In the mid 1960's, Walt Disney was dying. His incessant smoking habit had finally manifested itself as a virulent lung cancer that eventually took his life in 1966. Perhaps his declining health is what spurred him to dictate the relentlessly upbeat, frivolous tone of what turned out to be the final animated feature he would personally supervise the production of, 1967's The Jungle Book.

Loosely (very loosely) adapted from the novel by Rudyard Kipling, Disney and his immensely talented creative team (under the supervision of director Wolfgang Reitherman) basically threw out the darker, narratively-dense text of Kipling's book and retained little beyond the character names and species of the film's cast. In this iteration of the tale, Kipling's "man-cub" hero, Mowgli (voiced by the director's son, Bruce Reitherman), is rescued from a wrecked canoe as a baby by the wise panther Bagheera (a dignified Sebastian Cabot) and delivered to a family of wolves, who adopt Mowgli as a member of their pack. Ten years later, Mowgli has grown into a rambunctious, pre-teen boy...and attracted the undue attention of Shere Khan, the tiger (the insinuating, throaty purr of George Sanders), who means to kill the boy before he can mature into his sworn enemy, Man. Bagheera agrees to escort Mowgli to the Man Village where he can finally live with, and be protected by, his own kind, but on the way, they cross paths with Baloo, the bear (splendidly voiced by Phil Harris), a "shiftless, two-bit jungle bum" who takes a shine to "Little britches" and teaches Mowgli his own lessons about slacking off and becoming a junior cub.

Along with 1951's Alice In Wonderland, The Jungle Book is amongst the most episodic Disney features ever produced by the studio, its paper-thin overriding narrative acting as a clothesline on which the film's animators hang one vivid, character-driven set piece upon another. During his adventures, Mowgli has run-ins with a pack of persnickety pachyderms (listen for a very young Clint Howard as the baby of the group), a devious, hypnotic snake named Kaa (hissed by Disney voiceover veteran Sterling Holloway), a swingin' orangutan named King Louie (the unforgettable Louis Prima) and a quartet of mop-topped, Liverpool-accented vultures clearly modeled after that hot new band that's all the rage these days, The Beatles (the one really dated aspect of the film).

The film's loosey-goosey structure means that it never attains the emotional throughline that defines the studio's greatest films. There are none of the potentially-traumatizing aspects of films like Bambi, Dumbo or Snow White And The Seven Dwarves. Maybe because the character of Mowgli is kind of bland, The Jungle Book doesn't have quite the "oomph" of those earlier films. When Mowgli finally has to choose between living in the jungle with ol' "Poppa Bear" or returning to the Man Village (enticed by the siren call of underaged tail), there's none of the dramatic or emotional force of something like E.T., with Baloo shrugging off his parental leanings with surprising abruptness. Still, it's tough to resist the film's myriad of pleasures, from the impeccable character animation by Walt's "Nine Old Men" to the charming song score by Robert and Richard B. Sherman (although the lone Oscar-nominated tune in the film, Baloo's delightful ode to slackerdom "The Bare Necessities", was penned by Terry Gilkyson), featuring King Louie's infectious, scat-driven "I Wanna Be Like You", to the excellent vocal cast (the first time the studio relied heavily on "name" voices). The film's jungle setting never attains the lush, multiplane density of Bambi's forest (playing more like a really good broadway stage backdrop), but that's okay. While it'll never stand with the studio's all-time classics, The Jungle Book is nevertheless a tuneful, high-spirited lark that will delight small fry and Disney buffs in equal measure. It's solid, man...solid!

Presentation
For the first time on any home video format, The Jungle Book is presented in its original 1:75.1, anamorphic theatrical aspect ratio, and like pretty much every other title in the Disney "Platinum" line, this freshly-minted transfer is eye-openingly pristine, with absolutely no print damage or technical foul-ups marring the presentation. Colors pop, jagged lines in the animation are nonexistent, and background details are easily discernable. Miraculous. There seems to be a smidgen of picture information missing from the top and bottom of the frame, but the image still seems well-balanced. The film's sound is likewise marvelous, with a newly-created 5.1 home theater mix giving a great deal of bottom end to the film's snappy musical numbers. There are also 5.1 options in French and Spanish and the original English monaural track available for purists. This is reference-quality all the way.

