Kaa
Encyclopedia
Kaa is a fictional and exceptionally long Python molurus from the Mowgli stories written by Rudyard Kipling
. Kaa is one of Mowgli's mentors and friends. He, Baloo
and Bagheera
sing for Mowgli "The Outsong" of the jungle. First introduced in the story "Kaa's Hunting" in The Jungle Book
, Kaa is a huge and powerful snake, more than a hundred years old and still in his prime. Bagheera and Baloo enlist Kaa's help to rescue Mowgli when the man-cub is captured by the Bandar-log
(monkeys) and taken to an abandoned human city. Kaa breaks down the wall of the building in which Mowgli is imprisoned and uses his serpentine hypnosis
to draw the monkeys toward his waiting jaws. Bagheera and Baloo are also hypnotized, but Mowgli is immune because he is human, and breaks the spell on his friends.
In The Second Jungle Book
Kaa appears in the first half of the story "The King's Ankus
". After he and Mowgli spend some time relaxing, bathing and wrestling, Kaa persuades Mowgli to visit a treasure chamber guarded by an old cobra beneath an ancient city. The cobra tries to kill Mowgli but its poison has dried up. Mowgli takes a jeweled item away as a souvenir, not realizing the trouble it will cause in the second half of the story, and Kaa departs.
In "Red Dog
" Mowgli asks Kaa for help when his wolf pack is threatened by rampaging dhole
(the red dogs of the title). Kaa goes into a trance so that he can search his century-long memory for a stratagem to defeat the dogs:
With Kaa's help Mowgli tricks the dhole into attacking prematurely. Kaa takes no part in the resulting battle, but Mowgli and the wolves finally kill all the dhole, though not without grievous losses. Kaa makes his last appearance in "The Spring Running," as the teenage Mowgli reluctantly prepares to leave the jungle for the last time. "It is hard to cast the skin," he tells Mowgli, but Mowgli knows he must cast the skin of his old life in order to grow a new one.
In the 1967 Disney animation The Jungle Book
, Kaa, voiced by Sterling Holloway
(and later, by Jim Cummings
after Holloway's death), is markedly different from his original counterpart. Rather than being a mentor, he serves as the secondary antagonist
who twice attempts to trap Mowgli in his coils in order to devour him throughout the film. He does this through the use of hypnotic
eyes as opposed to the original version, in which he uses a serpentine dance to control his prey. His attempts to eat Mowgli always end in a comical failure. He is also quite cowardly, attempting to curry favor with Shere Khan
whenever he is around.
While all his appearances are marked with comedy in some form or another, Kaa is, on the whole, much more menacing in the first movie than in the second, to the point where Bagheera is, in fact, afraid of him when he realizes that he is angry. However, his cause for hunting Mowgli (to appease his hunger with what he perceives as easy prey) is in direct contrast with the movie's other main villain, Shere Khan, whose cause for aggression is wrath and intolerance. This contrast is most acutely shown in a scene in the first movie, where Kaa berates (to himself) Shere Khan's mock gentlemanly manner, comparing what he is doing to picking on the child, before he remembers that he aims to consume Mowgli himself.
Kaa reappears beginning in the film when Mowgli runs away from Baloo, who is trying to return the boy to his own kind. Kaa deceives Mowgli into trusting him by saying that he would "never have to leave this jungle" (which would ironically be true) and seizes the opportunity to quickly put the man-cub back under his spell. Seductively singing "Trust in Me
", he makes Mowgli relax and sleepwalk on his body. This attempt to eat Mowgli is also failed, ironically by Shere Khan, who is not convinced by Kaa's bluff, even after searching Kaa's coils and not feeling Mowgli inside; the distraction caused by Khan allowed Mowgli to regain consciousness and escape.
Holloway decided to play Kaa with a lisp
, a condition which composers Sherman Brothers
brought into the character's song in The Jungle Book, "Trust in Me".
, this time seen as a friend of the other animals when they were cubs. Although he still uses hypnosis on occasion, his skills at this age are far less efficient than when used as an adult, with him failing to hypnotize a sleeping Baloo and only hypnotizing a couple of vultures by accident. He was also seen having far a less malevolent personality as a cub than as adult, once going to great lengths to save Baloo after he believes that he has endangered his friend with his hypnotic abilities, but he still has his sneaky ways in which he often attempts to (unsuccessfully) hypnotize the other cubs, partly threatening on one occasion.
