Rocky the Rhino is a visually-challenged Indian rhinoceros who was dropped from the 1967 film The Jungle Book. He was to appear in the vulture sequence and would have been voiced by Frank Fontaine. He was to be animated by Milt Kahl before the character was ultimately dropped from the story.
He was eventually used in the 2016 live action adaptation of The Jungle Book.
Development
Rocky did not appear in the original book, but was based on an antagonistic unnamed rhino that appeared in Bill Peet's initial treatment of the film. The rhino would try to kill Mowgli but Mowgli and Bagheera escaped him and he crashed into various objects instead. When Peet quit working for Disney, Larry Clemmons was asked to do the story for the film, and made the rhino more comical and named him Rocky.
Appearances
The Jungle Book (1967)
Rocky was to be friends with the Vultures. When Mowgli met the Vultures, the Vultures would make Rocky fight Mowgli once the man-cub accidentally woke him up, but Mowgli beat Rocky by making him crash into a rock and break his horn. As Mowgli was about to leave, Rocky and the Vultures would sing That's What Friends are For to him. Rocky would probably then help Mowgli, Baloo, and the Vultures fight Shere Khan.
Rocky was deleted from the film because Walt Disney felt there was already enough action in the film with the Bandar-log and the Vultures.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Rocky can be seen in the crowd during the animated soccer field sequence at The Isle of Naboombu where all the inhabitants are anthropomorphic animals. Despite being deleted from The Jungle Book, this is the first time the character appears in a physical manner in a Disney film.
The Jungle Book (2016)
Rocky had a much smaller role in that film, where he was at the water hole with his wife and daughter Raquel.
The Lion King (2019)
Rocky makes a cameo appearance in the 2019 remake during the musical number "Circle of Life" attending Simba's birth. Rocky does not appear in the final version of the film and was instead replaced by black and white rhinos - although he only appears in the film's official trailers and D23 Expo 2017 footage.
Gallery
Trivia
- Many of Rocky's traits were recycled into the Rhino Guards and executioner from Robin Hood. One of the guards even crashed into a rock failing to catch Lady Kluck, just like Rocky did in failing to attack Mowgli.
- Some pictures show Rocky having a little bird friend. Not much is known about the bird, but it can be assumed to have served as Rocky's conscience, similar to Timothy Q. Mouse and Jiminy Cricket and that it was a Mynah, which is a bird seen feeding off of Indian Rhinos.
- In Jungle Cubs, there are several rhinos that looks very similar to Rocky. One can be seen in Season One's intro and the episode "How the Panther Lost His Roar". Unlike Rocky, however, this rhino in the show was a threat to the cubs. In the episode "Splendor in the Mud", Winifred's herd encounters a mother rhino with a calf (possibly Rocky) that threatened the herd to get out of her way and knocked Winifred's uncle over. Another rhino resembling Rocky (only with a small, round jaw) shows up in "The Great Kaadini". A herd of rhinos resembling Rocky appear in the episode "A Tale of Two Tails" in which Cecil and Arthur try to trick them into trampling Shere Khan and Kaa, but end up trampling the two vultures instead.
- In the 2019 remake of The Lion King, Rocky appears in the trailers and D23 Expo 2017 footage. In fact, Indian rhinoceroses are not native to Africa (which The Lion King is set) but rather in India; thus, they were replaced by black rhinoceroses and White rhinoceroses instead in the final version of the film.
Variants
- Rocky the Rhino (The Jungle Book 2016)
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