As Long as It Sounds Foreign: During the confrontation with wolves at the Council Rock, Mowgli tells them: "So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but sag (dogs), as a man should". "Sag" is the Persian word for dog, not Indo-Aryan. In the Seoni district there are speakers of Hindi, Marathi, Gondi, but Persian speakers are practically unknown. Shere Khan is an example of this as well, as "Shere" is the Persian word for "Tiger."
People tend to refer to "The Jungle Book" as a novel when it is actually a collection of short stories and tend to refer to it as if all stories happen in the same book when there are two different volumes with the second being called, naturally, "The Second Jungle Book."
Considering most adaptations ignore the other stories, some people are surprise that not all the stories in The Jungle Books are about Mowgli. One or two may have heard of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", but most of the others go by the wayside.
Kaa's not a villain, but a mentor, ally, and friend, except to Bagheera whom he nearly eats and the primary reason he hasn’t tried to eat Mowgli is that as a human Mowgli is immune to Kaa’s hypnotic abilities. Even so Kaa isn't evil, but neutral. Good luck explaining that to anyone who only grew up with the Disney versions where Kaa is often second only to Shere Khan in terms of villainy.
It is not uncommon for "Shere Khan" to be treated as a given and surname, but in the stories in which he appears, he is simply "Shere Khan", never referred to as "Shere" or "Khan" making it clear both words are meant to be together.
Draco in Leather Pants: It's very common for people to depict Nag and Nagaina as a sympathetic mother and father trying to help raise their family, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi as the villain... ignoring that the former two tried to murder three innocent humans.
Fair for Its Day: Kipling is widely recognized as a jingoist, proud of British Imperialism and all its accomplishments. Certainly there's an uncomfortableness in some of the themes in the books. However, the Jungle Books held some lessons that are still very apposite, and his depiction of the seals' plight in 'The White Seal' is a heartbreaker very much in tune with modern views.
Genius Bonus: The One-Scene Wonder character Karait in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is surprisingly deep for those interested in snakes. The name is evocative of "krait", a species of snake closely related to cobras that also can be found in India. But Karait's description and behavior don't match a krait's — the different krait species are known for being quite brightly colored and fairly docile; a krait confronted by Teddy would have curled up and hoped he'd go away rather than rearing to strike in an instant. They're also quite large snakes. But there is a species of snake that matches Karait's description — the Indian saw-scaled viper, which is small, dusty brown in color, routinely hunts by burying itself in the earth to ambush prey, possesses extremely potent venom, and is notoriously aggressive. Furthermore, in Kipling's day, Indian kraits and saw-scaled vipers were believed to be part of the same snake family, the Pseudoboa, instead of being recognized as Elapidae and Viperidae respectively.
Jerkass Woobie: Shere Khan, actually. Hunting humans is a crimenote Though tigers get a pass for one day each year, but with his injured back leg, he doesn't have much of a choice if he wants to stay alive.
Values Dissonance: In In The Rukh, the first Mowgli story ever written, Mowgli (presumably age 17) marries the thirteen-year-old daughter of his employer's butler. The following year, they have a child. While such young marriages may have been common at the time, it is not anymore.
The Woobie: Mowgli. His entire life is one long, hard lesson about 1; learning how to be stronger than those who try to kill you, and 2; anyone might betray you and try to kill you before you even understand why.
Designated Villain: The humans in 'The White Seal.' The fact that they only take a few young bulls a year, make use of their skins, and apparently do this on an overcrowded beach of seals makes them somewhat easy to sympathize with.
Fridge Brilliance: In "Mowgli's Brothers", Shere Khan is portrayed as a white tiger rather than the normal orange tiger from the original book and all other adaptations, despite the fact white tigers have existed only in captivity since 1951, and would have difficulty surviving due to the lack of camoflague as well as health problems. However in the book Khan has a crippled leg, which rarely appears in adaptations, such as this in which all of his legs are normal, meaning that being a white tiger replaces his crippled leg as his disability. The story also takes place before 1951, making it more possible.
For the 80s anime adaptation:
Ensemble Dark Horse: The anime's incarnation of Kaa for being far truer to the books than most of his other animated counterparts. Also helps that he's an Only Sane ManDeadpan Snarker who can be gentle one minute then dripping sarcasm the next if the situation requires it.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Despite low ratings in Japan, this anime was very popular in India, becoming even more popular than the Disney animated movie over there. The Quebecois French dub also achieved a measure of popularity in Canada, where it was rerun well into the '90s.
Lala spends a lot of her time in early episodes being a complete bitch and bully to Mowgli but she's really just insecure over her father's absence in the pack.
Tabaqui one time tried to eat a wounded Mowgli and attacked his girlfriend in another episode but he's so pathetic that he borders on being cute.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While the show did a good job fleshing out the good guys, the same can’t be said for Shere Khan. With this being a 52-episode tv series, they easily could have given Shere Khan’s character more depth, and explained why he hates humans with such a burning passion and always goes against the laws of the jungle, but he ultimately ends up being a two-dimensional villain who is just there to give Mowgli an enemy to fight.
Villain Decay: In episode 27, Shere Khan is notably more cowardly than before. Whereas he would previously brush Bagheera aside as a minor nuisance, here he is hesitant to attack Mowgli with Bagheera present despite their taunting and mockery; he also steps back when Bagheera growls at him even though he has a group of hyenas to support him.
The Woobie: The nameless hyena that Bagheera interrogated in episode 38. The thing was so terrified of the panther, that it actually had tears in its eyes.
For the 1993/1994 video game based on the Disney animated movie:
Memetic Mutation: SIMBA?!Explanation Vinesauce fans might be more familiar with a bootleg version of the game played by Joel, which was edited into a The Lion King game, complete with Mowgli being replaced by an anthropomorphized lion who appears to twerk when crouching.
No Problem with Licensed Games: The game is a fun, polished platformer with sprites resembling the movie, as with many of Virgin's Disney games. Special mention goes to the Sega Genesis version, which was intended to be released around the 1993 holiday season, but was delayed to about six months later to give the developers the time they needed to iron out the game's programming problems, averting the Christmas Rushed trope.
