King Louie

King Louie
The Jungle Book character
King Louie singing "I Wan'na Be Like You".
First appearance	The Jungle Book
Created by	Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, John Lounsbery, and Walt Disney
Voiced by	Louis Prima (The Jungle Book) Jim Cummings (TaleSpin, The Jungle Book Groove Party) Jason Marsden (Jungle Cubs season 1) Cree Summer (Jungle Cubs season 2) Christopher Walken (2016 live-action film)
Information
Species	Bornean orangutan Gigantopithecus (2016 film)
Gender	Male

King Louie is a fictional character in Walt Disney's 1967 animated musical film, The Jungle Book. Unlike the majority of the adapted characters in the film, Louie was not in Rudyard Kipling's original works.

He was voiced by Louis Prima in the original film and by Jim Cummings in subsequent incarnations. Initially, the producers considered Louis Armstrong for the role, but to avoid the likely controversy that would result from casting a black person to voice an ape, they instead chose Prima.

Although the Disney adaptation is based on the Kipling stories, the character King Louie does not appear in Rudyard Kipling's original book, as orangutans, the species as which he is portrayed, are not native to India in real life. It is also stated by Kipling in the original that the Bandar-log, or monkeys over which King Louie rules, have no effective leadership, let alone a king. 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's version.

Bill Peet's original story for the film did not feature King Louie, but did feature a larger monkey without a tail, who was perhaps meant to be their king. Peet left the Disney company due to a dispute he had with Walt Disney regarding the contents of his script, so his ultimate vision for the king of the Bandar-log 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. It was in this company milieu that King Louie eventually came into being, given life through the voice and personality of popular performer Louis Prima. Personality was also given to Louie by Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and John Lounsbery, three of Disney's Nine Old Men who animated the character. Kahl animated Louie's interaction with Mowgli, Thomas his solo song and dance portions, while Lounsbery animated his memorable scat duet with a disguised Baloo.