What A Cartoon Movie! - The Lion King

Favorite line of this episode: “we needed a new way to scar children” -bob haha I love you guys-Thanks for the great podcast!

In case you're curious: the skull that Scar is playing with as Zazu sings "I got a lovely bunch of coconuts" appears to be the skull of a Lion. This has lead to a longstanding fan theory that skull is in fact Mufasa's skull and that Scar either let the hyena's eat Mufasa's dead corpse and keep it as a trophy. Or the more fucked up fan theory that Scar ATE MUFASA'S CORPSE HIMSELF. IDK about that one honestly but I could totally see a villain as dramatic as Scar keeping the skull of his murdered brother around as a joke to himself.

Devin Hoffarth

My friend did some research, and found the following about the crocodile scene. Going to paste what he sent here: "found one small mention of it. The rumor was that the style of the original crocodiles was too reminiscent of a painting called Getting Away From It All, by Michael Bedard, who was a very popular artist in the eighties. So Disney decided to play it safe and alter that short sequence. The original animation syncs better with the music, and has more jive and movement than the new, so the whole idea that the old animation was 'just a storyboard panel' seems to be a bit of rubbish to me." Studying the two versions, my gut feeling is that this was definitely the case. Besides, the last thing anyone at Disney would want to admit is to another charge of plagiarism on The Lion King.

Mark De La Fuente

This is the movie podcast that got me to bump up to the $10 level. Wanted to add what the hype was like as a black teen girl during its release. I was 13 and I was extremely hyped to see it both as a Disney kid and because the mid 90s was an era of Black-centric and African aesthetic in many Black communities (like the Malcolm X shirts on everyone). A lot of blackfolk were excited to have a movie showcasing anything "African" on the screen including languages and singers, and until Princess and the Frog came out, Nala was the closest a lot of black girls had to a "black" Disney princess. I was enraptured after my first viewing and went to see it three times, and kept humming songs from the movie for weeks. Later that summer my family went to Disney World--half coincidence--and our first day in the Magic Kingdom, I saw the soundtrack on tape and begged my dad to get it for me. Despite the Disney World Markup he did, and it almost never left my walkman. This movie became me and my dad's thing together as he loved the African vibes as well, and we watched it a lot on VHS together when I visited in the summer. Right after he passed away I saw the musical on tour, and the placement of "He Lives in You" where Mufasa tells Simba about the past kings looking down from above always makes me think of my dad. Every time I hear any songs from this movie, I'm reminded of that summer and how my black dad probably paid twice as much as he should have in the middle of a Florida summer just to buy his daughter her favorite soundtrack. I still have that tape, too. Anyways, great podcast and now I have several years of back movie podcasts to listen to.

Nethilia

The Lion King definitely was the Frozen of the 90s. When I was in elementary school, my class picked Lion King as the movie we'd watch at the end of the semester...six years in a row. Needless to say because of that, it made me very sick of the movie and judged it a bit harder compared to everything else. What I really appreciate about this podcast is that listening to the backstory and film in audio form makes me appreciate all the singular elements so much. Especially Hans Zimmer's score. I always thought the strangest logical jump in the movie is with the Wildebeests. They are following realistic animal logic by having this huge stampede be the cause of Mufasa's death, so is that part of the circle of life? Is it like the antelopes where if we give them humanity, it raises too many questions? And I also think it's a lost opportunity that Scar doesn't use them as a scapegoat for why he should be in charge or brings the hyenas into the group. It's the main gripe I've always had with the film that I think many ignore. PS: I do think it's funny how Bob is confused that Broderick says Ti-Moan/Ti-Mone while everyone agrees with just Timón. Yet Henry's gotta be the only person I've ever heard pronounce the name like "Ti-Moon"

SilkiePJ

I heard about that rentals story too, and I always found it interesting because I never expected rentals of video games to be THAT noteworthy in the mid 90s. I always sort of assumed rentals of games were such a niche thing that places did but that was it. To think as early as then, game sectors of companies were like "hey people are sharing and renting games, we gotta make sure it's not cutting in too deep."

ShyRanger

Are we cousins? That Double Fine Dev's Play series was really great. I loved watching the Psychonauts speedrunner completely break their game in front of them.

Agreed! As Disney would have it, the movie has a real 'divine right of kings' angle to it. The land is blighted because Scar is not the rightful king and Mufasa's spirit cannot rest knowing Simba is living his best frat-boy life and intervenes to make sure Simba becomes King because genetic lineage is apparently the only justifiable rule in this universe.

