TaleSpin

I was born in '83 so I was lucky enough to be old enough to love and appreciate the old incredible Disney Cartoons from the nineties.

The nineties were truly the best decade for animated series. Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, Duck Tales, and Tale Spin were only a few of some of the best cartoons ever made.

While today's animated series are derivative, fluffy, shallow, and pretty dumb, these shows were epic, fun, entertaining, adventurous, funny, and exciting.

Suffice to say they were three-dimensional cartoons. They never talked down to kids and always took them on one incredible adventure after another. Disney has never been able to re-capture such imagination.

In this spin off from "The Jungle Book"'s most popular character Baloo, he stars as a lazy, self-centered but adventurous pilot who unwittingly gains responsibility stumbling upon Kit, an orphan. He teams up with Kit, a young cub who calls Baloo "papa bear". Their relationship is one of the main reasons to watch this show.

Baloo's airplane is then lost and is then bought back by small business woman Rebecca Cunningham and her daughter Molly who buys the plane and hires Baloo as a cargo pilot setting up the cargo business "Higher for Hire". They all form an uneasy relationship but grow fond of one another as they go from one exciting adventure to another.

Watch for an excellent cast of supporting characters including wildkat the odd mechanic, Shere Khan another Jungle Book character as an intimidating and powerful business mogul, and the pirate Don Karnage who's a mix of Blackbeard the pirate and Ricky Ricardo.

Inspired by "Indiana Jones" and old time adventure serials, this swashbuckling, episodic, animated serial show gave me some of the best memories of my childhood and truly took kids on memorable adventures.

Check it out if you get the chance, it's a can't miss.

"Spin it!"

The 90s opened up with a clever Disney favorite, "TaleSpin," the TV cartoon series that featured characters from "The Jungle Book." Join Baloo and Kit Cloudkicker as they fly the Sea Duck like you've never seen it before: out of Cape Suzette, to Louie's, up mountains, through jungles, on water, in volcanoes, looking for adventure, looking for treasure, looking for fun, all in one action-packed cartoon adventure!!!!!

This was a favorite of mine as well as my family's. This ran on The Disney Afternoon the entire first half of the 90s until the original cartoons moved to the Old Disney Channel in 1995, which I have seen on vacation once in 1996 before getting cable in March 1997.

And good news: today the DVDs are here!!!!! Relive the fun and excitement of "Dun, dun, dun, TaleSpin!!!!!"

10/10

If you are viewing this show for the first time, you may start wondering if you are in an alternate reality. Colorful and imaginative characters? Entertaining dialogue? Plots that seem to have some depth to them, even creating atmospheres of suspense and drama at times? I mean, this is a syndicated children's show right? This is the same venue that has brought kids such drek as "Pokemon", "Pepper Ann", "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers", and "VR Troopers" (please note that three of the titles mentioned above are crass Japanese exports, courtesy of the Fox Network and Saban Entertainment). Don't worry, you are just sampling some of the quality fare that was available to kids during the late 1980's and early 1990's. Some examples of this period would be "Transformers", "Garfield and Friends", "Captain Power", and "C.O.P.S." (a cartoon NOT to be confused with the live action show on Fox). Besides these prime examples, Disney also returned to syndicated programs for kids, coming up with a lineup called "The Disney Afternoon". Aside from a dumbed-down show called "The Gummi Bears", early shows like "Darkwing Duck", "Duck Tales", and "Chip 'N Dale's Rescue Rangers" gave credence to the Disney animation teams that were also turning out theatrical classics like "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Rescuers Down Under", and "The Great Mouse Detective". But above all these wonders shines "TaleSpin". The premiere of "Plunder and Lightning" was a two-hour thrill ride, and won an Emmy. Much to my delight, the rest of the episodes were up to par on the promise of the premiere.

While I enjoy the plots and dialogue, I guess for me the greatest attraction are the characters. There's Rebecca Cunningham, an independent female, but still fallible; Kit Cloudkicker, full of pre-teen angst and optimism; Louie, with his loyalty and support; Frank Wildcat, the most entertaining engineer since Scotty on the original "Star Trek"; Molly Cunningham, cute and witty, but with some depth that most child characters don't have, and of course in the middle of it all, there's Baloo, whom I would describe as a slobby version of James Bond. This is because whenever there's trouble, Baloo saves the day with the assistance of his sleeker-than-most, fastest-of-all Sea Duck (Read: James Bond's Aston Martin). Of course every great show has to have great villains, and TaleSpin doesn't disappoint here either. From the megalomania of businesstiger Shere Kahn, to the vain and always failing air pirate Don Karnage, to the hilarious and inept Soviet-satirized Thembrians. The animation is good, the music appropriate, and the episodes are (for me) the finest that children's programming has ever had to offer. Great fun for the WHOLE family!

