Disney’s Talespin was one of those weird 1990’s cartoons that just sits in the back of your brain, eating away at your sub-conscience while it grows mold in that dusty corner in your mind. All while you think “WTF was that show with the bear piloting an airplane?” That was Talespin, one of Disney Channel’s startup shows where they took a classic Disney movie character and put them in an out of place non-canonical scenario.
While it had accurate designs to the original movies, it was around the time of very weird cartoon physics-based around skateboards and choppy animation. So let’s explore memory lane and see 10 things that make no sense about Talespin.
Gliding Skateboards
While this is essentially a hoverboard, this, in fact, does not work because the series setting is in the 1930s. The last time anyone checked Baby Boomers don’t fly. This is one of those weird 90s-ism physics where the creators thought, “Yeah this would be so cool! The kids are going to love it, it won’t be ridiculous at all!”
It supposed to look and act like paragliding but when you take actual flight mechanics to it, it does not work at all. Kit, the baby bear, would be flying off that board in seconds, then whoops looks like there’s going to be a bear slurpy at the end of that.
Mid Air Harpoon Guns
Okay, suspend disbelief for a moment and say that an air gliding skateboard with absolutely no technology to control flight pattern actually worked and was real. Now you’re forced, yes forced to believe, that the bear can still stand on the board while shooting a hook shot harpoon gun.
Now even if the 1930’s air skateboard of smooshy death does work, the show is trying to make everyone watching believe that the flight path won’t be hurt by the force it would give off and further you could use this thing to grab onto planes and still glide around without Kit’s feet slipping off even though he has no foot harnesses.
Grabbing onto Planes
Okay, time to suspend more belief and say “Yes, baby bear can, in fact, stay on magical pre-World War 2 hoverboard when gliding around, and he won’t get knocked off if he uses a grappling gun. He can also hold multiple people on his board without causing it to fall like a lead weight.”
So basically magic skateboard is magic, BUT now it’s expected to belive that baby bear grappling onto a plane by the wing won’t completely screw up the physics of the plane’s flight because now it just added 50 pounds of drag to one side. It air flight this would be huge cause the plane to eventually spiral down taking baby bear on a tornado ride to the ground, there’s a reason paddle balls do not fly.
The Cool Kid’s Hat
It’s best no to forget Kit, baby bear, also has a super cool 90s style backward hat super glued to his bear head. It doesn’t matter if he’s up in the sky, being tied upside down, or running all around that hat will not come off.
Unless it’s plot-relevant that the hat must come off and get lost so he and Baloo, the bear from The Jungle Book, can go on “Wacky,” adventures. Must be the superglue, it only works until you actually need it to work.
The Canon
There could be so many potential theories that could go about the canon of this series and what universe it lies in because, in the context of the original Jungle Book movie by Disney, it makes no sense. It’s the same characters, but without humans.
The biggest question being: Where are the humans? You have a bustling metropolis in a hidden almost crater area with human clothing and modern technology. The humans around Baloo and the rest were tribesmen, with no modern technology so it couldn’t have been a manimal takeover, plus what they have is a full working society with stock investments and businesses running for a good 5 years during the series.
The Zootopia Question.
You have predators and prey living in the same city, maybe even being a precursor to the movie. But that leads to the question of what do the predators eat? It seems predators have all the jobs and higher rank positions in the city, and a surprising lack of prey characters, which could be evidence of the prey population getting eaten.
You don’t see often what Shere Kahn eats, but in this universe or setting, he is extremely rich and probably could afford to buy a meal of prey even if it’s illegal there.
Modern Society
A simple question of how did it get from point A: animals in the jungle, to point B: animals building a huge metropolis, economy, trade, and culture. All in the lifespan of a bear. 1000’s of years of human technology development put what would be anticipated 20 years at most. And this isn’t a one-time occurrence in the show where there is only one town and developed civilization, there are multiple and even airplane trade routes to them. Meaning that other places around the world or that continent had sentient animals create societies and start discovering each other which lead to the need for planes.
This rules out the idea that there were humans in the Metropolis and the manimals took it over from them. Adding to this is that the metropolis that the show centers around is a secluded area protect by mountain walls essentially, making most forms of trade unreliable, especially if the nearest settlements are far enough away you need a plane. Overall the location of a bustling city needs other cities nearby and plantations and mines to supply materials for trade, meaning its existence makes no sense.
Mobility through Planes
There seems to be a lack of transportation in the city where the common vehicle you use to go around is a plane. It seems most any bad guy can get a hold of a plane, because screw boats, even though Planes have been historically expensive. That leads the question of where are they mining all the material for the planes that always gets wrecked each episode.
It’s also a severe safety concern especially with the tall buildings that these planes seem to go through Cape Suzette, the metropolis the show is centered on. It seems like playing with Murphy’s law there.
Planes Always Transporting Valuables
One thing is consistent in the series is that when you use a plane to transport something, it’s always highly valuable. Like diamonds, artifacts, and other rare sorts of things.
That begs the question if that’s really the main economy of Cape Suzette, rare item trade. It’s questionable whether or not half of the items are black market goods in that case because we always see Baloo’s adventures, not the adventures of what others go through. In an economic system, it’s not a good long term plan, because you can’t always find rare things. In this case, the black market seems to make their world go around, as you’d see in the series most other money-making schemes don’t end well in profit at Cape Suzzette.
The Pirate Issue
So you have things so valuable that you are making so much money your town needs armed cliff guns to shoot pirates out of the air. Then your pilot hands over all your valuables like its nothing, and they go back out to do it again to generously fund the next pirate.
It sounds like either tax fraud or insurance cashing in. If these things were so important you’d have armed guards and multiple people besides just a pilot transporting the goods so pirates would think twice about invading your plane. Yet for the plot and so our hairy friends can go on adventures, it’s always one pilot who easily gives up what he has.