Joshua Marchant

Man, every take about the Genesis Lion King game is what I'd have said, too. I could only make it to the Hakuna Matata waterfall. The era of beatable games only started, imo, with Mario 64.

Bradford A Barker

So funny story about the infuriating nature of the Lion King game you guys keep bringing up this episode: a few years ago, Double Fine hosted a really good Let's Play with one of the developers from Virgin Interactive of the original Lion King game. When they put his feet to the coals about the impossible difficulty of the game he had a surprisingly good explanation for what happened— Two things, first that when testing the game, Lion King had been given to kids who had already beaten and enjoyed the Genesis Aladdin game multiple times, also notorious for its difficulty. When these kids who already knew that game like the back of their hand were breezing through Lion King, Virgin Interactive upped the difficulty to meet the demands of those children, not realizing this made the game harder for most casual players. Secondly, this team had a very intentional difficulty curve to their games. You guys mentioned the Genie stage in Aladdin being a fun reprieve from the difficulty and that was entirely on purpose— the game is meant to start easy, exponentially rise in difficulty, then drop for a break and repeat that curve a second time until the end. In Lion King's case, that breather stage would've been the first one as adult Simba after the super hard Hakuna Matata stage (also to let players learn the new mechanics in a safe environment). HOWEVER, Disney swooped in and was worried that kids would rent the game, beat it, and never buy it and demanded that the difficulty of the second level be raised unnaturally to gatekeep kids, thereby wrecking the designed difficulty curve. That's right, the I Just Can't Wait to Be King stage was NEVER intended to be harder than just about every stage in the game, it was just a last minute decision to cut down on rentals of the game. It may have explained why there were so many damn blue monkey segments to that stage, but the scars (no pun intended) would never truly heal after all these years

John-Charles Holmes

That Matthew Broderick movie was Deck the Halls

Dylan

I had been saving this till the end of Disney Summer Renaissance to talk about the animator Mike Genz. Besides being one of my animation professors at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, he is also a 17 year Disney animation veteran. Included in his character credits are statue Zeus in Hercules, and adult Simba in Lion King. The shots that are recognized as his include the iconic kiss Nala gives Simba during Can You Feel the Love Tonight and Simba's desert run back to the Pride Lands. When Lion King came out in 3D back in 2011, a contingent of Edinboro animation students and Mike went to see the picture, and when his shots came on screen, everyone cheered like it was a screening of Avengers or Star Wars. I do believe he's still teaching character animation to this day, and he taught me the value of continuing to improve myself and grow as an artist.

Alex Irish

Normally for all your shows I watch the source before listening to the podcast but since I've seen The Lion King so much throughout my life and have it pretty much committed to memory, I didn't this time. Instead I decided to watch the 2019 remake, as I hadn't seen that. What a conflicting to movie. I love the Lion King story and in 2019 it's all there, exactly the same but somehow stretched to 2 hours, so it's a lot slower. I like all the Lion King songs and in 2019, they are all there but none of them sound as good. Visually, on a technical level it's really impressive, as they do look photo-realistic but from an artistic perspective they look really boring and a bit silly. I've seen some of the other remakes, like The Jungle Book and they are better since they take the animated version and mix it in with some new stuff but The Lion King 2019 doesn't, it's the exact same as the original but slower. From my perspective, this movie doesn't really need to exist, as it's an inferior copy of something already perfect but I have spoke to a few people my age (30-40, mostly other parents) since these remakes have started coming out and I know why these a re popular. These people really want to watch The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast but feel guilty to watch and enjoy a cartoon, as they feel those are only for kids. These live action versions, for some reason, allow them to watch the same movie but guilt free, as in their mind an live action film is much more legitimate than an animated one.

David Thomson

Not to have the most basic edgelord take saying the villain was right in a Disney movie, but... Upon recent rewatch it became clear to me the animals were starving and the prey had moved on not from hyenas overhunting them, but because of a frickin drought! Scar may be a bad leader but that is completely out of his control! Simba reclaiming the throne causes it to rain immediately, suggesting some kind of divine judgement. But if anyone is a divine beast controlling the clouds, it's Mufasa, who has appeared as a cloud and said he would watch on from above when he passed. So what I'm saying is to any degree Scar is responsible for this drought, it's a vengeful king's spirit dishing out collective punishment for his sins.

Paul

Moira Kelly is both the superior Nala and Donna Hayward

Rico Casanova