As for many on here I can't help but praise the Cast and Crew who developed Talespin and others they made throughout My Childhood, I as all who have commented here have thoroughly enjoyed the Quality of not just the animation but the quality of the story lines and the characters.

To Class this work of art as a "Cartoon" could never do talespin justice, In fact it's an insult to class it as a "Cartoon", Talespin is an Animation and nothing less, It is evidently the greatest work of genius to be produced at Disney to date, When Disney "Pulled" it from the air little did they realise what they did and I'm sure their souls have been tortured by regret ever since.

I'll take a moment to explain, From the first which is ducktales to the last which I think is Darkwing Duck, Disney has been plagued with failures due to political Correctness and have taken a Quantum Leap backwards since, They prefer Quantity over Quality now not to mention the room full of Monkey's for the story's, I couldn't have My children watching the mind-numbing "Cartoons" they throw out now in fear that they would all turn out to be homer Simpson some time in the future and 50% of the blame would be on me for permitting them to watch it, I couldn't let that happen, Which is why I have ALL of the shows from the late 80's to the mid 90's on a Harddrive so one day My children couldn't be corrupted by the "Cartoon Crap" of today and to Savour the last piece of childhood I have and to hold on to and I owe that all to Talespin.

Talespin to me is without a doubt the best Animation ever produced in the world on account of it's depth, Charm, Wit, Compassion, Emotion and lack of Truly bad quality and story lines of which many have today, Do You see any of that content in say "Ed, Edd and Eddie or anything else You can think of?, The rubbish produced today can be likened to some 3 year old's undecipherable Hyroglyph Depicting a Picasso.

The next time You watch an episode of Talespin; take a look at the woodgrain on any wooden object or building such as Higher for Hire and salivate over the quality of workmanship and effort put into this Animation, Even the one shot backgrounds were done as though they would use them again and again, The Buildings look true to the Art Deco movement which was popular in the time period depicted, Even the vehicles are true to life, OK not ALL of the Episodes Were Fantastic in animation but the lower grade scenes were covered up by the superior scenes so all in all it evened it all out by the end of the episode and You'd probably never even notice at all unless you were focused and have an attention to detail.

The one thing I love about this is what I like to call the "Deliberate Mistakes" or "Intended Mistakes" in each episode and some have two, For example in sheepskin deep where rebecca say's "You're up to something Baloo" and Baloo replies "Who, Me!, I'm as innocent as a schoolboy" take a look into rebecca's eyes, I won't spoil the rest of the Baloopers but just keep an Eye out next time.

Everyone elses comment's are bang on and 100% correct, I have nothing else to add that others haven't said already on here, Disney, WAKE UP and smell the coffee, You have been asleep for over a decade, Stop producing rubbish and bring back Quality into Animations and Stop producing "Cartoons", We have seen the proof of what You can do and We want it back as rapidly as possible.

This was one good cartoon series for anyone to remember. As usual, the great people at Disney, always have to come up with up something fun and new every year to regain its magical touch. Just like Ducktales, and the other cartoon series that came before it, this show had everything worthy of excitement and wonder a child wants, it had adventure, comedy, action, and, yes, some romance kicked in.

This time Disney took on the "jungle Book" approach after tackling Chip 'n' Dale the year before. For this, they used some of the cast from The Jungle Book, Baloo, Louiee, and Sheer Khan, who ruled Cape Suzette, like a czar.

There's Baloo, and his sidekick, kit Cloud kicker, who work for the deliverly company "Higher for Hire ( I think that's how I Remember it)and would always stumble into some kind of adventure when their boss, Miss Cunningham, would send them to make some kind of deliveries to other places. Then there's Wildcat, a zany character who somehow memorializes every auto part known to man, and it was with that logic, that enabled him to work for Higher for Hire, as a machininc. Also there was the sweet little, Molly, Miss Cunningham's Daughter. Their enemy was Don Karnage, the pirate that traveled through air rather than by sea.

The main reason I loved this show so much was that contained adventure, clever scenes, and running gags throughout the show. The setting was around World War II, it seems, and featured a lot of technology, it seems for that time period, execpt of course for television. In fact, in one episode , the professor, decides to come up witha new invention, "radio with pictures" he called it, with Baloo, and Cloud kicker, laughing it off, as just another flop! In conclusion, this show is a must see for kids of future generations, and I wish they would make more showzs like this in the years to come.