Animated 8: Aladdin and the King of Thieves v The Lion King 1 1/2
King of Thieves {original-Aladdin (1992)}
ARE YOU IN OR OUT?? Also Robin Williams didn't voice Genie in Return of Jafar, but he did for this one! Aladdin's dad shows up, Jasmine and Aladdin get married - good stuff all around
The Lion King 1 1/2 {original-The Lion King (1994)}
It follows Timon and his New York Jewish meerkat family. The jokes are great
It is a masterpiece that adds to the movie while making it better and not worse. The dig a tunnel song is amazing. It's cute to see snippets of them raising Simba.
José Carioca & Panchito Pistoles from The Three Caballeros (1944)
Do Not Separate: These two are rarely seen without one another, due to the fact that they are two-parts of a trio, leading fans to interpret them as a couple.
It's Fanon: Due to the line "We're three caballeros, three gay caballeros", many fans, despite the evolution of the term "gay", have elected to ship all three caballeros together.
VS
Timon & Pumbaa from The Lion King (1994)
Do Not Separate: These two are always depicted together as a pair, due to the fact that they fulfill the same narrative role in tandem in their source material. This has lead fans to interpret them as a couple.
Outcasts: The two are introduced as social outcasts, with multiple reasons being given in canon, including their lifestyle choices.
Wait, You Were Joking?: Via improvised joke, Timon dons drag during the third act of The Lion King.
Three of my box cover scans of Pop-Tarts, featuring The Powerpuff Girls (Blossom, Bubbles, & Buttercup), The Lion King (Timon & Pumbaa), and Hello Kitty. The first one contains two different versions for the back covers.
I got this cute idea in my head where Timon's mom realizes that since Timon and Pumbaa raised Simba after Mufasa's death then that means Simba's technically her grandson and she's his grandma. Timon's embarrassed but Simba thinks it's sweet lol.
Everyone seems to be talking about the Simba's Pride scripts, production notes, early drafts, and concept art-work that were recently unearthed from eBay and all the headcanon/fanfic/family-tree material that it gives, but how come no one, FRIGGIN NO ONE talks about the deleted scene from The Lion King 1½ where Timon and Pumbaa meet and talk to Scar.
I'm not even kidding:
In the original plotline for The Lion King 3, Timon and Pumbaa (for whatever reason) were supposed to be looking for Mufasa, the Lion King. They would've come across the Elephant Graveyard and, mistaking Scar for Mufasa, come across Scar himself along with his hyena army after they have completed the Be Prepared musical number. Timon remarks that Scar is not Mufasa, to which Scar says "Must I forever be reminded of this," a nod to the original when the hyenas mistake Scar for Mufasa. The hyenas, wanting 'revenge' chase Timon and Pumbaa throughout the Graveyard before losing them.
And no, this isn't a recent discovery, (well sorta). The person storyboard artist, Amber Hollinger, (who worked on several direct-to-video sequels such as Belle's Magical World, Lilo and Stich 2, and Fox and the Hound 2) had this uploaded to her site in 2012, over 12 years ago. Since then it was added to the wiki in the concept gallery. I may have only recently found out about their source, but I knew this deleted scene existed for close to a decade. I can't be the only one who regularly thinks about this, right?
Personally, while I think the idea of Scar and Timon exchanging lines is sheer hilarity in of itself (tangent: Would they have gotten Irons back for this one-off line or would they have had Jim Cummings record some speaking lines for Scar like they did in Simba's Pride?), I can understand why it got cut, since it probably would screech the film to a halt if they had this one cameo from Scar and the hyenas drag out on and on when the movie is supposed to be an interquel with the main story and characters being a backdrop (at least during the second act that coincides with TLK's first act). To add to that, it also raises up a legitimate plot-hole in Scar knowing that there were witnesses to his conspiracy, witnesses who seemingly knew about he was about to kill, and did nothing, and in a movie filled with possibly deliberate inconsistencies, this in particular would be too tall to overlook.
But overall, it's pretty cool, and I think in a fandom that fascinates over deleted material, this is pretty underrated (then again, the 3rd movie in of itself is entirely underrated).
Can we talk about how neat it was that The Lion Guard, a Disney Junior series, didn’t just skip over or write out the characters from The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, which in many ways was darker and more mature than the first Lion King film?
I mean. They just said “‘Oh, you want us to make a series about Simba’s never-before-seen son, even though there’s already a canon sequel where it seems like Kiara is an only child? And that sequel also includes elements of betrayal and prejudice, and assassinations? And that sequel ends with one young son’s death and a mother who attacks her own children and would rather die than forgive and forget? Challenge accepted.”
They COULD HAVE just sent the main characters away to the Tree of Life and never brought them back. They could have left it with the one episode we got during Kiara and Kion’s cubhood where the Guard encounters Zira. Just throw the fandom a bone and carry on with their children’s show targeting 8 year-olds. But no. They really went for it and tried to wrap everything up neatly. I respect the effort at problem-solving.