In Scandinavia, the show is called "Heroes of the Air" — "Luftens Hjältar" in Swedish and "Luftens Helter" in Norwegian/Danish. This is a shout out to the Swedish title of Rudyard Kipling's novel "Captains Courageous" which is "Havets Hjältar/Helter" (Heroes of the Sea).
In Poland and France, the show is called "Super Baloo".
The show somehow became Captain Balooin Germany. Maybe Disney thought that the Punny Name title won't translate well into German. It's either that or they were trying to compete with another famous bear captain in Germany.
Creator Backlash: Despite providing additional voices for the show, Corey Burton once admitted that he doesn't think too highly of it. In particular, he felt that Disney's TV Animation division robbed Phil Harris of the role of Baloo (see below) and that, if they couldn't get him to reprise the iconic character, they should have just made up a new one, especially since he felt that most of Baloo's dialogue was too out of character for him.
Crossdressing Voices: Kit is voiced by a female voice actress, Youko Matsuoka, in the Japanese dub.
Cut Song: A scene in the TV movie "Plunder & Lightning" where Rebecca sings "Home Is Where The Heart Is", a lullaby to Molly as Kit listens in, was cut for time when it was split into four episodes.
The last 11 episodes were completely unavailable on DVD for many years, but they were finally released exclusively through the Disney Movie Club in June of 2013, and through stores a couple of years later. This also makes TaleSpin the first of The Disney Afternoon shows to completely avert this trope.
Played straight regarding the original feature-length version of the pilot, which had several additional or alternate scenes compared to the syndicated version of the four episodes, as well as an additional song. The likelihood of that ever seeing a home video release is slim.
The entire series (sans the two missing episodes) was finally present and accounted for in 2019, when it was added to Disney+.
In 1990, McDonald's had different Happy Meal promotions depending on the region:
The North American promotion featured a set of four die-cast planes featuring one of the show's characters; Baloo, Kit, Wildcat, and Molly.
The European promotion featured wind-up figures of Baloo and Louie which were modified from the The Jungle Book Happy Meal promotion from 1990, as well as pull-back versions of Kit and Molly in their planes.
In 1997, Long John Silver's released a set of four pencil topper figures based on shows from the Disney Afternoon despite the block having ended that year and its shows having ended their runs several years prior. Baloo got his own figure, as did Scrooge McDuck, Dale, and Goofy.
Missing Episode: Both "Flying Dupes" and "Last Horizons" were pulled from reruns (they're on the DVD sets). They are absent from Disney+, however.
Kit was voiced by two actors — first Alan Roberts, then R.J. Williams. "A Bad Reflection on You" uses both Roberts and Williams; it's difficult to tell them apart, but you can do it if you're familiar with the subtle differences in their voices and you listen carefully.
R.J. Williams is Kit in "A Bad Reflection on You" part 1, and Alan Roberts is Kit in the "A Bad Reflection on You" part 2. The key to telling their voices apart is that R.J. Williams, who was Kit in "Mommy For A Day" and "Captains Outrageous" sounds a little bit older than Alan Roberts, who was Kit in "Stormy Weather" and "The Time Bandit".
Due to his passing in 1972, Tony Jay replaces George Sanders as Shere Khan.
Ed Gilbert replaces Phil Harris as Baloo here. See more details on that below.
The Other Marty: Allegedly Phil Harris was hired to record lines for at least five episodes before Disney decided to replace him with soundalike Ed Gilbert (see below), who also rerecorded Harris' work.
In the Latin American Spanish dub, the late Carlos Petrel reprised his role as Shere Khan fom the original film.
In the Japanese dub, the late Daisuke Gōri reprised his role as Baloo from the same film as well.
Screwed by the Lawyers: The family of the late Louis Prima, who voiced King Louie in The Jungle Book (1967), sued Disney because Jim Cummings did too good a job impersonating Prima when he voiced Louie on TaleSpin. As a result, King Louie was absent from The Jungle Book 2 and was replaced by an Expy named King Larry in the House of Mouse episode, "King Larry Swings in".
The original pitch for the show was much different; it was in development as Disney's Bit Players and then The B-Players. The original pitch centered around a Roger Rabbit-esque toon attempting to rally his fellow toons into moving up the ladder (better parts, etc.), pitted against a Blackadder-ish assistant director — who, on account of Fantastic Racism, can't become a full director and is stuck working for J. Audubon Woodlore, now an incompetent director of two-reel comedies — who hates toons. This version of the show would've featured other B-tier Disney characters like Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow in major roles, with cameos from the bigger characters like Mickey, Donald, etc. This idea then got Baloo put in as the star when they remembered Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers didn't sell until that concept had established characters added to it. Baloo being involved was the only thing that carried forward; nobody was really keen on the B-Players pitch. This was when the Sea Duck — originally intended as a vehicle for Launchpad McQuack for his own cargo service in an unused story idea for DuckTales — was grafted on and the core of TaleSpin emerged.
Phil Harris was apparently to reprise his role as Baloo and had even recorded some lines, but the producers felt his voice had aged too much by that point (an additional factor was Harris being too expensive for a daily series, as he lived four hours away in Palm Springs) and he was replaced by soundalike Ed Gilbert.
In the writers' bible, Shere Khan was named "Mr. Downs", and Don Karnage was named "Anthrax" (and wore no pants). Also, Spigot and Dunder were originally designed as cats.
Kit was originally supposed to be Rebecca's son, looking for a father figure and finding one in Baloo, which would explain why he bears (hehe) a certain resemblance to Rebecca and has a sibling-like relationship with Molly. (Kit's relationship with the pirates is also not brought up in any episode before the feature length pilot, which was actually halfway through the series' production order.)
Random Trivia
Don Rosa wrote "It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck" and "I Only Have Ice for You".
. Maybe Disney thought that the Punny Name title won't translate well into German. It's either that or they were trying to compete with another famous bear captain in Germany.