Shere Khan

"No matter how fast you run, no matter where you hide, I will catch you."

- Shere Khan

Shere Khan is the main antagonist of Disney's 1967 animated feature film The Jungle Book.

A powerful, suave Bengal tiger, Shere Khan had nothing but disdain for his victims. His reputation was such that he needed only to show himself to intimidate the inhabitants of the jungle. His only fears were man's gun and fire.

Background
As a cub, Shere Khan spoke with an American accent and was best friends with Baloo, Bagheera, King Louie, Hathi, and even Kaa. The group went on many adventures, but at some undetermined time, Shere Khan developed a strong British accent and became a vicious predator, feared by all members of the jungle. Shere Khan then lost his friends, who would become his enemies from that moment forward.

Personality
"Oh, please don't insult my intelligence. It makes me irritable."

- Shere Khan to Kaa

Shere Khan acts as the physical embodiment of power and composure. With a dignified manner of carrying himself, and a strong sense of pride and elegance, the ruthless tiger is viewed as the uncorroborated ruler of the jungles of India; well aware of this reputation, as he takes advantage of it sadistically. Most, if not all residents of the jungle, are known to fear Shere Khan, and for reasons apparent. He is physically imposing, and is often seen with a stoic, menacing expression. The only moments where he's seen emoting otherwise is during his interrogations with potential victims, in which he speaks softly, with a condescending, knowing smile, as he subtly taunts and emotionally torments his prey until he's ready to make the killing strike.

For reasons unknown, aside from his fears of man's gun and man's fire, Shere Khan holds a burning hatred for mankind, and vows to kill any human that steps foot within the jungle. With such anger and rage, Shere Khan's normally somber and collected demeanor can become murderous, bloodthirsty, and feral in a matter of moments, as seen during his first confrontation with Mowgli in the original film, as he was willing to kill both the man-cub, and any animal who dared to protect him, without hesitation.

In the sequel, however, Shere Khan's personality and overall aura takes a somewhat darker turn. Unlike the first film, his polite mannerisms and calm monologues are a rarity, as his bitterness and hatred towards Mowgli drives him to deeper madness, resulting in action being taken much quicker and having no comedic quirks whatsoever. He's also far more feral in this film; constantly growling, roaring, and losing his control when pestered even slightly and even viciously mauls a vulture who kept mocking him.

The Jungle Book
Before his appearance, Shere Khan is referred to narrowly, indicating his fearsome nature among many. He is first seen stalking a deer as prey. His hunt was ruined when Colonel Hathi came marching by with his herd and scared it away, much to Shere Khan's disgust. After Bagheera stopped them, Shere Khan eavesdropped on their conversation and was delighted when he heard about Mowgli. After they had left, he began his own hunt for Mowgli.

After searching some, he heard Kaa singing and became suspicious. He grabbed Kaa's tail and got him to come down. He questioned Kaa about Mowgli and Kaa acted strangely while answering his questions. Kaa's suspicious behavior prompted Shere Khan to search his coils for Mowgli, but was still not totally fooled when he didn't find him. He told Kaa if he did see him, he was to inform him first before continuing his search.

Later he heard the Vultures singing and investigated the occasion. He then found Mowgli and, after being impressed by his courage, gave him ten seconds to run away. Khan became more and more annoyed when he didn't and tried to kill him after he reached ten. Baloo grabbed his tail before he could and stopped him. After a chase, the Vultures got Mowgli to safety.

Shere Khan then became furious, battled Baloo, and nearly killed him. The Vultures intervened, stopped him before he could, and stalled him while Mowgli tied a burning branch to Khan's tail. Khan then became terrified and tried to put out the fire, but failed. He then fled with burning branch still tied to his tail and burning his back, greatly humiliating him.

