Higher for Hire
Baloo (Ed Gilbert), based primarily on the sloth bear from Disney's The Jungle Book, but with a flight cap and a yellow shirt (and four-fingered hands instead of his Jungle Book counterpart's claws). Quite a couple times in the episodes he will mention bear necessities. Although lazy, slobbish, unreliable and always broke, he is also an excellent pilot capable of the most daring maneuvers in the air (and the courage to do them) and can selflessly come to the aid of those in need of help. He also has a penchant for getting into schemes that require him to dress up in drag to suit the situation, such as when he became Rebecca's "female" co-pilot Tan-Margaret (a play on Ann-Margret) in "Feminine Air". Some of his mannerisms survive from The Jungle Book, including his nickname of "Papa Bear" by Kit, which Mowgli had given to him. In Tale Spin, it is revealed that Baloo comes from a prominent noble family, (being Baloo, Baron von Bruinwald XIII) though he himself had been initially unaware; raising the possibility that he was adopted in the episode The Balooest Of The Bluebloods he inherited 500 million dollars in the form of an extravagant estate, which was taken from him to settle the matter of his family's impressively long history of owing back taxes, thus restoring the status quo. He also calls Kit "Li'l Britches," as he did with Mowgli. His name comes from the Hindi word for bear: bhālū (Hindi: भालू /bʰɑːluː/).
Kit Cloudkicker (R.J. Williams, Alan Roberts), an orphaned brown bear who stands at a little less than half Baloo's size and a former member of the Air Pirates. In Flight School Confidential, his age is established as twelve years old. He typically wears a blue baseball cap with red brim and a well-worn green sweater. He is skilled at cloud-surfing, which is the act of riding on a telescoping metal foil wing he possesses, using a rope attached to a plane to maintain lift. Having a bit of surfacing teen rebellion within him, Kit tries to be the better-half of Baloo's reason on being responsible but looks to him as a father figure and usually flies as the navigator of the Sea Duck. He is an ambitious boy, keen to take on responsibilities, some of them beyond his age, such as actually owning and flying a plane.
Rebecca Cunningham (Sally Struthers), a petite brown bear with long brunette hair styled in a cross between a medieval and 1930's-40's hairdo, usually wears a white turtleneck sweater, and a purple-red jacket and matching slacks. Nicknamed "Becky," "Beckers", "Beck" (used only once in episode "A Star Is Torn")and/or "BC" (used once in "War of the Weirds") by Baloo which at first she highly resented being called that, but soon grew accustomed to with affection (in return, she calls him "Fly Boy" on occasion). A shrewd businesswoman with a MBA, she buys 'Baloo's Air Service' and his plane, creating the air cargo company 'Higher For Hire'. Bright and unassumingly attractive, her ambitions and penchant for recklessness has caused trouble for the company at times, such as in "A Touch of Glass" when she cashed in the Sea Duck's insurance policy to pay for expensive ads targeted at affluent clientele, and in "The Bigger They Are, The Louder They Oink" when she went into the truffle-gathering business. Although she originally relegated herself to the administrative and sales functions of the business, the series shows she eventually learns to be a capable would-be pilot in her own right. Her desire to get in the cockpit was sparked by the events of "I Only Have Ice for You" where Baloo temporarily had his pilot's license suspended and had to take over for a major shipping run to deliver an iceberg for the eccentric Prince Neverhasbeenbroke before running into the Air Pirates; and in "Feminine Air", in which Higher for Hire lost some business due to the chauvinistic machinations of a male pilot named Cool Hands Luke who made fun of Baloo for flying for a "skirt". She can also have quite a temper, stubbornly competitive, a nasty jealous streak, be a hopeless romantic ("Her Chance to Dream", "Molly Coddled") and judgmental at times; usually it is Baloo's laziness and carefree attitude towards his responsibilities that sets it off. Rebecca lives with her daughter Molly in an apartment in an upscale part of Cape Suzette, one which incorporates a waterfall in its design. Rebecca's personality and unsuccessful drive for success with a local business are very reminiscent of Cheers character Rebecca Howe and her looks are almost similar to the Tiny Toon Adventures character Julie Bruin.
Molly Cunningham (Janna Michaels), Rebecca's yellow-furred, preschool-aged daughter. An adventurous child who even at six years old, is not afraid to speak her mind just like her mother. Molly has a thing for her favourite ice cream brand "Frosty Pep;" sometimes pretends she is 'Danger Woman' (the action/adventure heroine of a popular kids radio program) while seeking adventure along with Kit and Baloo; can be clever on her feet when it comes to outwitting the bad guys (in episodes "Molly Coddled" and "Flight of The Snow Duck"). Her middle name is Elizabeth, the only character in the series to actually have one (revealed in "Mommy For A Day") and mainly totes around her favourite doll, Lucy. No mention was ever made of Molly's father as series' creator Jymn Magon reportedly said that Rebecca is a widow, although at a 1998 U.S. fan convention Q&A online chat he did state in roundabout tones that she's actually divorced as originally written in the first Tale Spin press release.
Wildcat (Pat Fraley), a clueless and gangly lion who typically wears a mechanic's outfit. Officially the Higher for Hire mechanic, actual intelligence is not his forte, but he's extremely adept at fixing devices and a childlike innocence to his genial nature. His brilliance at anything mechanical allows him to fix smashed-up telephones in under ten seconds and he is one of the few people in the entire Tale Spin universe who can build an "overdrive" for airplanes. He has something of a lisp and somewhat resembles Tigger of the Winnie The Pooh series.
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