A much shorter animated version of the poem and film was made as an episode of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, with the ultra-myopic Mister Magoo in the title role.
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The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of an English soldier in India, about an Indian water-bearer (a "Bhishti") who saves the soldier's life but is soon shot and killed.
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The poem was published as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.
Joining the four commandoes is young Valerius; a boy who ran away from a wealthy Roman home to become a Legionary but only became a Gunga Din type labourer.
Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung II | Muiz ud din Qaiqabad | Gunga Din (film) | Gunga Din | Baha-ud-din Zakariya | Non Din Daeng District | Naser al-Din Shah Qajar | Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad | Zain-ud-Din Ali Khan | Yesh Din | Taqi al-Din | Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan | Salah al-Din al-Bitar | Sa'd al-Din Köpek | Qareh Zia' od Din | Nur ad-Din | Muhammed Ghiya'as ud-din | Mir Sham ud-Din Iraqi | Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu | ''Gunga Din'' | Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III | Fakhr-al-Din II | Din Thomas | Din Mehmeti | Citadel of Salah Ed-Din | Beth din | beth din | Aranyer Din Ratri | Ala ad-Din Tekish | Wajih ad-Din Mas'ud |
Classics such as Gunga Din, Springfield Rifle, The Violent Men (1955 film), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), the Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott "Ranown" westerns, part of How the West Was Won, and Joe Kidd.
Since 2006, he has presented public screenings, often partnering with sound designer Ben Burtt, demonstrating the art of matte painting and VFX techniques of classic films such as Modern Times, The Rains Came, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Gunga Din.
His credits as a motion picture and television director, production manager, and producer include Gunga Din, Hondo, and Sands of Iwo Jima, and on such television series as The Gene Autry Show, The Roy Rogers Show, Adventures of Superman, Have Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke, and Julia.
Additionally, Hecht and MacArthur's story for the 1939 film Gunga Din recycles their basic plot of trying to persuade someone from leaving his job, in this case Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s character attempting to resign his post in the British army and comrades Grant and Victor McLaglen conniving to prevent it.
Overall, there’s a sense of sheer "movieness" to The Hidden Fortress that places it plainly in the ranks of such grand adventure entertainments as Gunga Din, The Thief of Baghdad, and Fritz Lang's celebrated diptych The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Hindu Tomb.
Roots to the Bone was issued in 1995 by Island Records as a reissue of Rico Rodriguez' most important album, Man from Wareika, (minus two tracks: Rasta and Gunga Din) with some 12" sides from the late 1970s.