The Jungle Book 2
Shere Khan returned once again as the main antagonist in the second film. Unlike in the first, he appeared much earlier and also unlike his first appearance he was more evil and antagonistic (although he still shows some sense of humor) and a lot more screen time. He is first seen smashing a makeshift version of Mowgli's head after Baloo left the area with Bagheera in pursuit. He seeks revenge on Mowgli for humiliating him at the climax of the original film and wishes for nothing more than his death. Khan travels to the Man-Village where Mowgli dwells.

He had no luck until he heard Shanti, one of Mowgli's friends, calling him. He then found Mowgli's house and was delighted that he would now have his chance for revenge. He became impatient when Mowgli didn't appear. All at once, Mowgli appeared in the air above the house. After Shanti started screaming about a wild animal, Khan noticed it was Baloo with Mowgli and was surprised. After the villagers responded to Shanti's calls, they saw Shere Khan instead of Baloo and chased him out of the village. Khan was attacked by the villagers with torches but they had no power over him. He escaped in rage but overjoyed to hear that Mowgli is now in the jungle. He encountered Kaa afterwards, who had seen Mowgli. Kaa at first insisted he didn't know where Mowgli was, but Shere Khan knew better and intimidated him, even though Kaa was telling the truth.

Out of fear, Kaa told Khan to search by the swamp. However, when Khan arrived, Mowgli is nowhere to be found and he splashes the water in fury as he says "That snake lied to me!". The vultures return and become uneasy when their newest member Lucky begins to insanely mock him. After a few "jokes", Shere Khan tricks Lucky into revealing Mowgli's whereabouts. Before Khan leaves, he viciously mauls Lucky as revenge for the annoyance and presumably kills him. Later on he found Shanti and Ranjan and cornered them. Mowgli then appeared to find them and Khan confronted him.

Mowgli ran away and Khan pursued him to a temple in the middle of a pool of lava. After Baloo and Shanti teamed up and started to bang gongs with Mowgli, one fell down revealing Shanti. He then said he would kill her if Mowgli wouldn't come out. Mowgli did and he pursued him and Shanti after knocking Baloo aside. Mowgli and Shanti jumped on to a tiger statue right over a pit of lava with Shere Khan right behind them. Before he could kill them, the statue's head fell off towards the lava. Baloo saved Mowgli and Shanti while Khan fell into the pit. Rather than perishing, he landed of a slab of rock and was trapped underneath the statue's head. Lucky, still alive but lost the feathers on his body and has a bruised right eye, then flew down and started to tease Khan again, much to his annoyance. It's unknown of what happened to him shortly after the events of the film, and especially if he had ever managed to try to escape the volcanic pit unharmed.

TaleSpin
Shere Khan appeared in a more anthropomorphic form in the television series TaleSpin. Tony Jay provides his thick, British-accented voice starting from the series, until his death.

Khan is an extremely wealthy businessman who is the dominant economic force in Cape Suzette and an anti-hero. He is depicted as a selfish business man. He is sometimes accompanied by an unnamed emaciated tiger "yes-man" office aide. He takes enjoyment out of running small companies out of business (Higher for Hire is sometimes on his hit list) with a sense of ruthlessness to skirt around the law as he chooses. He also likes to feed tiny insects to the many carnivorous plants he grows in his office. He once even hired the Air Pirates to create an artificial oil shortage so he could extort higher prices from the public in "On a Wing and a Bear".

He has a well-armed air force and navy, complete with battleships. This is mainly to protect his shipping and business interests worldwide. However, he is willing to act nobly at times, such as ordering his forces into the air to protect the city from the Air Pirates, and has shown that he respects Baloo's piloting skills, most notably when he allowed Baloo to take over piloting his plane after having all pilots replaced with his own robotic pilots; his plane had been ambushed by the air pirates and the robotic pilot refused to deviate from its flight plan due to its programming causing Baloo to forcefully remove the robot and take control of the plane to evade the air pirates.

