

The band later released the song on their 1999 album This Beautiful Life.

Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen released a single of "I Wanna Be like You" (without an apostrophe in the title) in 1968 and it also featured on their 1969 album King of the Swingers.The song was released the same date as the motion picture itself.

Louis Prima recorded first, with the intent that Baloo-played in his recording by Butera-would simply repeat what Louie scatted, but Phil Harris decided not to imitate Prima's recording and made up his own. The " scat dialogue" between Baloo and King Louie was the result of two recording sessions. The instrumentals were originally recorded by Prima-who also played the trumpet-and his band, Sam Butera & The Witnesses, but the music was replaced by one written by the film's composer, George Bruns, and orchestrated by Walter Sheets. Once Prima was invited to do the song, he mockingly responded to the Shermans with "You want to make a monkey out of me? You got me!" We'll make him 'the king of the swingers.' That's the idea, we'll make him a jazz man." After suggesting that Louis Prima could play the part of King Louie, Walt Disney Records president Jimmy Johnson and music director Tutti Camarata asked the Sherman brothers to fly to Las Vegas and perform the song for Prima. He added that "when we first got an idea for 'I Wan'na Be Like You,' we said an ape swings from a tree, and he's the king of apes. Working with concept art of what the monkeys would look like, Richard Sherman said he and his brother aimed for a jazz sound, with a Dixieland-like melody. The Sherman brothers were tasked with coming up with "crazy ways to have fun with ". Walt Disney sought to make his version of The Jungle Book a lot more upbeat than the Rudyard Kipling-penned source material, the original Bill Peet script, and the initial score composed by Terry Gilkyson (whose song " The Bare Necessities" ultimately made it into the final film).
