King Louie

King Louie is a fictional orangutan who kidnaps Mowgli in Disney's 1967 animated musical adaptation of The Jungle Book. He does not appear in Rudyard Kipling's original book, as orangutans are not native to India. But the movie is "inspired by" rather than "based on" the Kipling stories. In the book, Mowgli is abducted by a band of nameless and leaderless Bandar-log (monkeys), but the rest of the scene plays out very differently from Disney. Bill Peet's original story for the film did not feature King Louie, but did have a bigger bander-log without a tail which was perhaps meant to be their king. Peet left Disney over a dispute regarding the contents of his script so his ultimate vision for the king of the bander-logs remains unknown. Development of the story continued following Peet's departure, with his darker story giving way to a new emphasis on lightheartedness and jazzy tunes. In this milieu King Louie eventually came into being, given life through the voice and personality of famed jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis Prima. Life was also given to Louie by Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and John Lounsbery, three of Disney's famed Nine Old Men who animated the character. Kahl animated Louie's interaction with Mowgli, Thomas his solo song and dance portions, while Lounsberry animated his memorable duet with a drag wearing Baloo.

King Louie appears to be evil, but he just wants to be human; he is the classic misunderstood villain. He sings the song "I Wanna Be Like You" after he kidnaps Mowgli, and asks the boy to show him the secret of "red fire" so he can be human. King Louie did not appear in The Jungle Book 2, but a puppet of him can been seen in Mowgli's puppet show at the beginning of the film. His absence was due to Louis Prima's widow suing over the unauthorized use of her late husband's voice and public persona in past Jungle Book spin-off projects, as Jim Cummings's imitation of Prima featured in these was near perfect. This is rumored to have influenced the cancellations of the television spin-offs TaleSpin and Jungle Cubs. On TaleSpin, Louie ran a tavern where Baloo and his sidekick Kit Cloudkicker frequented, while on Jungle Cubs, he orgnaized the band the Five Bananas where he performed alongside Baloo, Bagheera the Panther, Hathi the Elephant, and Kaa the Snake.

A slightly different King Louie character appeared in the Disney 1994 live-action Jungle Book movie starring Jason Scott Lee. Once again he is an orangutan, and the 'leader' of a group of monkeys that make their home in an abandoned human city. His name arises in this version from the vast wealth that humans left behind in the city, and in particular to his habit of wearing a crown similar in appearance to that worn by the King of France, Louis XIV.

King Louie also appears in the Fables comic book. He is one of the revolutionaries who wish to overthrow the Fabletown government out of resentment at the apparent second-class status of non-human-appearing Fables. Due to his peripheral involvement, he is given a sentence of hard labor---twenty years, reduced to five years conditional on good behavior.

In one of the Disney TV Shows, House of Mouse, there is a King Louie look-alike orangutan who is referred to as King "Larry", and is said to be Louie's identical twin brother. It was to star King Louie, but had to be changed to Larry so as not to violate their agreement with Gia Prima.