The Lost Jungle Book that Never Was

I recently had the privilege of visiting The Walt Disney Family Museum‘s special exhibit for the Jungle Book called Walt Disney’s Jungle Book: Making a Masterpiece, and, to be honest, I was only mildly excited about it walking into the experience. Don’t get me wrong, I have always liked The Jungle Book, but it had never been a top 10 (or even 20) Disney movie for me. But after watching the creative process unfold before my eyes in a beautifully curated display of concepts to the final film, I realized I had greatly overlooked this gem that was the last animated film Walt Disney produced before he passed away, and there were stories hidden in the creation process that left me profoundly moved.

Stepping into the doors of the old Presidio building in San Francisco on a foggy August afternoon, I opened the dark green Jungle Book doors and was instantly transported into the creative process. And while I enjoyed wandering through the exhibit seeing original concept art and animation cels, dancing with the characters, and trying my hand at voiceovers, I abruptly turned around halfway through the gallery and made a beeline back to the beginning of the exhibit (confusing some museum docents in the process). Something I had seen just after I entered had stuck with me as I toured, refusing to leave my brain.

The Jungle Book as we know it isn’t really the Jungle Book.

Sound confusing? Well, let me explain.

The original novel by Rudyard Kipling was a collection of short stories published in two books in 1894 & 1895. They followed a boy named Mowgli raised by wolves in the Indian jungle and included stories about all kinds of animals, often weaving Indian myths and fables into the writing. Ironically, Rudyard Kipling never actually visited the jungle of Seeonee where his stories are based. His father, however, had lived in India for over 30 years and was the first person to illustrate the animals in the books and bring them to life.

In the early 1960s, Disney story artist Bill Peet, who had worked The Sword and the Stone proposed that they create The Jungle Book from Rudyard Kipling’s classic work. After getting the greenlight, in 1963 he worked on the challenging task of taking those individual stories and stitching them together into a more cohesive narrative for a script. Artist Walt Peregoy then used Peet’s script to create arrestingly moody and moving development pieces, each one setting the tone for the hauntingly beautiful tale about a boy orphaned in the jungle and the dangers he encountered.

Or so they thought.

When Walt Disney saw the script, he was not impressed. He didn’t like the dark tone and the “lengthy story-telling dialogue.” Walt called for a completely new direction, lightening up the story, including opening up and brightening the artwork Peregoy had created. When faced with that feedback, Peregoy left the project and studio in 1964, but he did join WED enterprises (Now Walt Disney Imagineering) to help design EPCOT in Florida.

When Walt brought in his new crew, he didn’t want them to know anything at all about the original story. He even asked the team who had read the Rudyard Kipling book, and when no one raised their hands, he said, “Good! I don’t want you to read it. There are some great characters in it, but it’s too dark and heavy…”

So Bill Peet’s work was scrapped. Though they did keep the personalities and the relationships of the characters, all of the work he and Peregoy did was largely left on the cutting room floor, so to speak, as the film went in another direction.

I was fascinated by this story. I know as a professional creative sometimes people don’t see the vision you see, and you have to change direction to broaden the relatability of the piece or compromise due to differences in artistic tastes. That is not uncommon. And so many large-scale projects get complete re-writes or change direction, you really have to be flexible and understand that it’s a process.

But putting myself in the shoes of Bill Peet and Walt Peregoy for a moment, I felt the loss. No doubt they both poured cumulatively hundreds of hours into that art and script that would never see the light of day. They could see the beauty of what could be and likely had even visualized what would be as the film was brought to life.

But instead of high praise and production, their work faded into obscurity, never to be fully acknowledged or appreciated.

Sometimes our lives are like that. We dream big and have high hopes for what will be, and when the sands shift and our way forward becomes obscured, we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We sit in disappointment. In rejection. In wondering why we tried at all. And we try to find meaning behind all the failure that claustrophobically crowds us.

But maybe what we do isn’t who we are. And maybe the pieces of our failed dreams are something that someone will pick up somewhere along the way, inspiring them in ways we can’t even imagine.

When I stood in that quiet gallery taking in the poignant, provocative Jungle Book art pieces of Walt Peregoy, I fully understood the depth of the film for the first time. The heartbreak of being abandoned. The hope of having a friend to fill the void left by others. The shadows that play across our hearts when we’ve experienced trauma and loss.

I’ve always said that if even one person is moved by something I write or create, it’s fully worth all the effort it took to create it. Bill and Walt moved me. Years later, in a gallery far, far away from their studio or writing desk, their art changed my perspective and made me connect with the characters in a way I never could before.

What you think has been lost on the cutting room floor is not gone. It may just be in storage until someone needs it.

And someone will.

Many thanks to the Walt Disney Family Museum for allowing me to visit this delightfully curated exhibit. I am working on all kinds of content featuring finds from the museum, so be sure to follow me on TikTok & Instagram for your daily dose of Distory!

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