"That's What Friends Are For (The Vulture Song)" is a song in the widely popular Walt Disney film The Jungle Book from 1967. It was sung by a quartet of "mop top" vultures who are making friends with the main character of the film. The song was written by Disney staff songwriters, Robert and Richard Sherman, and sung primarily by J. Pat O'Malley, Lord Tim Hudson, Digby Wolfe, and Chad Stuart. George Sanders and Bruce Reitherman both made cameo appearances in the song, singing as Mowgli and Shere Khan the tiger in different parts. [1]
The Shermans were brought onto the film by Walt Disney due to Disney's feeling that the interpretation was keeping too true to the Rudyard Kipling book. In a deliberate effort to keep the score "light", this song as well as the Sherman Brothers' other contributions generally concern darker subject matter than the accompanying music would suggest. In the case of "That's What Friends Are For", the vultures sing in the style of a barbershop quartet, making their song endearing to Mowgli (and that much more dangerous).[1]
The Sherman Brothers also use a Barbershop Quartet styling in their 1973 musical adaptation of Charlotte's Web in the song, "Zuckerman's Famous Pig".
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