The Lion King (1994) - 14 questions

Question: How exactly did Rafiki know Simba was alive?

Answer: Rafiki is a bit of a msytic or a shaman; a quasi-magical character. He was able to smell Simba on the wind that we followed from one to the other.

Question: When Simba and his friends return to Pride Rock (when it is dreary and like a wasteland), I only saw female lions. I thought it could be that Scar got rid of all of the males to avoid competition. Does anyone know why, or if there actually were males in the scene?

Answer: There is only one male lion per pride. Other males form their own "bachelor" prides but the alpha lion lays claim to an entire pride of females.

Question: A few character and song names are based on the Swahili language. Does Timon or Pumba mean anything in Swahili?

Answer: Pumbaa means "to be foolish, weak-minded or negligent". Timon has no apparent meaning in Swahili, but is historically a Greek name, meaning "respectful", a slightly ironic choice given his usual sarcastic attitude.

Question: How does the "Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" song go after the line "Ones as big as your head!"?

Question: Two part question. 1)Is Hakuna Matata a real phrase from another language, or is it one of Timon's and Pumba's originals? 2)Pumba says at one point of the movie, "They call me Mr. Pig!" Is this a reference to anything?

Answer: (1) It's a real phrase from the Swahili language and, as stated in the film, translates roughly to "no worries" (literally "there are no worries"). (2) The line is a reference to Sidney Poitier's detective character Virgil Tibbs from In The Heat Of The Night and his famous reply of "They call me Mister Tibbs" when asked what they call him back home. The film's sequel, focusing on Poitier's character, actually used the line as the title.

Question: We're only told about two males in the pride, Mufasa and Scar. Who was Nala's father? It can't be Mufasa because then she and Simba would either be siblings or half-siblings and they wouldn't have got together. And it can't be Scar because she called him by his name, not Dad, and she and Simba would still have been cousins.

Answer: Lions are not like humans, even though Disney tends to make them that way. It's rare for more than one or two full grown lions to be in a pride. Other males are in "bachelor prides" until they win a pride of their own. It's likely that Scar or Mufasa sired Nala.

Question: I've heard that Hans Zimmer's score for this film is heavily inspired by Mozart, to the point where some call it a "rewrite". Which one of Mozart's pieces is he alleged to have drawn inspiration from?

Answer: Some bits of his score bear a small resemblance to a choral piece called "Ave Verum Corpus", but to suggest that it's a full-scale rip-off is a serious exaggeration.

Question: In a trivia, they say Timon is pulling a bug out of a log and a bug is wearing a mickey mouse hat. I looked but couldn't find it. Could someone give me the scene and what kind of bug to look for?

Answer: Right after Timon pulls the bug out of the log he offers Simba a leaf. Look on the bottom (left, I think) of the leaf for the bug.

Question: After Mufasa's death, how does Simba get it into his head that it's his fault? If anything, it would've seemed to be Scar's, because he was the one that told Simba to wait on the rock. Can someone please explain this to me?

Answer: He is young and impressionable when Scar (an uncle he trusts albeit misguidedly) that it was his fault. Mufasa died trying to save Simba, so it is easy for a young child to assume it's his fault.

Question: Is there a naked couple when Mufasa dies and Simba creates a cloud of dust?

Answer: No, but there is speculation about the cloud of dust/pollen that Simba kicks up when he flops down on the edge of a cliff (mid-movie, after Simba is grown). Some say they see letters that spell S-E-X, but Disney says it was S-F-X, in tribute to the special effects team.

Question: When Pumba and Timon are singing the Hakuna Matata song, does anyone know what Pumba was gonna say when he is singing about his story, and then Timon puts his hand over his mouth and says "not in front of the kids"?

Answer: The line is "and I got downhearted, everytime that I..." when Timon interrupts him. He was obviously going to say "farted".

Question: I remember hearing that The Lion King was the first Disney movie with no human characters, is there any truth to this?

Answer: It's actually the third, the first two being Robin Hood and Bambi (no human is ever seen, only heard in Bambi).

Question: Why did Matthew Broderick not sing as Simba? (he does sing otherwise.)

Answer: It's possible that the songs written for the character simply didn't suit his singing voice. There was an additional song written for the film, to be sung by Mufasa (called "To Be King") - this was eventually cut completely for a similar reason, namely that it didn't suit James Earl Jones' (very good) singing voice.

Question: This question is not exactly for The Lion King but all the Disney films, I just didn't know where to put it. Has any character actually bled in any Disney animation? For example, in The Lion King, Shenzi and Banzaii (the hyenas) have red scratches but they aren't dripping with blood.

Answer: It's rare, because Disney likes to sanitize their violence. The recent Platinum Edition of Beauty and the Beast on DVD added a bit more blood to Beast's wounds after the wolf attack. "The Lion King" also does have a brief moment during the Scar/Simba fight when one of the lions whacks the other across the face and blood sprays. Those are two examples. Others can probably be found if you look hard enough.