He was also seen in the prologue to the series on the Disney Video version, where he again happens to be in the tree under which Mowgli is sleeping. Strangely, he does not seem to recognize Mowgli as he slithers to observe his prey. Then, he wakes Mowgli up only to hypnotize him again, and makes him rise towards him. Before Mowgli falls completely in trance, Baloo thwarts Kaa away. His voice was done by Jim Cummings
, who reprised this role in Jungle Cubs and The Jungle Book 2. Kaa appeared briefly in the feature film "Mickey's House of Villains
" where he sang again during the main villain musical number. A snake like character resembling Kaa made a cameo during the final scene of Who Framed Roger Rabbit
. Kaa is also a playable character and a mini-boss in Monkey City.
Ubisoft
and Disney Interactive Studios released The Jungle Book Groove Party
for the PlayStation
and PlayStation 2
video game consoles. The game featured Kaa as a character and also featured Kaa singing "A Mood for Food".
In The Jungle Book 2, he appears when he shifts his interests to Shanti, who is lost in the jungle. First scaring her into looking into his eyes, he quickly subdues Shanti into a deep trance and hypnotizes her while moving around to make her sleepwalk onto a rock. He asks if she is lost, he makes her nod, then whether she is hungry, because he is starved. He attempts to eat her whole. But, as he attempts to swallow her, Ranjan, Mowgli's stepbrother, knocks her out of the trance, causing Kaa to swallow a boulder and getting a severe beating from Ranjan.
A far more menacing incarnation of the character appeared in the 1994 live-action remake of the 1967 animated classic. He was brought to life using an actual python but the bulk of his appearances were made using a mixture of CGI and animatronics. He seemed to serve King Louie, killing any intruders to the city when the orangutan clapped his hands to summon him. He tackled Mowgli into a moat inside the capital and attempted to drown him but Mowgli wounded him with a bejeweled dagger, the python fleeing in a cloud of its blood. By the time Mowgli returned to the city with Boone and Kitty, Kaa had fully healed from their prior confrontation. Mowgli fled with Kitty when he heard Louie summoning the leviathan and it scared the injured Boone into the moat, where the heavy load of treasure he was carrying dragged him straight to the bottom in a cloud of his own blood. Desperately trying to escape a watery grave Boone saw the skeletal remains of all those whom Kaa had killed in the past, covered in the treasure they had tried to steal, and then unexpectedly Kaa struck with his powerful jaws, killing him.
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
. Kaa is one of Mowgli's mentors and friends. He, Baloo
Baloo
Baloo is the fictional bear featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book from 1894 and The Second Jungle Book from 1895.-Name and species:He is described in Kipling's work as "the sleepy brown bear"...
and Bagheera
Bagheera
Bagheera the black-toned Indian Leopard is an animal fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book...
sing for Mowgli "The Outsong" of the jungle. First introduced in the story "Kaa's Hunting" in The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...
, Kaa is a huge and powerful snake, more than a hundred years old and still in his prime. Bagheera and Baloo enlist Kaa's help to rescue Mowgli when the man-cub is captured by the Bandar-log
Bandar-log
Bandar-log , a term used in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book to describe monkeys - specifically, Langur monkeys.In Hindi, Bandar means 'monkey' and log means 'people'. The Bandar-log feature most prominently in the story "Kaa's Hunting", where their scatterbrained anarchy causes them to be treated...
(monkeys) and taken to an abandoned human city. Kaa breaks down the wall of the building in which Mowgli is imprisoned and uses his serpentine hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
to draw the monkeys toward his waiting jaws. Bagheera and Baloo are also hypnotized, but Mowgli is immune because he is human, and breaks the spell on his friends.
In The Second Jungle Book
The Second Jungle Book
The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. First published in 1895, it features five stories about Mowgli and three unrelated stories, all but one set in India, most of which Kipling wrote while living in Vermont...
Kaa appears in the first half of the story "The King's Ankus
Ankus
The elephant goad or Aṅkuśa is a tool employed in the handling and training of elephants, the largest land animals. It consists of a hook which is attached to a 60 - 90 cm handle...
