For decades, speculation has lingered in the pop culture ether like the last note of a psychedelic chord: were The Beatles meant to appear in Disney’s 1967 animated film, The Jungle Book? The short answer is no—but the long answer is far more entertaining, and, naturally, tinged with a heavy dose of Lennon snark.
It’s not difficult to see where the rumour sprang from. The Jungle Book’s mop-topped vultures—Buzzie, Flaps, Dizzy and Ziggy—bear more than a passing resemblance to a certain Liverpudlian quartet. They speak in suspiciously Scouse-adjacent tones, sport mop haircuts that fall somewhere between Merseybeat and mockery, and harmonise in a way that practically screams, “We wanted The Beatles, alright?”
Because Disney did want The Beatles.
In the mid-1960s, The Beatles were untouchable—culturally seismic, commercially infallible. Naturally, Disney wanted a piece of that action, and tasked songwriting legends Robert and Richard Sherman with penning a number—That’s What Friends Are For—expressly for the band.
But what could’ve been a landmark collaboration between the world’s biggest band and the world’s most powerful entertainment studio never materialised. Why? Because John Lennon, famously unfiltered and proudly anti-establishment, allegedly shut it down with the now-legendary phrase:
“There’s no way The Beatles are going to sing for Mickey f**king Mouse!”
Let’s be honest: even if the quote is apocryphal, it fits Lennon’s irreverent persona with disarming precision. Officially, the band passed due to “scheduling conflicts,” a PR gloss over what was, in reality, an outright rejection. In a 2013 interview, Richard Sherman confirmed that Lennon was the roadblock, saying, “John was running the show at the time, and he said, ‘I don’t wanna do an animated film.’”
Ironically, just three years later, The Beatles lent their name (if not their voices) to Yellow Submarine—a now-iconic animated odyssey that Lennon himself had dismissed as a daft idea when it came to Disney. The Vultures’ roles were instead voiced by J. Pat O’Malley, Chad Stuart, Lord Tim Hudson, and Digby Wolfe—all British, with Stuart being one half of folk-pop duo Chad & Jeremy.
It’s a classic tale of what might’ve been—an alternate timeline where The Beatles crooned to Baloo and Mowgli instead of sailing off in a technicolour submersible. But, like so many near-misses in cultural history, the almost is just as fascinating as the actual.
