What A Cartoon Movie! - The Lion King II: Simba's Pride

Bob and Hank are absolutely right about this movie having much, much better animation quality than it's direct-to-video compatriots of the era, but other than that and Neve Campbell's stellar voice acting (I'm like 15 years younger than you guys but I ALSO am in love with her), it really falls flat to me. When we revisited the original for What a Cartoon, I was also really underwhelmed by it after having not watched it for at least like 9 years, so I was going into this with low expectations and I was still pretty bored. Outside of One of Us, none of the songs stuck in my head at all, it feels like way too much of a retread of the original, and Matthew Broderick suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks hard. I can only imagine what Lion King 3 is like. And I also wish Neve would do more VO cause she's damn good at it

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

I think you guys were a little bit to easy on that on. It is not awful or anything but it is not great either. The retcon and repeat of plotpoints aren't even the worst part. No, the worst part are the potagonists. They are uninteresting. Especially Simba but especially Kiara. I mean, a lioness who can't hunt is kind of interesting but instead she is a princess who doesn't like to be princess and of course because she is a girl she falls in love. I'm so sick of it. And don't get me started on „the protagonist is not what everbody thinks they are“-trope.

Kurono

Oh this movie was the biggest deal to me when I was 7. Something strange I remember, was there was a coloring book for TLK2 at CVS a week or so before the movie's release. Spent all week filling it up in anticipation. There were totally spoilers in it, which you wouldn't catch Disney doing now.

glowstickjuice

Agreed! Loved this! ^_^

To Boldy Joe... Moore

Great episode. If you want more confirmation that Timon and Pumbaa are a gay couple, then in The Lion Guard that are the adoptive parents to Kion's best friend, Bunga the Honey Badger. In regards to The Lion Guard I watched it mainly due my kinds being born in the 2010's and overall it's quite good. Tonally it's all over the place, since it's a Disney Junior show, so the first season is quite simple with it sometime pushing the moral of the episode quite hard. By the second series it feels like it just wants to focus on the story and the third series feels like it's going into business for itself, with one episode ("Long Live the Queen") requiring a warning before the show warning that the episode might be too intense for young viewers. Also if you do watch The Lion Guard you'll have to get over your issue with the all the animals speaking, as I don't think it has any animals-that-sound-like-animals in it but it does help explains thing like the crocodile having their own hierarchy, separate to the lions. The Lion Guard probably isn't a must watch show for you (I don't expect "Gabbin' About the Guard" any time soon) but it might be a put on in the background show, when you are wanting a bit more of The Lion King world.

David Thomson

So I did some digging through YouTube and archive.org and found that somebody uploaded an entire workprint animatic of Lion King 2 to archive.org. This print included some deleted scenes. Here are some select ones that people cropped and uploaded to YouTube. They are as follows: -After Kiara's birth, Rafiki is informed by Mufasa that "there is another", Zira training Kovu, Vitani and Nuka inform Zira of Kiara's birth and Zira gives all three a more twisted take on the speech Mufasa gives Simba in the first movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDMWWQxIUDY -Nuka's last words are expanded. Execs nixed this because they thought it sent children the wrong message of doing dangerous things for your parent's attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POiuesibKH4 -Zira's death scene. You were right in that there was a cut because Zira explicitly commits suicide in this scene. Nixed for obvious reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoctlRyGdf8 Of course, I'm certainly missing things like a few cut or altered lines but these were the big finds in the print. You can watch the entire print here: https://archive.org/details/lion-king-2-workprint-vhs

KaiserBeamz

I understand that the Lion King has attempted to be more grounded and 'realistic' than other Disney movies about animal kingdoms. So I don't disparage them TOO much... but here's my real no bullshit thing here: THIS MOVIE SHOULD'VE BEEN ABOUT A MALE HYENA AND FEMALE LIONESS FALLING IN LOVE! Screw all the inter-species romance questions! Screw how that would probably never happen in real life! HYENA ON LION ROMANCE DISNEY! YOU BACKED OUT! COWARDS! Great podcast.

Devin Hoffarth

The Timon and Pumbaa series had a Gargoyles like situation in the end. The show was cancelled in '96 after 2 seasons and 46 episodes. But the somebody really wanted more episodes. So like with Gargoyles they outsourced pre-production to a Canadian studio, Studio B, where they made 39 episodes. They were airing in Europe in 1998, then they eventually came to America a year later on Toon Disney. The third season is fine, but it's just Timon and Pumbaa. None of the other Lion King characters make guest appearances or cameos.

ToonJay723

The reason for that new fond love for Newseis is most likely due to the Broadway show they had a while back. That one they recorded and streamed the final performance to theaters. So the reach was pretty wide for it.

MilesDX

you alright there?

Blake R.

Pleeeease do cats don't dance soon!!

frysjackett

Mii

Llm

Wmmm Mii

I remember literal thoughts that my 8 year old self had like “Why does Vitani get to stay up later than Kovu?!” And “Simba used to be cool! Now he’s lame like his dad!” Lol brings my childhood back very sharply!

Tyler the Destroyer

I still remember when this came out. It was like an event. My mom took me to the Disney store at a mall in Austin on the day it came out and there was a line out the door of people getting Lion King 2 clamshells. 6 year old me referred to the Upendi song as "in your panties" much to the horror of my mother.

Blake R.

The absolute insanity of a five hour podcast about an eighty five minute cash in sequel makes every Patreon dollar worth it

Geoff Tock