"That's What Friends Are For (The Vulture Song)" is a song in the widely popular Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 film The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book (1967 film)

The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Released on October 18, 1967, it is the 19th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was inspired by the stories about the feral child Mowgli from the book of the same name by...

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

J. Pat O'Malley

James Patrick O'Malley was an English singer and character actor, who appeared in many American films and television programs during the 1940s–1970s, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley...

, Lord Tim Hudson, Digby Wolfe

Digby Wolfe

Digby Wolfe is an actor, screenwriter and university lecturer in dramatic writing.Wolfe was born in London, England, and began writing and performing in comedy series in England in the 1950s. Together with Jimmy Wilson he wrote a revue, with music by John Pritchett and Norman Dannatt, for the...

, and Chad Stuart. George Sanders

George Sanders

George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...

 and Bruce Reitherman

Bruce Reitherman

Bruce Reitherman is an American filmmaker and former child actor and singer. He is the son of the late Disney animation director Wolfgang Reitherman.- Life and work :Reitherman was born in Burbank, California...

 both made cameo appearances in the song, singing as Mowgli and Shere Khan the tiger in different parts.

The Sherman Treatment

The Shermans were brought onto the film by Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 due to Disney's feeling that the interpretation was keeping too true to the Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 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).

Barbershop Quartet

The Sherman Brothers

Sherman Brothers

The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....

 also use a Barbershop Quartet styling in their 1973 musical adaptation of Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

Charlotte's Web is a 1973 American animated musical film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions and based upon the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White...

in the song, "Zuckerman's Famous Pig".