You follow me! Old Rafiki knows the way!
What's your favourite Lion King line? Let me know in the comment section below! This is obective number one in my list of things to cover from my last Authors note that I posted. So, let's get to it! This fact page contains facts from all three movies.
HAKUNA MATATA!
"When he was a young worthog....
WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WORTHOOOOOOOG!"
Fact #1771
According to “The Making of The Lion King,” the original opening scene featured a dialog introducing most of the main characters, but directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff scrapped it when they heard the final version of “Circle of Life.”
Fact #1772
The first script featured Scar as a lone lion, unrelated to Simba, who was in charge of a pack of vicious baboons. In this version, Rafiki was written as a cheetah and Timon and Pumbaa were both friends with Simba from the start.
Fact #1773
Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella, who played Timon and Pumbaa, originally auditioned to be hyenas. "They came to an audition in New York and they bumped into each other in the lobby, which is when they discovered they were both auditioning for the roles of hyenas," director Rob Minkoff said. "They asked the casting director if they could audition together and they were hilarious as they read their lines, but they didn’t seem right for the hyenas. That’s when we thought, ‘What if we use them as Timon and Pumbaa?’ It was the perfect fit.” Cheech Marin and Whoopi Goldberg were cast as the hyenas instead.
Fact #1774
After Simba’s first encounter with the hyenas, the film was supposed to feature a lullaby sung by Sarabi called “The Lion in the Moon,” which was about a protective lion spirit.
Fact #1775
According to the film's press notes, the wildebeest stampede scene took Disney CGI animators more than two years to create and involved writing a new computer program to govern the movements of the herd.
Fact #1776
Wildlife expert Jim Fowler brought real African animals like hornbills and lions at different stages of life into the Disney studio to serve as figure models for the team of animators working on the film.
Fact #1777
A number of characters developed for the film were written completely out of the script, including a tagalong little brother for Nala named Mheetu (who Simba was originally supposed to save from the stampede) and another friend of Nala’s named Bhati—a wise-cracking bat-eared fox. There was also, at one point, a lizard named Iggy, and another meerkat named Tesma (a mopey relative of Timon); the hyenas had originally been written as cape hunting dogs.
Fact #1778
“Hakuna Matata” originally had an extra verse in which Timon explained his difficulty fitting in with other meerkats.
Fact #1779
The original final fight sequence had Simba losing to Scar, though Scar then died in a fire.
Fact #1780
Matthew Broderick (voice of Adult Simba) first thought he was going to be working on a remake of a 1960s Japanese anime show called Kimba the White Lion when he read the script, though Disney has denied any connection between the two projects.
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Disney Facts!
RandomVOLUME 2 HAS BEEN PUBLISHED! Welcome to the magical fact book of all things Disney! In this book you'll read interesting facts about the parks, movies, characters, and if you're lucky, the cartoons as well. Some are interesting, some are funny, and...
