Doctor M said:

TServo2049 said:

As I said, pre-CAPS animated features were clearly shot with a lot of "breathing room" so they could be presented matted anywhere from 1.66:1-1.85:1. The 4x3 releases may be slightly cropped because showing the extra side information visible in the widescreen transfers would also reveal unwanted vertical info, like cels that end within the frame - "floating torsos", etc.

Jungle Book wasn't theatrically exhibited in 4:3, so both ratios are valid. But I do like the idea of showing as much of the exposed frame as possible - there are a few 90s animated films (not Disney) where the widescreen and 4:3 versions each show unique picture info, indicating that they were shot at something like 1.66:1, and there is part of the frame that's never been seen in any transfers.

But that's probably not going to happen any time soon...

Sure, you'd expect some cropping. But my point is that the anamorphic and wide releases of Jungle Book actually have more left/right information than the 4x3 releases.

If the 4x3 version is all the animation fit to be seen, the widescreen should ONLY be less on the top and bottom. That is not the case.

That seems to be standard for 4x3 versions. Disney has messed up in the past by using the 4x3 version of The Great Mouse Detective to make a 1.66 matte on the old DVD. This was corrected for later releases with a proper theatrically matted 1.75:1 version (but still neither 1.66:1 nor an acceptable transfer).