He has an extremely cool and calm personality, rarely (if ever) showing any sort of alarm or surprise regardless of the circumstances. In fact, when his plane was attacked by Don Karnage's forces in the incident detailed above, he calmly mixed himself a drink as he explained the situation to Baloo.

This version of Shere Khan also makes a cameo on a mugshot in Bonkers.

Jungle Cubs
Shere Khan appeared as a young cub in the animated series Jungle Cubs. In the series, it was shown that Shere Khan was originally friends with Baloo, Bagheera, Hathi and the others. Shere Khan was more of a bully and cocky in the series rather than a dangerous predator. Khan often tagged along with Baloo and friends on many adventures, usually trying to prove he's braver than they are. In the series, Shere Khan is given an American accent, while in other appearances, Khan speaks with a British accent.

In spite of being a cub, Khan still holds his intimidating demeanor and continues to strike fear into the hearts of many of the jungle's inhabitants. However, his cocky attitude can get him and his friends into trouble with foes even he's frightened by, usually by bigger animals. Khan prefers to refer to the others as his followers rather than his friends, even though he obviously enjoys spending time with them. Much like an adult, Khan was sometimes found with Kaa often. In one episode, the duo teamed up to take advantage of Louie, after he accidentally injured them. Acting as if they were too injured to do anything themselves, they spent the day bossing the ape around.

In Jungle Cubs: Born to Be Wild DVD, Khan, as an adult, returned to murder Mowgli yet again; however, Baloo was able to throw a beehive onto the tiger's head right before he could, having him run off in pain.

House of Mouse
Shere Khan appeared in the TV series House of Mouse as a recurring guest, usually seen sitting either alone or with Kaa. In most of his pairings with Kaa, he is often seen holding Kaa by the neck, like in the movie.

In his most notable appearance in "The Mouse Who Came to Dinner", Mortimer Mouse was pretending to be the club's critic (which was really Lumière) to have Mickey and friends obey him and when he became annoying, Shere Khan became annoyed as well and quoted "Do you mind?" to which Mortimer replied, "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do mind, Stripey! Somebody get Tigger's evil twin here a ball of yarn!"

A dish called Shere Khan's Flan, named after the villainous tiger, is mentioned by Goofy in "Rent Day".

In "Dining Goofy", Shere Khan was accidentally given broccoli by Goofy, thus angering the tiger. Soon after Goofy was replaced by advanced technology, Shere Khan's meal order was corrected.

In "Goofy's Menu Magic", when a food shortage occurred, Goofy attempted to serve Shere Khan his shoe for dinner (an apparent reference to the Goofy short "Tiger Trouble"). Shere Khan, however, was unamused.

In "Ask Von Drake", Shere Khan appears with Kaa during "The Ludwig Von Drake Song".

Despite appearing in the series itself, Shere Khan never appeared in its movie Mickey's House of Villains, as Kaa is the only villain from The Jungle Book to join the Disney Villains, led by Jafar to take over the House of Mouse. However in the opening sequence, a tiger's paw is seen on-screen as the characters are walking towards the club. So it could be possible that only Shere Khan's paw was seen once in the movie.

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
Shere Khan also appears in the 1994 live-action film, being portrayed by a real tiger. However, Shere Khan is presented as a more sympathetic character in this film. Khan appears rarely and instead serves as the secondary antagonist later anti-hero of the film while an arrogant British captain named William Boone (who is played by Cary Elwes) serves as the villain of the film. Unlike the villains in the film, Khan does not kill for sport, and his sole goal is to protect the jungle from those who break its "laws", namely humans who kill animals for fun instead of food. He is described by the narrator of the film as "the jungle's royal keeper", and by Buldeo as the "king of tigers".

