Buldeo was originally meant to be the secondary antagonist in the Disney's adaptation of Jungle Book, based on a character with the same name from Rudyard Kipling's original novel.
He was originally planned to be voiced by the late Hal Smith.
The Jungle Book (1967)[]
Buldeo was going to appear in the animated film from 1967, where he first appeared spotting Mowgli near the Man Village's entrance. Buldeo tries to shoot child under the claim that he's bewitched, but a couple saves Mowgli after they recognizing him as their long-lost son Nathoo, who was lost in the floods since he was a baby. Upon Mowgli being accepted into the Man Village after three months, Mowgli overheard Buldeo falsely telling that he shot down and killed the man-eating tiger Shere Khan. Knowing that Shere Khan is still alive, Mowgli angrily argues with Buldeo while explaining about the story of treasure hidden inside the ruins where King Louie and the Bandar Log reside. However, this prompte Buldeo to angrily claim to the villagers that Mowgli is a feral child, which drove a deeply saddened Mowgli to return to the jungle while carrying a fire torch for protection. Eventually, Buldeo (who actually knew that Mowgli was telling the truth) secretly follows Mowgli into the jungle before holding the boy at gunpoint and forcing him to lead him to the treasure under the ruins. After scaring off King Louie and the Bandar Log while getting the treasure, Buldeo plans to shoot Mowgli to death out of sheer spite and use the fire torch to burn the whole jungle to kill Shere Khan, treating the possible death of every other animal in the jungle as a collateral damage. However, Mowgli notices that Shere Khan is secretly stalking him and Buldeo, so he throws the torch into the water and points out that Buldeo will lose his chance to kill Shere Khan if he wastes his bullet on Mowgli. At the same time, Shere Khan furiously reveals himself and mauls Buldeo to death. Following Buldeo's death, Shere Khan ends up being shot to death by Mowgli, using Buldeo's gun in self-defense, and Shere Khan's corpse ends up on top of Buldeo's corpse. With Shere Khan and Buldeo's corpses as evidence, Mowgli proves his claims and ends up being praised by both the jungle animals and the villagers, not only for freeing the jungle from Shere Khan's tyranny, but also for exposing Buldeo as the deceitful fraud he really was.
However, Buldeo was deleted along with that scene from the final version of the film. He and Shere Khan were also going to sing a song together called "The Mighty Hunters", but it also got deleted.
Trivia[]
- Even though Buldeo was deleted from the animated movie, he was later re-adapted into the live-action adaptation from 1994.
- In the original novel, Buldeo appeared in two stories, those being "Tiger! Tiger! and Letting In The Jungle.
- Had Buldeo appeared in the final cut, Shere Khan would've been a more sympathetic villain, as Buldeo is the example for what kind a person Shere Khan was afraid that Mowgli could've become, thus making his misguided hatred for Mowgli more grounded in reality.
- Assuming the live-action The Jungle Book remake's planned sequel fleshes out the "Man's Village", it's unknown if maybe Buldeo will appear or not, considering live-action remakes of classic Disney animated feature films sometimes reuse scrapped concepts from the original animated film.