what do you.

[Craig]

Oh, I. I don't like the monkeys. They're crap.

[Andrew]

Not you. I'm talking. I'm talking about Blue and Bagheera haven't suddenly having no compunctions about working with. With Ka. I think they're hypnotizing, eating monkeys.

[Craig]

I think it's mostly a bit. The. The way we see it is that they almost also get hypnotized by Ka and so they.

[Andrew]

Too dangerous.

[Craig]

K is too dangerous to form a. A long lasting partnership with. Yes.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And it's a shame that the monkeys are written the way they are. It would be nice to meet a cool monkey. But Kipling does not believe in cool monkeys. The last Mowgli story is called Tiger Tiger. And it begins with him going to humanity and, like, trying to live in a village. And he is adopted by a woman whose son disappeared. And they're like, this looks like your son. And she's like, maybe, but I'm gonna raise this kid anyway. He learns words very quickly. He is, like, speaking in, like, full. You know, Kipling English after, like, three months. But he is visited by some of the wolves who are like, listen, Shere Khan's gonna come get you. You gotta be careful. And then there is an elaborate plan to kill Shere Khan by orchestrating a, like, a Lion King style stampede.

[Andrew]

Oh, no.

[Craig]

Where they kind of trap him in a river basin and then use Mowgli's herding skills as well as the wolves, who are better herders than any other man, to, like, shove all the rams and cattle down on Shere Khan.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And then Mowgli is cast out of the village because they think he's, like, a sorcerer who can command wolves.

[Andrew]

He kind of is. And can, though.

[Craig]

Yeah, he kind of is.

[Andrew]

It's not. I recognize that there's a little bit of, like, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic going on here. Like, it is not that Mowgli is magic, but what they are worried about him being able to do is essentially what he is able to do.

[Craig]

And he literally can have actual conversations with wolves.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

About laws and about, like, schemes and about battle tactics like that. You can't have that person in your town.

[Andrew]

Or do you want that person leading your town?

[Craig]

That's the thing. He's just a boy, though. Can you control him? So, yeah, the. The Mowgli story in these, in this collection really ends on a. He doesn't have a home.

[Andrew]

He's too dangerous. He's too powerful.

[Craig]

Well, he's. No. He is neither wolf nor man. Like, where does he belong? With the couple of wolves who know him well. But not with, like, the larger pack.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And that's it. And it's, like, not. There's no bare necessities. There's no feel good. Like, it's nice that he has animals that trust him and believe in him. Baloo and Bagheera are not in that third story. It's. It's all the wolves. And it is this, like, when you. You look at Kipling's whole thing as, like, this kid who was tossed between two different countries across the world. And, like, that. You can see that in Mowgli very clearly. Yeah, it's not. It's not hard to make those connections.

[Andrew]

But, like, you know, the. The. I. This didn't come up in my reading about Kipling. I don't know how you know, much he felt this way, but sometimes being part. We. We've seen a million times how being technically belonging to two cultures can make it so that you don't know which one. Like, so that neither one will actually fully accept you. It seems to be, like, part of what is going on with Mowgli here, if you want to read something into it.

[Craig]

And. And we certainly seen that in other fiction in the, like, British Imperial diaspora, like, Indian diaspora. To, like, that. That's a specific thing that authors who are of Indian descent but, like, grew up in the UK feel like. It's like you can draw a through line there that does not also celebrate imperialism or, like, celebrate rigid structures of power. But, yeah, that I think is, like, if you're getting something out of these stories, that is not just, huh. That guy had some thoughts about what the role of white people were in the world. It is about, like, where does this kid belong? Where does this, like, seal who sticks out from everybody and has, like, exposed to different information, where does he belong? Where does this, like, can this mongoose, like, deliver on what he was put on earth to do, which is kill snakes? Like, I think that's why these stories have connected with people over the years. Even if you can connect them to. To some of Kipling's more odious writing. I expected this to be, as I said, rougher in overt odiousness than it was. But I also wanted more Mowgli.

[Andrew]

I mean, if you want more Mowgli, you might just have to read the second Jungle Book book, which is the second Jungle Book.

[Craig]

Yeah, I might, because I think it.

