in 1962, "the aristocats" project began as an original script for a two-part live-action episode for "walt disney's wonderful world of color", developed by writers tom mcgowan and tom rowe and producer harry tytle. following two years of re-writes, walt disney suggested the project would be more suitable for an animated film, and placed the project in turnaround as "the jungle book" advanced into production. when "the jungle book" was nearly complete, disney appointed ken anderson to develop preliminary work on "the aristocats", which would mark the last film project to be approved by disney before he died in december 1966.