At the beginning of the movie, he sees two British guards and a hunter named Buldeo shooting animals for fun, and becomes enraged at this. He roars in his fury, letting the soldiers know he's returned, and proceeds to follow the column of soldiers that the guards and Buldeo are part of. That night, he attacks the humans' camp in revenge for the animals' death, killing the two guards before turning on Buldeo. But before Khan can kill Buldeo, Nathoo (Mowgli's father and the soldiers' guide) shields the hunter. Although Nathoo tells Buldeo to shoot Khan, the ungrateful hunter runs away and abandons Mowgli's father to be killed. Khan's attack is also what led Mowgli to being separated from civilization and living in the jungle. Although he was heard growling when Bagheera found Mowgli, the tiger made no attempts to attack Mowgli at any point over the years.

Shere Khan is not seen again until the second half of the movie. By this time, Mowgli has fallen in love with his childhood friend Katherine "Kitty" Brydon and made an enemy in Captain Boone, who has his henchmen kidnap Kitty to force Mowgli to take them to a treasure. Like before, Khan roars to announce his return, though why he started stalking the group is not revealed (it was possibly to avenge Baloo's earlier shooting by Boone). Two of Boone's henchmen die before Khan catches up to the group, where he scares the villains into splitting up. Once separated, Shere Khan kills Lt. John Wilkins, a henchman of Captain Boone, while Buldeo is buried alive while trying to shoot Mowgli.

After the climactic battle between Mowgli and Boone (ending with Boone being killed by Kaa), Khan and Mowgli meet face to face for the first time. Khan is obviously distrusting of Mowgli (and all humans in general), and attempts to scare him away by roaring in his face, but Mowgli stubbornly roars back and stares Khan down. Seeing Mowgli's courage, Khan develops a newfound respect for him, and begins to see him as a fellow "creature of the jungle". Because of this and the fact that neither broke the jungle law, Shere Khan spares Mowgli and allows him and Kitty to leave peacefully.

The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story
Shere Khan is first seen attending the jungle meeting called by Hathi. He then contemplates on who he is going to eat, with his sidekick, Tabaqui, the hyena, telling jokes about it, much to the tiger's annoyance. He then decides to hunt man, claiming to have a craving for "Indian food". He and Tabaqui then ambush some humans visiting the river, but when he is shot at by hunters, he flees and is assumed dead. Years later, he reveals himself alive to the wolf pack and demands that Mowgli be given to him, but Akela refuses, and Shere Khan swears revenge. He is later seen conspiring with the wolf pack bullies about separating Mowgli from the pack, which succeeds. He and Tabaqui then conspire with the chimps about separating Mowgli from Bagheera and Baloo.

The Jungle Book (2016)
Shere Khan is slated to appear in the upcoming 2016 live-action film adaptation, voiced by Idris Elba.

Descendants: Isle of the Lost
Shere Khan is among the villains imprisoned on the Isle of the Lost. Apparently he had a soft spot for Evie when she was younger, since every time she giggles he smiles.

QuackShot
Shere Khan is featured as a boss in the game, battling Donald Duck.

The Jungle Book
Shere Khan appeared as the final boss in the Virgin Studios video game adaptation of The Jungle Book. Shere Khan is also featured in the video game The Jungle Book 2.

The Jungle Book: Rhythm N'Groove
Shere Khan also appears in The Jungle Book: Rhythm N'Groove PlayStation 2 game. As the game follows the storyline of the original film, Shere Khan's goal is the same as the film. However, Khan appears much earlier in the game. In addition, during the climax of the game, Shere Khan performs "Run".

Disney Universe
A Shere Khan costume is available to buy on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for the Jungle Book costume pack including the world and characters based on the film.

Disney Parks
Shere Khan makes no live appearances at the parks and only appears as apart of parade floats inspired by The Jungle Book. He also appears on several merchandise.

At Disney's Animal Kingdom, Shere Khan played the role as main antagonist in Journey into the Jungle Book and preys upon Mowgli trying to do away with him as he did in the film.

In Disneyland Paris, Shere Khan can be seen poking his head out of the tree in the parade's jungle-themed float for Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade.

