A ginger Mowgli and no songs. VHS memory lane led to obscure anime

It’s funny when something old or nostalgic prompts a fact-finding mission. That’s what happened when I unearthed the Pickwick Video release of The Jungle Book.

It all started when I transferred a non-Disney animated version of The Jungle Book from DVD onto my hard drive. To be strictly accurate, it was a DVD-R containing a transfer of a Pickwick Video release (Pickwick was one of the budget and catalogue labels associated with Video Collection International, or VCI) that once belonged to my Nan and Grandad.

The complete film clocks in at around 30 minutes, considerably shorter than the Disney masterpiece. There are other differences too: The animation, as you might expect, it was somewhat crude and dark in places. There are no songs, and Mowgli is white. Ginger, in fact.

Bereft of musical numbers and presumably set in the famous African jungles of the Scottish Highlands, with a Celtic Mowgli, The Jungle Book released under the Pickwick label has a far more interesting history than one might expect.

The video is merely a short representation of a series called Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli, produced by Nippon Animation in 1989. The 52-episode TV anime, with its synth-infused soundtrack and opening theme, aired from 1989 to 1990. The series contained adaptations of the Mowgli stories while adding original material, new characters and a more continuous coming-of-age storyline. It stayed close to the spirit and structure of Rudyard Kipling’s original short stories, tracking Mowgli from infancy—where he is adopted by the Seeonee wolf pack—all the way to his eventual reckoning with human civilization and the tiger Shere Khan.

Characters like Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther are wise, deeply fleshed-out mentors. Baloo is less of a goofy entertainer and more of a strict, loving teacher of the “Laws of the Jungle.”

Shere Khan isn’t just a background threat, as in the Disney movie; he is a recurring antagonist, responsible for the death of Mowgli’s adoptive wolf father. A multi-episode plot thread builds towards Mowgli’s eventual confrontation with the tiger.

Mowgli’s bright, unruly red-orange hair and his signature weapon—a boomerang he builds and calls his “Fang”—set him apart instantly from any other version.

The English-language dub for this anime series (Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli) was done by Cine-Groupe J.P. in Montreal for The Multimedia Group of Canada. Several members of the Montreal-based English voice cast were established voice actors.

The voice of Mowgli was Julian Bailey, a well-known voice and character actor with extensive credits stretching to the modern day, while the less-fun-loving iteration of Baloo was voiced by A.J. Henderson, who also provided voices for the long-running animated PBS series Arthur, as well as roles in The Glass Castle. Arthur Grosser (Bagheera) voiced Mr. Marco on Arthur, Tubby’s Dad on The Little Lulu Show, and provided voice work for major video games. Walter Massey (Akela) also voiced characters on Arthur and The Adventures of Paddington Bear. He memorably played Dr. Donald Morrell in an episode of Nickelodeon’s horror/mystery series Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Though the English dub produced in Canada aired in several other English-speaking and international territories, I have no evidence to suggest the complete series received a regular broadcast slot on any UK TV networks. British viewers missed out on seeing it on standard children’s television strands of the era, unlike viewers in parts of Europe, Asia and Latin America, where it was syndicated and became a minor hit.

In Japan, Nippon Columbia released the full series commercially on DVD: Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli DVD-BOX in 2005, featuring the original Japanese audio track without any English dub. Like many mid-tier or niche 80s anime box sets, it probably had a limited production run. The set is now discontinued and can be difficult to find on the secondary market, mirroring its elusive status in the West. For me, and perhaps for other UK viewers, the series is chiefly associated with Pickwick Video VHS release or found entirely online through fan-archived uploads and streaming communities.

Taken as a stand-alone animation short, The Jungle Book I watched on video as a child is pretty fair by most critical standards. It was a decent stand-in for Disney’s The Jungle Book, which wasn’t released on VHS in the UK until October 1993. It finally arrived on video a few months after a summer cinema re-release.

I remember my mum and my brother seeing Disney’s The Jungle Book at the Odeon Cinema in Bristol city centre. Mum was really keen for us to see the Disney version of The Jungle Book because we had seen this ‘fake’ version so many times and was under the impression that it would never be released on video. (As noted, it was fashionably late to the VHS party.)

Back at Nan and Grandad’s, I could now compare the Disney and Pickwick versions and had to admit the lavish Disney movie was vastly superior. So, I forgot all about The Jungle Book on Pickwick Video for many years, even though my brother and I must have seen it nearly 50 times. The Jungle Book was part of a slim selection of about 10 videos that Nan and Grandad got with their first video recorder. Their VCR looked more modern than the one we had at home. (I can’t remember the make—Grundig or Ferguson, possibly). It was a jet-black, front-loading VCR with a digital display and smaller, rounder control buttons than the flat, square buttons on our video recorder at home.

Their television was pretty large, with a wood-effect surround and fat, soft buttons to change the channel. Situated in the corner of the living room, to the right of the window and to the left of the fireplace, they moved firmly into the 90s when they purchased a new, sleeker and more modern TV cabinet at the same time as the video recorder. A black veneer job with glass doors for the video recorder to sit behind and a drawer in which a selection of cassette tapes were stashed, along with the somewhat large, intimidating VCR remote.

The selection of tapes in the drawer included Pavarotti, Charlotte Church and The Phantom of the Opera, among others. There were also a few family movies to appeal to their grandchildren of various ages: Lady and the Tramp, the Tom Hanks movie Turner & Hooch, and this fake Jungle Book. With just three videos to appeal to us kids, it’s no wonder we watched Fake Jungle Book so many times.

Thank you for joining along this meandering trip down memory lane.

There’s one last thing I remember about this Pickwick video release of The Jungle Book. My brother really liked the extended trailers for other Pickwick Video releases of Wind in the Willows and Treasure Island. We probably liked them more than the main feature of The Jungle Book itself, so I have uploaded the full Pickwick video trailer package on You Tube.

copyright Martin Gregory 2026

If you like tales with a retro feel and vintage vibes, explore my fiction on Amazon:

• Morrison’s Ghost — A novella filled with twists, dark secrets, and the twisted machinations of the state affecting ordinary people (available now in multiple formats).
• Phil’s Marvellous Machine — An upcoming collection featuring two crime/detective stories.

---