THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406210053
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
DATELINE: 940621 LENGTH: Long
It's not just any warthog. He's Pumbaa, the rambunctious stinkeroo warthog who hangs around with a cub destined to be a lion king and teaches him how to chew bugs. He sings, too, and performs a vaudeville act with his friend Timon, the meerkat.
{REST} Sound like a goofy bunch? You'll soon get to know them as the lovable cast members of the mane event this summer, ``The Lion King.''
Ever since Disney got back into the wonder business with ``The Little Mermaid'' - and continued with ``Beauty and the Beast'' and ``Aladdin'' - the opening of their animated film's have become events. Even for the Disney tradition, though, the 32nd Disney animated movie, ``The Lion King,'' arrives Friday with an unusual amount of fanfare.
It's ``Hamlet Goes to Africa'' with laughs added. But unbelievably enough, it turns out to be the very first Disney animated film that is an original story, not based on any literary source.
In a matter of weeks, Pumbaa, Simba (the cub), Zaza (a rare bird) and those pesky hyenas are going to be everyday parts of our language. Even Scar, the villain, is likely to become a part of modern folklore. You will probably be buying stuffed-fuzzy versions of them to put under the tree next Christmas.
You'll hear Elton John singing ``Can You Feel the Love Tonight'' over the airwaves. And you might as well be the first in your block to learn the meaning of ``Hakuna Matata,'' the movie's novelty song - it's tribal talk for ``No worry.''
ON PLUTO LANE, just around the corner from Goofy Boulevard on the Disney lot in Burbank, Calif., we found the behind-the-scenes story of ``The Lion King.'' Animators who have been locked away in their hovels drawing these pictures for the past three years were only too eager to talk. Actors who gave voice to the on-screen characters, including James Earl Jones, Matthew Broderick and Cheech Marin, were equally eager to reveal what makes the lion roar.
``It's not magical, it's spiritual,'' said producer Don Hahn. ``It's a love story between father and son. We were all influenced by our dads.''
Actually, ``The Lion King'' is part magic and part hard work: More than 1 million drawings were created by more than 600 animators during the past three years.
``The Lion King'' is the tale of a cub, Simba, who has to meet the responsibility of gathering a pride and returning to rule the kingdom that was once his father's. It is the first Disney film set in a world populated entirely by animals and untouched by man. ``We wanted some of the emotional quality of `Beauty' but also the comedy of `Aladdin,' '' the producer said.
We talked with the animators and the ``voices'' on just how they came to be.
Simba - The naive lion cub just can't wait to be king - until tragedy strikes. The voice of the young Simba is that Jonathan Taylor Thomas who is Randy Taylor on TV's ``Home Improvement.''
``I never got to meet the other `voices,' '' he said. At home, he has two cats - one of whom is named Simba after his character.
The adult Simba is actor and former teen idol Matthew Broderick. Some of the recordings were done three years ago, and all were done in an isolated room. Only the hyenas got to record together; the other actors did the dialogue line-by-line, with mixing to be done later. ``It kept changing,'' Broderick said. ``I had to visualize what I was playing. I thought of Simba as a teenager - lazy and a little frightened to get on with his life.''
Mufasa - The booming voice of James Earl Jones is Simba's father, the mighty king of the jungle. ``Everyone wanted to be a lion,'' Jones said with a laugh. ``No one wanted to be a monkey. I got the most prestigious role, and I probably deserve it.''
Jones particularly wanted the Disney job. ``It's something my 11-year-old son can hear me in - and he might even see me. Every recording session was videotaped and used by the animators. They use the expressions of the actors in their drawings. I do think Mufasa looks a little like me.''
Jones laughingly points out that ``I wasn't paid that much. If you want to get rich with Disney, you buy Disney stock. This was a time, as all times should be, for an actor to put aside the ego and go to work.''
Pumbaa - This is the dimwitted warthog who loves to pig out on bugs but proves that he can be courageous. Tony Bancroft, the supervising animator for Pumbaa, said ``One of the main problems was that this is an animal who keeps all four feet on the ground. That means there are no hand gestures. We had to get across the message by using tilts of the head. It's a little like an actor whose hands are tied.''
Bancroft went to the San Diego Zoo and observed warthogs for hours. He's not enamored with them. ``You can't get too close to a warthog. They'll gut you if they get a chance.''
The voice is supplied by Ernie Sabella, one of the stars of Broadway's ``Guys and Dolls'' revival. ``I was in tears,'' Sabella said the morning after he first saw the film. ``I couldn't believe how glorious it looked and I didn't know, at all, that my part is this big.'' He thinks it is appropriate that the film includes tragedy. ``I'm happy they didn't pull their punches. Kids need to learn the meaning of drama. I remember I was scared by `Snow White' but that's the way drama is. It involves you. Kids know it's make-believe.''
Timon - Nathan Lane, also from the Broadway cast of ``Guys and Dolls,'' is the meerkat who is Pumbaa's partner in the movie's laughable vaudeville scenes. ``I didn't know what a meerkat was,'' admitted Mike Surrey, the supervising animator for Timon. ``I learned that our meerkat isn't typical at all. Usually, they hang out together in colonies of 20 or so. It would be unlikely that a meerkat would have a warthog for a best friend.''
The Hyenas (Shenzi, Banzai and Ed) - This trio is the bottom of the jungle's food chain as the three evil henchmen of the villain Scar. They're play it for laughs. Whoopi Goldberg is the voice of Shenzi, hissing with laughable venom. Ed, vocalized by Jim Cummings, has no lines - just laughs. The voice of Banzai, the bedraggled one, is that of Cheech Marin, making a return to Disney after his scene-stealing role as a tiny doggy in ``Oliver and Company.''
He did record one session with Whoopi. ``I knew her from years ago,'' he said. ``She used to come and see our act, Cheech and Chong, in San Diego - back before she became Whoopi Goldberg.''
Cheech doesn't think it's ironic that his new career is in family movies after all those ``Up in Smoke'' '70s drug flicks. ``It's a whole different scene now. We made fun of the wacky, goofy drug culture. Today, there are crack dealers. It's different.''
Rafiki - Robert Guillaume took time out from the title role of ``Phantom of the Opera'' on stage to do the voice of Rafiki, a bantering baboon who is the wise man of Pride Rock. ``This job was more creative in terms of acting than anything else I've ever done,'' he said. ``Of course, I was a little chagrined when I learned the part I was being offered was that of a baboon.''
Guillaume was instrumental in developing the character into a crazy being. ``When I played it straight, it was dull,'' he said. ``Rafiki had to have a kind of crazy, wild, unpredictable quality.''
Scar - The evil uncle, who schemes to take over the throne by getting rid of Mufasa and the cub Simba has the voice of British actor Jeremy Irons. Irons won the Oscar for playing Claus von Bulow in ``Reversal of Fortune,'' and he admits that some of that villainous quality is in Scar. His own favorite Disney film is ``101 Dalmations,'' and he'd like Cruella De Vil to someday meet Scar.
BEGINNING NEXT YEAR, the Disney factory plans to turn out two animated movies annually - one in the summer and one at Christmas. In the works are ``The Hunchback of Notre Dame,'' ``Hercules'' and ``Fantasia Continued.''
Meanwhile, Simba and company are eagerly awaiting their chance to join the Disney menagerie. The studio has every reason to sing a chorus or two of ``Hakuna Matata'' - no worry.
by CNB