Kaa

Well, Sterling Holloway, he's a great example.

He was Kaa, the serpent in The Jungle Book.

Mm-hmm.

He played the stork in Dumbo, um, who I think he's like drunk and, and accidentally delivers Dumbo somewhere else, right?

Mm-hmm

... including Maleficent, Shere Khan, Kaa, Lady Tremaine-

Yeah

...

He's, he's blue, but now, yeah.

Also, Sir Hiss kind of made me think of Kaa also, so I was like-

Yeah

... are these just the same characters? [laughs] He had a lot of Kaa-like qualities, like the-

He did

... hypnotizing and just the different things.

But he wasn't just Pooh.

He was also Kaa, the hypnotic snake in The Jungle Book, and the completely unhinged Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.

Right.

Holloway had one of the most distinct vocal instruments in Hollywood history.

Feet in the jungle that leave no mark! Eyes that can see in the dark—the dark! Tongue—give tongue to it! Hark, oh, hark! Once, twice, and again.

End of Story One, Mowgli's Brothers Kaa's Hunting Story Number Two of Mowgli from The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Kaa's Hunting His spots are the joy of the leopard.

His horns are the buffalo's pride.

Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.

Oh, fat, brown, root-digging fool that I am, said Baloo, uncurling himself with a jerk.

It is true what Hathi the wild elephant says.

To each his own fear, and they, the Bandar-log, fear Kaa the rock snake.

Can you see the snake? It's in that little box there, kind of wi-wound around the tree.

What I really wanted to do is I wanted to show you a picture of Kaa from The Jungle Book, from the Disney cartoon.

Have you seen the, have you seen the Disney cartoon, The Jungle Book? And you remember Kaa wrapped around a snake? Disney are really fierce about copyright protection, and if I'd shown you a picture of Kaa the snake, then Keswick would have got in a lot of trouble.

So I'm not showing you a picture.

I'm showing you instead a little bit of classic art, Rubens and Brueghel.

[laughs] Left.

[laughs] That's where most people would think.

They'd think about Kaa in The Jungle Book slithering around the tree.

Again, going back to elementary school, we had to do a paper bag puppet show, and she wanted us to pick a movie that we loved and make pa- paper bag puppets of two characters and perform them.

And I made a paper bag puppet of Baloo and a paper bag puppet of Kaa, the python.

And then I did a little performance at school.

I want to say I was probably in, like, fourth grade at the time, and oddly enough, I performed both Baloo and Kaa in the Disney version of Jungle Book.

But the way ...

Okay, so back ...

He sits on Bagheera's back.

He sits on Baloo's belly.