TaleSpin Coloring Pages
TaleSpin Coloring Pages
TaleSpin is a half-hour American animated television series that first aired in 1990 as part of The Disney Afternoon, with characters adapted from Disney’s 1967 animated feature The Jungle Book. The name of the show is a play on “tailspin”, the rapid descent of an aircraft in a steep spiral, and was so named because Launchpad McQuack from DuckTales was originally going to be the star of TaleSpin, before being replaced by Baloo
After a preview of The Disney Afternoon that aired on the Disney Channel in early May 1990, the series began its first run in September of the same year. The original concept was embodied in the introductory television movie Plunder and Lightning which was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (Prime Time for Programming One Hour or More) in 1991 and was later re-edited into four half-hour episodes for reruns. The show was often seen either on its own as a half-hour show, or as part of the two-hour syndicated series The Disney Afternoon. TaleSpin ended on its 65th episode which ran in 1994. However, reruns continued to be shown on The Disney Afternoon through late 1994 till 1996. Afterwards, it was moved into Disney Channel and later into Toon Disney. After Toon Disney’s shutdown, Talespin will move to Boomerang.
Several of the characters are loosely based on characters from Disney’s animated film version of The Jungle Book: in particular Baloo, the hot-shot pilot hero of the series; Louie, the owner of Baloo’s favorite bar; and Shere Khan, a business tycoon who appears in many episodes. Kit seems to be a stand-in for Mowgli, since Baloo calls him by the same nicknames his Jungle Book counterpart called Mowgli, like “Little Britches” and “Baby Bear”. Shere Khan’s soldiers are black panthers, resembling Bagheera.
Also, many of the series concepts seem to be based on the 1982 ABC series Tales of the Gold Monkey, including the main concept of a cocky flying boat cargo pilot and his rocky relationship with his girlfriend (although in this series she was merely his boss), his scatterbrained mechanic sidekick, the era and designs of the aircraft and costumes, the Pacific Islands setting, the secondary character relationships, even the visual appearance of the lagoon. Also, the protagonists of both series fly planes named for waterfowl (Cutter’s Goose and Sea Duck) and are regular denizens of taverns named “Louie’s”.
List of characters in TaleSpin
Baloo
Kit Cloudkicker
Rebecca Cunningham
Molly Cunningham
Wildcat
Don Karnage
Mad Dog
Dumptruck
Gibber