Over the years, Disney took so many liberties with story adaptations,
one always assumed it was a corporate choice to assert more control
over copyright. According to this video, the first two years of
pre-production work on The Jungle Book, the studio was working on a
darker version of the story that would have been recognizeably adapted
from Kipling.

I read Kipling as a kid and was certainly familiar with him. I did see
The Jungle Book in theaters in re-release but I have no recall when that
was. I would have been uch too young to have been taken to the movie in original relase.

I actually knew who Phil Harris was. Old-time radio was being
rebroadcast when I was a kid by Chuck Schaden and others. Schaden was a
major fan of Jack Benny and significant number of episodes of the show
had been found by collectors.

According to this, they had intended to cast familiar voice-over actors
but Walt heard Phil at a benefit and wanted hi to voce the part. Phil
couldn't do the silly lines as writtenk began ad libbing, then perfored
to his radio personna. His part wa increased and the animation reflected
his performance.
the coeent was that with Disney in love with Harris's performance
anything remaining of Kipling was tossed out.

It's simply impossible to picture this movie as a much straighter
adaptation of the source material. Disney never did that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4MqX5_q5DI

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