The Bear Necessities Of A Good Breakfast: TaleSpin Cereal Figures!

What "TaleSpin" character did you find in your box of Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies cereal? Figures of Baloo, Kit, Molly and Don Karnage were available as part of a big promotion for the 1990 Disney Afternoon TV series. These figures could also be ordered as a set through the mail.

TaleSpin took Baloo the Bear, Louie the Orangutan, and Shere Khan the tiger from Disney's 1967 film, "The Jungle Book", and cast the characters in new roles. Baloo became a cargo pilot for a business called Higher for Hire. Louie became an island nightclub owner, and Shere Khan was a ruthless tycoon. Baloo and Kit Cloudkicker worked for Rebecca Cunningham (mother to Molly). The characters often had run-ins with air pirate Don Karnage.

Kellogg's made sets of figurines from other Disney Afternoon shows, too. This Kellogg's promotion also featured figure sets for Gummi Bears, DuckTales, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.



Kellogg's also had a cereal prize promotion featuring TaleSpin stampers.

My favorite TaleSpin story is "Time Waits For No Bear." This was one of the very first episodes (it was shown on The Disney Channel before the series debuted on The Disney Afternoon) and there are some production glitches (the voices of the hilarious Gorilla Goon and Rhino Goon are accidentally switched in one scene, and mechanic lion Wildcat's costume is the victim of some paint color confusion as he gives a Hippo lady and her Stork husband a tour of the town of Cape Suzette). This episode sticks out in my mind not only because it is really funny, but also because it starts off with a robbery committed by an Elephant cat-burglar! It's not surprising that the police end up catching him (it's an elephant---how could they miss him?!?).

Disney's TaleSpin: A Banned Holiday in Thembria

Walt Disney's Holiday Parade was a special comic book released by Disney Comics featuring stories spanning the decades. The content included a Carl Barks Donald Duck story, plus classic comics starring Li'l Bad Wolf, Pluto, Uncle Scrooge, Super Goof, Chip 'n' Dale, and Mickey Mouse. This great cover was drawn by Rick Hoover and colored by Gail Bailey.



New for this comic book was a TaleSpin story called "Shine a Little Light." There's no date anywhere on this comic book, but since TaleSpin was new for 1990, I'm guessing that's the year this comic was released.


In the TaleSpin story (written by Cherie Wilkerson, drawn by Cosme Quartieri), Baloo the Bear must make a delivery to Thembria, a cold and oppressive nation inhabited by an army of boars. Unfortunately, the diminutive Colonel Spigot decides to ban all private holiday celebrations.

Luckily, with the help of Spigot's gentle-giant assistant, Sgt. Dunder, Baloo is able to help the citizens of Thembria.

In the animated series, Colonel Spigot was voiced by Michael Gough (he played Gopher in the Winnie the Pooh series) and Sgt. Dunder was voiced by Lorenzo Music (Garfield the cat and Tummi Gummi on the Gummi Bears).

The TaleSpin coloring book offers a glimpse of a different spin on the Thembrians.



I'm guessing the Coloring Book was created when the show still had some development going on. It appears that Colonel Spigot was originally going to be a small lion.



Meanwhile, Sgt. Dunder was a big bobcat!



I think these designs are appealing, but I'm glad the characters were changed to boars.


I'm very curious about the original versions of these characters and how they changed during the development of TaleSpin.

Baloo, Is That You?-Early TaleSpin at Walt Disney World

I got a HUGE foldout map of the Walt Disney World Resort back in 1990. It features a slew of characters, including the Gummi Bears, the Fox and the Hound, The Rescuers, Ducktales, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, Roger Rabbit, Oliver and Company and some of the fair folk from The Black Cauldron.

What I remember most about this map is the image of Baloo the Bear and Molly from the (then) new TV series, TaleSpin. The show was clearly still in development when the map was being made, as the character designs and airplane are different from what was used in the show.

So here's a little nugget of fun for fans of the Disney Afternoon!

Spin It Again--Disney's TaleSpin Valentines

My intention was to post all sorts of Valentines in February, but it just didn't happen.

This box of TaleSpin Valentines from the early 1990s is very stylish, and still sealed. The price was marked $2.69, but I got these for 99 cents many years ago.

From an artistic standpoint, I think the TaleSpin series would have looked especially cool if the characters had been drawn in this fashion.

Wild Baloo Yonder: TaleSpin Cereal Prize Stamper

The 1990 animated TV series TaleSpin was a very unique project for Disney, and unlike any spin -off they've done. This was not a sequel to the film The Jungle Book by any means. Disney TV Animation took Baloo the bear, King Louie the orangutan, and Shere Khan the tiger and put them in new roles and a whole new world. Baloo became a cargo pilot and interacted with a whole new set of characters, along with Louie (now a nightclub owner) and Shere Khan (a ruthless business tycoon). I enjoyed the show and its inventive stories and colorful characters (and I love the theme song).

Disney hasn't tried anything like it again. How about using characters from The Lion King? Let's go crazy here! There could be a series with Simba and Scar as dueling race car drivers. Simba's pit crew could consist of Timon, Pumbaa, and Zazu. Scar would have Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed. It could be called Roarin' Racers! How about it? Too much?

Kellogg's cereals promoted TaleSpin and other Disney Afternoon shows for multiple years. This Baloo stamper has a 1990 copyright and was from a box of Frosted Flakes. The logo is the old version seen in concept art shown in The Disney Channel Magazine prior to the show's Spring 1990 sneak preview (I have that somewhere---some media slipped by featuring slightly different character designs for Kit, Rebecca, Molly and Baloo).