It features anthropomorphized versions of characters adapted from Disney's 1967 animated feature The Jungle Book, which was theatrically rereleased in the summer before this show premiered in the fall,[2] notably 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".

[5] 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.

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.

[6] 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.

[7] Magon and Zaslove also took inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 manga Hikōtei Jidai, about a pigheaded man who flies a seaplane and fights air pirates.

Harris, who continued to do occasional voice acting until 1991, died of a heart attack on August 11, 1995, five years after TaleSpin premiered.

After a preview-run of TaleSpin aired on The Disney Channel from May 5 to July 15, 1990,[11][12] the series began its main syndicated run in September of the same year.

The city lies on an unnamed island, in an unspecified body of water, on a large harbor or bay enclosed by a high cliff wall.

In the episode "Bygones", Baloo comments that "The Great War ended 20 years ago",[20] thus suggesting that the series takes place around 1938.

Radio is the primary mass medium and the episode "The Incredible Shrinking Molly" briefly alludes to the characters having never heard of television.

An orphan boy and former air pirate, the ambitious grizzly bear cub Kit Cloudkicker, attaches to Baloo and becomes his navigator.

Together, they are the crew of Higher for Hire's only aircraft, a 20-year-old modified Conwing L-16 (a fictitious twin-boom cargo plane using elements from the Fairchild C-82 transport, Grumman G-21 Goose amphibian, and a Consolidated PBY-3) named the Sea Duck.

Their adventures often involve encounters with a gang of air pirates led by Don Karnage, as well as with representatives of Thembria, inhabited by anthropomorphic boars, or other, often even stranger obstacles.

More precisely, according to Jymn Magon (co-creator of the series), the two characters were fashioned after Sam Malone and Rebecca Howe from the then-popular sitcom Cheers.

[28][29] TaleSpin: Volume 3 received a wide retail DVD release on January 13, 2015,[30][31] and has been seen as a Wal-Mart Exclusive in Canada since October 12, 2014.

The sets contain the episodes in the same order as the US releases, as well as a Fastplay feature and 6 language tracks: English, Danish, German, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish, but no subtitles have been added.

The entire series is currently available for purchase in standard definition on Amazon Prime Video and the iTunes Store in the United States.

[43] The comic's cancellation at the end of 1991 terminated several planned stories that would have revealed pieces of background for the main characters.

[44] Rebecca, Kit, Baloo, Don Karnage and Shere Khan from Talespin also appeared on cards in the 1993 puzzle game Mickey's Memory Challenge, released for Amiga and MS-DOS compatible operating systems, developed by Infogrames.

Although not an official TaleSpin game, Gaijin's War Thunder 2021 April Fools' Day event called "TailSpin" is apparently related to or inspired by the show.

Players start with the "Nimble" biplane seaplane fighter, and progress to more advanced aircraft by shooting down or getting "assists" on shooting down enemy aircraft, until reaching the mighty "Sly Duck" seaplane (which closely resembles the Sea Duck from the show).