TaleSpin is an American animated television series first aired in 1990 as a preview on Disney Channel and later that year as part of The Disney Afternoon. It features characters adapted from Disney's 1967 animated feature The Jungle Book (namely, some of the film's animals being given an anthropomorphic makeover while the humans are removed), which was theatrically rereleased in the summer before this show premiered in the fall. Namely Baloo the Bear, Louie the orangutan, and Shere Khan the tiger, along with new characters created for the show. The name of the show is a play on "tailspin", the rapid descent of an aircraft in a steep spiral, and on the fact that tale is another word for "story". The show is one of nine Disney Afternoon shows to use established Disney characters as the main characters, with the other eight being Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, Bonkers, Quack Pack, Aladdin, and Timon & Pumbaa. It is also one of two animated television series based on the book The Jungle Book, the second being Jungle Cubs. Background Development The series was largely developed by writers Jymn Magon and Mark Zaslove, who were also the supervising producers on the series as well as story editors. There were four production teams, each one headed by a producer/director: Robert Taylor, Larry Latham, Jamie Mitchell, and Ed Ghertner. Initially, Disney simply commissioned Magon and Zaslove with creating a thirty-minute animated program for them, with no requirements as to what the show should be about. Nearing the deadline for a pitch without having come up with anything, Magon hit upon the idea of making the story about Baloo, one of the central characters of Disney's The Jungle Book, which had recently been theatrically rereleased. The show Tales of the Gold Monkey was an inspiration according to creator/supervising producer, Jymn Magon. Similar to the main character in that show, they decided to have Baloo work for an air cargo delivery service, a concept also occasionally featured on Disney's successful DuckTales. In order to add dramatic tension, they decided to maintain the impressionable son / bad father dynamic which had driven part of the plot of The Jungle Book, replacing the human Mowgli with the anthropomorphic bear Kit. Inspired by Cheers — then one of the most popular programs on television — Magon and Zaslove created the character Rebecca (voiced by