THE MAKING OF A DISNEY CLASSIC
Mufasa was played by James Earl Jones. Sarabi was voiced by Madge Sinclair. The two had previously played an African king
and queen together, six years before in “Coming to America.” Rafiki the mandrill was voiced by
Robert Guillaume, who had played the title role in the TV sitcom, “Benson.” “Rafiki” is the
Swahili word for “friend.”
“Simba” is the Swahili word for
“lion.” The grown Simba was played by Matthew Broderick, but the cub-sized version was voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who
also played Randy, Tim Taylor’s middle son on “Tool Time.” Jason
Weaver, who was known for playing Marcus on the WB sitcom “Smart Guy” served as Simba’s
singing voice.
Producers considered members of the British comedy troupe Monty Python for the voice of the finicky hornbill Zazu. They also considered Dudley Moore and Patrick Stewart,
the latter of whom played Capt. Jean-luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” They eventually
settled on Mr. Bean: Rowan Atkinson. Atkinson was initially
reluctant to take the role.
The original plan was to cast both Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong as the goofy but evil hyenas. But Chong declined to work with Marin at the time, so producers went with Plan B: They hired Whoopi Goldberg instead. After the release of the movie, a hyena researcher
sued Disney for “defamation of character” for the way it portrayed
hyenas in the film.
It took computer animators nearly three years to create the stampede scene. A new computer program had to be written that would allow hundreds of separate animals to run in roughly the same direction but not collide. Printouts of the CGI results were then hand-traced by animators. The scene lasts a whole 2.5 minutes.
Originally, Tim Curry was hired to provide the voice of Scar but he quit to make “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” Producers considered Robert Duvall, James Caan and Ray Liotta before settling on Jeremy Irons. At the movie’s preview, children sobbed and cried uncontrollably after Mufasa’s death scene, so animators felt compelled to tone it down a bit.
Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella auditioned to play hyenas. But they had so much fun together during the audition that the casting director decided to have them voice Timon and Pumbaa instead. When the research team returned from Kenya, they mentioned a phrase they had learned there: “Hakuna Matata,” so they had Tim Rice write a new song using it.
Rice wrote 15 different sets of lyrics for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” The version Elton John sang in the movie was the first version Rice had written. John was disappointed, however, when he saw the song had been left out of the movie. He lobbied Disney chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to have it put back in. Producers did and the song won an Academy Award.