In Hong Kong Disneyland's Flights of Fantasy Parade, Shere Khan makes an appearance at the very top of the jungle float.

Differences from the original character

 * In the original stories he is nicknamed "The Lame One" and has a crippled leg but in the films he has no lameness.
 * The only animal who looks up to him in the stories is Tabaqui but no one does in the films.
 * He believes himself to be the rightful lord of the jungle in the stories but in the film he is called "Lord of the Jungle" by the vultures and does not see himself as the Lord of the Jungle.
 * Although Shere Khan was killed off in the end of the book, he was not killed off at the end of the original film. Instead he was humiliated in the original film.

Trivia

 * The word Shere (or "shir") translates as "tiger" or "lion" in Persian, Hindi, and Punjabi. While Khan translates as "sovereign", "king" or "military leader" and so forth in a number of languages influenced by the Mongols, including Pashto.
 * Shere Khan seems to be the only character (besides Kaa himself) who is immune to Kaa's hypnosis, as when Kaa attempted to do so with Shere Khan in the first film like he had with Mowgli and Bagheera, Khan simply ignored him.
 * In the second film, it is revealed that Shere Khan now knows Mowgli's name. It is unknown how he learned this, although it could be that he heard Baloo mention Mowgli's name in the final battle scene in the first film.
 * In the original book by Rudyard Kipling, Shere Khan had a crippled leg and was killed by a stampede of cattle organized by Mowgli and his wolf brothers.
 * Originally, Shere Khan was actually going to die when Mowgli shoots him in the head with a shotgun belonging to the hunter, Buldeo, who Khan had just killed. It was cut when Disney figured it would be too scary.
 * In the Arabic dub of The Jungle Book 2, the voice actor who played Shere Khan, Khaled Al-Sawi, also was the second voice actor for Tigger.
 * According to songwriter Richard M. Sherman, Bill Lee of The Mellomen sings Shere Khan's part in "That's What Friends are For", due to George Sanders not being available. According to the liner notes in The Jungle Book soundtrack, fellow Mellomen member Thurl Ravenscroft provides the singing for Shere Khan, not Bill Lee.
 * Candy Candido supplies Shere Khan's roaring in The Jungle Book.
 * Shere Khan is a and they prey on sloth bears, so it actually makes sense for Baloo to be one of his enemies.
 * Animator Mit Kahl used the films Jungle Cat and A Tiger Walks as references for the way Shere Khan walks. These same references would also be used for Bagheera as well.
 * Shere Khan's defined chin is actually based on George Sanders' own.
 * Shere Khan's animation was used as a reference for characters from The Lion King, particularly Scar.
 * In The Jungle Book 2, TaleSpin and House of Mouse, Khan was voiced by Tony Jay, who also voiced fellow villain Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
 * In Jungle Cubs, the young Khan was voiced by Jason Marsden, who voices protagonists Max Goof and Kovu.
 * Contrary to popular belief, Shere Khan does not have Kaa as his henchman, as the snake does none of the tiger's evil bidding, and the two apparently dislike each other.
 * Shere Khan (more specifically the George Sanders version) was cited to be the inspiration of Richard Waugh's voice for Albert Wesker in the Resident Evil series.
 * In the planned third installment of the Jungle Book franchise, Shere Khan was to have escaped from the statue at the beginning of the movie, and end up captured alongside Baloo and forced into a circus environment. During this time, Shere Khan will also end up regretting his actions from the previous two films and intend to reform as Mowgli and the other animals attempt to rescue them. However, due to the Jungle Book 2's poor sales, it was scrapped. Had that film came to frusion, he would also have been one of the few Disney villains to reform.
 * Though Bagheera, Colonel Hathi, King Louie, and the Jungle Patrol are Shere Khan's enemies and knew him their whole lives, they never interact with each other in either of the films.
 * His survival after being trapped in the sequel is questionable, as he would not be able to find any food, and is trapped near a lava pit.