Watch Bill Murray and His 'Jungle Book' Costar Neel Sethi Sing 'The Bare Necessities'
Disney’s upcoming The Jungle Book aims to take special effects to new heights. Aside from its live-action protagonist Mowgli (played by young newcomer Neel Sethi), director Jon Favreau’s film uses computer-generated imagery to create virtually everything seen on-screen, from its sumptuous Indian forest settings to its raft of animal characters voiced by, among others, Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson, Lupita Nyong’o, Christopher Walken, Ben Kingsley, and the one and only Bill Murray as Mowgli’s favorite song-and-dance bear, Baloo.
Last night, Murray and Sethi stopped over at Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote the would-be blockbuster, and the host used their appearance as a way to see if they were capable of faithfully recreating one of the original 1967’s animated film’s most famous moments: namely, Mowgli and Baloo’s duet of the song, “The Bare Necessities.”
Related: 'The Jungle Book’ Stars Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba, and More Meet Their Animal Avatars
Despite the duo’s cheeky claim that they hadn’t rehearsed, their performance suggested otherwise, with Murray doing his patented lounge-singer routine that he showed off in last December’s Netflix holiday special A Very Murray Christmas. Sethi doesn’t yet have his own lounge act down yet, but he attacked the song with the kind of verve that bodes well for his big-screen debut when Jungle Book hits theaters on April 15.
Watch the full clip from ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’:
Listen to Phil Harris sing the song in Disney’s original animated 'Jungle Book: