Maybe now with @disneyplus more people will recognize and celebrate one of the greatest actors of all time: Baloo the Bear. A thread.

Baloo got his big break in Jungle Book (1967).

In the hit movie, he demonstrated he was a triple threat with his acting, singing one of Disney’s catchiest songs ever (Bare Necessities), and dancing.

After his star-making turn, Disney brought him back for another big role: Little John in Robin Hood (1973).

He dove into the new role, dying his fur, but still bringing back some of his old dance moves.

Like a lot of actors from his era, the latter part of the 70s and 80s were rough for Baloo, until Disney realized he could still command an audience and created TaleSpin with him as the lead.

He even got to dust off some of his old moves.

Despite the show’s popularity, new episodes of TaleSpin only ran from 1990-91, so unfortunately once again Baloo was out of work.

Through the 90s, he scrounged around on random Disney cameos. Desperate for real work, Baloo agreed to ill-fated live action films: Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and the direct-to-VHS The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story.

In 2003, he tried to recapture the original magic with a sequel to his first big hit, but Jungle Book 2 was a commercial and critical flop.

It would be another 13 years before Baloo would make it back on the big screen in a big way with the critically acclaimed live-action The Jungle Book (2016). But as you can see the years had been rough on Baloo.

Hopefully, @disneyplus will allow Baloo to be celebrated for his successes in film and TV. He was a generational talent. The end.