Talespin is a show that ran from 1990-1991 on the Disney Channel. It stars many characters from the 1968 Disney Film, “The Jungle Book,” but places them in a new context as early 20th century aviators around the pacific islands. Talespin ran for 65 episodes.
The star of the show is Baloo the Bear, is a struggling, blue collar bush pilot who defaults on bills and has to sell his air cargo freight business. It’s picked up by Rebecca Cunningham and her orphan companion Kit Cloudkicker becomes Baloo’s new navigator. Kit and Baloo develop a father/son relationship with the little navigator often referring to Baloo as “Papa Bear”
Talespin was part of an attempt by Disney in the late 80s and early 90s to rebrand famous movie characters as TV show heroes. There were 9 shows like this in all, which aired on the network’s Disney Afternoon.
The title is a play on the word “tailspin” which is used to describe a plummeting aircraft. The different spelling invokes the idea of a story being told, and in this case, a story being told by a bear bush-pilot.
The Talespin series is also fondly remembered for the video game based on the series.The game was a side-scrolling plane shooter and featured most of the show’s cast of lovable anthropomorphic animals.
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