You better believe it\!', \'“Let me tell you something, little britches.” In Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 story collection The Jungle Book, he was described as “the sleepy brown bear”, most likely a sloth bear, who sternly taught man-cub Mowgli moral lessons and was named after “bhalu”, the Hindi word for bear. By the 1967 Disney film, Baloo was grey in colour and had lightened up personality-wise too, becoming fun-loving and famed for the Oscar-nominated song The Bare Necessities. He was played by wise-cracking, scatting jazz bandleader Phil Harris, who improvised his lines to appear more laidback. The character was later recycled as Little John in Disney’s Robin Hood, also played by Harris. You better believe it!