The one listed as (1975/II) at IMDB is the one we’re talking about, I’m pretty sure.
Okay…IMDB is listing The White Seal, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Mowgli’s Brothers as separate films. They’re all directed by Chuck Jones. They’re all within 2 years of each other. I’m guessing that the longer film I remembered was a cobbling-together of these three sometime between 1977 (the release date for Mowgli’s Brothers) and 1982 (the latest I think it could be for my memory of it to be so vague).
Either that or some TV station showed all three of them back to back to back some Saturday afternoon and I’m misremembering the whole framing of it.
I saw this a couple of years ago for the first time since seeing it as a kid (on cable I think). Not to be a kill-joy but I have to say it was, um, a lot more cornball than I remembered it.
Orsen Wells not only narrated but was the voice of Nag, the cobra. And although it seemed fine when I was a kid, hearing him now he couldn’t quite pull off the snake voice (i.e. to an adult it sounds kinda silly).
Also Lennie Weinrib, a popular cartoon voice actor of the 70s & 80s has a really annoying singing voice as the bird (who was an annoying character to begin with, even Rikki-Tikki says so at one point!)
Again, its a quality show for kids. But for me, it lost a lot seeing it as a grown up…
they’re the same thing.
I have it ('cause yes, I am that cool 
); mine has the large-breasted squirrel cover, and it’s the same one I loved as a kid.
I loved that story when I was a kid, saw the cartoon a few years ago, & should have bought the video when I had the chance.
Incidentally, the story was part of the anti-Communist obsession of the General Ripper character in the serious Peter George novel RED ALERT, which later was transmuted into DR. STRANGELOVE.