[Andrew]

Does have more Mowgli in it.

[Craig]

I don't have much to say about them. All this. All the chapters are broken up by little songs and poems that are, like, about the different animals or, like.

[Andrew]

But not bare necessities.

[Craig]

But not bare necessities.

[Andrew]

No. No bangers.

[Craig]

No. No bangers. Oops. No bangers. So that's the Jungle Book, I guess.

[Andrew]

How do you feel about the Jungle Book having, like, exposed. Having been exposed to the movie but not having, like, deep feelings about it?

[Craig]

I think the Mowgli stuff is interesting. Like, I think the, like, relationship between him and the animals he cares about is kind of cool.

[Andrew]

And, like, there's a reason why a bunch of people have looked at this story and thought, let's. Yeah, let's adapt that.

[Craig]

I can do something. Yeah. It. It reminds me of other, like, human and animal stories that I've enjoyed. Whether, you know, like, and. And I'm all. We're always suckers for talking animal books. Like, for. For all sorts of reasons. And, well, just, like, what are the rules?

[Andrew]

That's the main thing.

[Craig]

What are the rules? I'm interested in the rules. I'm interested in. Like, this book doesn't really explore the rules that much other than that, like, animals can't talk to humans. Except Mowgli, but. And that guy in the last story. But I do like that the animals have rules, like, in that. Like, that's kind of an interesting thing.

[Andrew]

I mean, they got rules, but it does seem like they're making it up as they go along, doesn't it?

[Craig]

A little bit. A little bit. But it's kind of fun to have, like, you know, Wolf Congress happen. And you kind of got to see who the prevailing senators are and why they let this tiger onto the floor of the Capitol even though he's not elected. You know, that sort of thing.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But, yeah, it's. It's interesting. I did. I kind of had fun with. I had more fun with the Mowgli stories than with the other ones because I was like, the other ones. I was like, what am I doing here?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Why am I reading about this elephant? What's the deal with this?

[Craig]

They didn't have, as I'm already, about.

[Andrew]

These animals with jobs.

[Craig]

Yeah. And something they didn't feel. I don't know. There's something about the, like, boy out of every society that makes Mowgli pop as a character. He's like, a charming little guy who is also very clever and headstrong. And the other ones are like, let's, like, Zoom over here for this interesting little animal thing. And I guess it has a moral, but like, does it? And the Mowgli stuff is kind of elevated by the, like, where does he belong? Okay, so that's the Jungle Book. You don't need to read it if you don't want to.

[Andrew]

They just tell me about it.

[Craig]

Just go watch Jon Favreau's adaptation. It's probably got all of it in there.

[Andrew]

Or you watch the original if you don't have a Disney plus profile that's set up for the setup with the kid age restrictions.

[Craig]

Or watch the 1940s film. I'm sure it's perfect.

[Andrew]

I'm sure it's great.

[Craig]

Thanks.

[Andrew]

It's in color.

[Craig]

Ooh, yeah. Thanks for telling me. Let me tell you about this, Andrew. If folks at home want to tell us their favorite story in the Jungle Book, they can send us an email overdupodmail.com or hit us up on social media at Overdue Pod. Thanks to Nick Laurengis who composed our theme music. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com's Internet website where we have all the books that we have read and the ones we were going to read. The October schedule is not set in stone yet, so we will, we will figure that out and get back to you. But once again, we're doing our full spooky month of spooky reads. Spooktober. We've got a lot of candidates on the list that I'm very excited about and I think, I think you will be too when we're finally ready to talk about it. Yeah, there's also. Patreon.com overduepod that's the way you can support the show directly, financially and buy us all the things that we need to make it happen. And then you also get things in return for that, including access to our Discord community, where every week there's a pretty good discussion popping off about that week's episode and also a lot of other stuff. And the long read project that we're doing right now about the Silmarillion. We're going to record our next episode of that within the next couple of days. So that'll be. That'll be up soon. And some other stuff too. Patreon.com overdupod that's it. That's it. All right, everybody, thank you for listening to us for another week. I hope that we make your list of bare necessities. Yeah. Thank you for making that tiger noise. That's thematically appropriate until we talk to you. Next time, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.