". After he and Mowgli spend some time relaxing, bathing and wrestling, Kaa persuades Mowgli to visit a treasure chamber guarded by an old cobra beneath an ancient city. The cobra tries to kill Mowgli but its poison has dried up. Mowgli takes a jeweled item away as a souvenir, not realizing the trouble it will cause in the second half of the story, and Kaa departs.
In "Red Dog
Red Dog (Rudyard Kipling)
"Red Dog" is a Mowgli story by Rudyard Kipling.Written at Kipling's home in Brattleboro, Vermont between February and March 1895, it was first published as "Good Hunting: A Story of the Jungle" in The Pall Mall Gazette for July 29 and 30 1895 and McClure's Magazine for August 1895 before appearing...
" Mowgli asks Kaa for help when his wolf pack is threatened by rampaging dhole
Dhole
The dhole is a species of canid native to South and Southeast Asia. It is the only extant member of the genus Cuon, which differs from Canis by the reduced number of molars and greater number of teats...
(the red dogs of the title). Kaa goes into a trance so that he can search his century-long memory for a stratagem to defeat the dogs:
With Kaa's help Mowgli tricks the dhole into attacking prematurely. Kaa takes no part in the resulting battle, but Mowgli and the wolves finally kill all the dhole, though not without grievous losses. Kaa makes his last appearance in "The Spring Running," as the teenage Mowgli reluctantly prepares to leave the jungle for the last time. "It is hard to cast the skin," he tells Mowgli, but Mowgli knows he must cast the skin of his old life in order to grow a new one.
In the 1967 Disney animation The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book (1967 film)
The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Released on October 18, 1967, it is the 19th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was inspired by the stories about the feral child Mowgli from the book of the same name by...
, Kaa, voiced by Sterling Holloway
Sterling Holloway
Sterling Price Holloway, Jr. was an American character actor who appeared in 150 films and television programs. He was also a voice actor for The Walt Disney Company...
(and later, by Jim Cummings
Jim Cummings
James Jonah "Jim" Cummings is an American voice actor who has appeared in almost 100 roles. He has appeared in classic animated movies such as Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as taking on roles in more current films, such as Bee Movie, Princess and the Frog, and Winnie the Pooh.-Personal...
after Holloway's death), is markedly different from his original counterpart. Rather than being a mentor, he serves as the secondary antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
who twice attempts to trap Mowgli in his coils in order to devour him throughout the film. He does this through the use of hypnotic
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
eyes as opposed to the original version, in which he uses a serpentine dance to control his prey. His attempts to eat Mowgli always end in a comical failure. He is also quite cowardly, attempting to curry favor with Shere Khan
Shere Khan
Shere Khan is a fictional tiger of the Indian jungle. He is the chief antagonist in two of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories featuring Mowgli. Shere Khan is named after an Afghan Prince Kipling encountered on his trips to Afghanistan...
whenever he is around.
While all his appearances are marked with comedy in some form or another, Kaa is, on the whole, much more menacing in the first movie than in the second, to the point where Bagheera is, in fact, afraid of him when he realizes that he is angry. However, his cause for hunting Mowgli (to appease his hunger with what he perceives as easy prey) is in direct contrast with the movie's other main villain, Shere Khan, whose cause for aggression is wrath and intolerance. This contrast is most acutely shown in a scene in the first movie, where Kaa berates (to himself) Shere Khan's mock gentlemanly manner, comparing what he is doing to picking on the child, before he remembers that he aims to consume Mowgli himself.
Kaa reappears beginning in the film when Mowgli runs away from Baloo, who is trying to return the boy to his own kind. Kaa deceives Mowgli into trusting him by saying that he would "never have to leave this jungle" (which would ironically be true) and seizes the opportunity to quickly put the man-cub back under his spell. Seductively singing "Trust in Me
Trust in Me (The Python's Song)
"Trust in Me " is a song in the widely popular Walt Disney film, The Jungle Book, from 1967. The song was sung by Sterling Holloway playing the part of "Kaa, the snake". The song was written by Disney staff songwriters, Robert and Richard Sherman. In the song, Kaa hypnotizes Mowgli, placing him...
", he makes Mowgli relax and sleepwalk on his body. This attempt to eat Mowgli is also failed, ironically by Shere Khan, who is not convinced by Kaa's bluff, even after searching Kaa's coils and not feeling Mowgli inside; the distraction caused by Khan allowed Mowgli to regain consciousness and escape.