Extras
This disc has plenty to appease the discerning adult Disney buff. Disc one offers an audio commentary with co-songwriter Richard B. Sherman, contemporary Disney animator Andreas Deja (who's brought splendid life to hissable Disney villains like Aladdin's Jafar and The Lion King's Scar) and the voice of Mowgli, Bruce Reitherman. The three are thankfully recorded simultaneously, and their fact-filled, amiable track is studded with archival interview soundbytes with many of the animators and screenwriters who worked on the film. Disc one also offers the submenu Music And More, which contains a hideous music video of "The Bare Necessities" re-imagined as a hard rock track by the band Jonas Brothers, a Disney Song Selection (13:24) which offers pretty useless direct access to the film's musical numbers, deleted songs (21:00) featuring 7 unused tunes by original song composer Terry Gilkyson (including a fascinating alternate version of "The Bare Necessities"), which play over still frames of production artwork, Ensuring A Future For Wildlife And Wild Places: The Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund (3:53), a commercial pimping the studio's conservation efforts, a deleted scene (6:35), in storyboard form, featuring an abandoned character named Rocky the Rhino, and the obligatory section of Previews (14:35), offering sneak peeks at upcoming theatrical and DVD Disney offerings like Return To Neverland, The Santa Clause 3, The Aristocats Special Edition, High School Musical 2, Enchanted (which looks rather amusing, and hey, hand-drawn animation!!!), Meet The Robinsons and Ratatouille. Sadly, there's not one trailer for The Jungle Book itself. Previous Disney Platinum titles featured trailers for each and every theatrical reissue of the respective films, and it's a curious and disappointing omission that not one trailer for this film has been included.  

Disc two is separated into two sections, The Man Village (i.e. stuff for the adult fan) and Jungle Fun (i.e. kiddie games that anyone over the age of 10 will find boring as hell). The Man Village features...

• The Bare Necessities: The Making Of The Jungle Book (46:23), a series of short featurettes (with a play all function) that efficiently discuss the film's genesis, the alterations to Kipling's original book, and the sadness that gripped the studio following Walt's passing in 1966. This has its fair share of fawning superlatives, but it's still a well-constructed feature that fans will enjoy.
• Disney's Kipling: Walt's Magic Touch On A Literary Classic (15:00) goes into detail on the darker tone of Kipling's book and how Disney threw out essentially everything except the names and species of the various animal characters in favor of a much lighter and looser narrative.
• The Lure Of The Jungle Book (9:25) features more rhapsodizing about the film by many contemporary Disney animators and directors (including Incredibles and Ratatouille director Brad Bird).
• Mowgli's Return To The Wild (5:10) features Mowgli's voice, Bruce Reitherman, discussing how his days at the studio with his dad Wolfgang influenced his later, ongoing career as a nature documentarian.
• Frank And Ollie Discuss Character Animation (3:45) has archival footage of veteran Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston showing off some rough animation drawings of Baloo shaking his fanny and demonstrating their approach to animating character movement.
• Image Galleries offers the obligatory archives of still-frame artwork split into the following categories:  Visual Development, Character Design, Storyboard Art, Layouts And Backgrounds, Production Photos, and Publicity

Meanwhile, the only halfway worthwhile feature under the Jungle Fun submenu is DisneyPedia: Junglemania! (14:19), a basic primer on the various animal species featured in the film with copious movie clips. Kids will enjoy it... 

The Bottom Line
A breezy charmer, The Jungle Book will never stand with the studio's finest animated achievements, yet it's infectious, toe-tapping fun nevertheless, and a masterpiece compared to the soulless, modern-day likes of dispensable, 'hip" CGI features like Shark Tale.