1. The Jungle Book was the last film Walt Disney himself worked on.

2. The original story was darker.

3. Phil Harris made Baloo a star. Before Harris was cast in the role of Baloo, he didn't have a huge role in the movie. The Disney artists loved the warmth and spontaneity that Harris gave the bear. Baloo became the emotional centre of the story, an affectionate not-quite father figure torn between his own desire to keep Mowgli in the jungle and his responsibility to do what's right for the man cub.

4. Phil Harris, the voice of Baloo, went on to voice two more Disney characters; Thomas O'Malley in The Aristocats and Baloo's brown-furred 'twin' Little John in Robin Hood.

5. According to Rudyard Kipling's daughter, the first syllable of Mowgli's name rhymes with "cow" rather than "show". It's not clear whether Disney just didn't know or didn't care about the mispronunciation, but Kipling's daughter reportedly never forgave the mistake.

6. Celebrity voice casting was not that common in the earlier Disney movies, so singer Louis Prima playing King Louie was odd. Prima brought a huge amount of enthusiasm to the role, improvising his own scat singing with Phil Harris on 'I Wanna Be Like You'. He frequently called the studio with suggestions for the character and even proposed killing him off because he knew he could pull off a phenomenal death scene.

7. Kaa and Winnie the Pooh have the same voice.

8. The vultures were supposed to be voiced by the Beatles.

9. Verna Felton voiced an elephant in this film and in Dumbo. She also voiced Cinderella's fairy godmother, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp and Flora in Sleeping Beauty. Winifred from The Jungle Book was the final role of Felton's career, as she passed away one day before Walt Disney's death.

10. 'Trust in Me' was originally written for Mary Poppins. Kaa's song 'Trust in Me' was once called 'Land of Sand' and was written as part of a multi-song sequence in Mary Poppins in which Mary and the Banks children travel around the world with the aid of a magic compass. The sequence was scrapped in favour of the 'Jolly Holiday' scene and the melody for 'Land of Sand' was used as Kaa's hypnotic song.

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Comment your favourite Disney song.
I can't choose between 'Under the Sea', 'The Bare Necessities' and 'Hakuna Matata'.