Holloway decided to play Kaa with a lisp
Lisp
A lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...
, a condition which composers Sherman Brothers
Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....
brought into the character's song in The Jungle Book, "Trust in Me".
Other appearances
Kaa also appeared in the short-lived TV series Jungle CubsJungle Cubs
Jungle Cubs is an animated series produced by Disney for ABC in 1996. It was based on their 1967 feature film The Jungle Book, but set in the youth of the animal characters. The show was a hit, running for two seasons in syndication before moving its re-runs to the Disney Channel...
, this time seen as a friend of the other animals when they were cubs. Although he still uses hypnosis on occasion, his skills at this age are far less efficient than when used as an adult, with him failing to hypnotize a sleeping Baloo and only hypnotizing a couple of vultures by accident. He was also seen having far a less malevolent personality as a cub than as adult, once going to great lengths to save Baloo after he believes that he has endangered his friend with his hypnotic abilities, but he still has his sneaky ways in which he often attempts to (unsuccessfully) hypnotize the other cubs, partly threatening on one occasion.
He was also seen in the prologue to the series on the Disney Video version, where he again happens to be in the tree under which Mowgli is sleeping. Strangely, he does not seem to recognize Mowgli as he slithers to observe his prey. Then, he wakes Mowgli up only to hypnotize him again, and makes him rise towards him. Before Mowgli falls completely in trance, Baloo thwarts Kaa away. His voice was done by Jim Cummings
Jim Cummings
James Jonah "Jim" Cummings is an American voice actor who has appeared in almost 100 roles. He has appeared in classic animated movies such as Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as taking on roles in more current films, such as Bee Movie, Princess and the Frog, and Winnie the Pooh.-Personal...
, who reprised this role in Jungle Cubs and The Jungle Book 2. Kaa appeared briefly in the feature film "Mickey's House of Villains
Mickey's House of Villains
Mickey's House of Villains is a direct-to-video film produced by The Walt Disney Company. It is a film adaptation of the Disney Channel animated television series Disney's House of Mouse, starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Daisy Duck and Disney Villains that have appeared in...
" where he sang again during the main villain musical number. A snake like character resembling Kaa made a cameo during the final scene of Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...
. Kaa is also a playable character and a mini-boss in Monkey City.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
and Disney Interactive Studios released The Jungle Book Groove Party
The Jungle Book Groove Party
The Jungle Book Groove Party, known in North America as The Jungle Book Rhythm N'Groove is a music video game produced by Ubisoft for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Featuring similar gameplay to the Dance Dance Revolution series, the game features characters and songs from Disney's The Jungle...
for the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
and PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
video game consoles. The game featured Kaa as a character and also featured Kaa singing "A Mood for Food".
In The Jungle Book 2, he appears when he shifts his interests to Shanti, who is lost in the jungle. First scaring her into looking into his eyes, he quickly subdues Shanti into a deep trance and hypnotizes her while moving around to make her sleepwalk onto a rock. He asks if she is lost, he makes her nod, then whether she is hungry, because he is starved. He attempts to eat her whole. But, as he attempts to swallow her, Ranjan, Mowgli's stepbrother, knocks her out of the trance, causing Kaa to swallow a boulder and getting a severe beating from Ranjan.
A far more menacing incarnation of the character appeared in the 1994 live-action remake of the 1967 animated classic. He was brought to life using an actual python but the bulk of his appearances were made using a mixture of CGI and animatronics. He seemed to serve King Louie, killing any intruders to the city when the orangutan clapped his hands to summon him. He tackled Mowgli into a moat inside the capital and attempted to drown him but Mowgli wounded him with a bejeweled dagger, the python fleeing in a cloud of its blood. By the time Mowgli returned to the city with Boone and Kitty, Kaa had fully healed from their prior confrontation. Mowgli fled with Kitty when he heard Louie summoning the leviathan and it scared the injured Boone into the moat, where the heavy load of treasure he was carrying dragged him straight to the bottom in a cloud of his own blood. Desperately trying to escape a watery grave Boone saw the skeletal remains of all those whom Kaa had killed in the past, covered in the treasure they had tried to steal, and then unexpectedly Kaa struck with his powerful jaws, killing him.