DON HAHN (producer):The idea came from the press junket for 1988sOliver & Company.
For a long time, we just called it Bambiin Africa.
It was the producer ofThe Little Mermaidwatching our pitch meeting who said, Oh, itsHamlet.
Credit: Disney
Everyone smiled and said, Were makingHamletwith lions.
They sent me a package with a drawing of Simba and other characters.
You would start at one corner and walk around the room to read the script.
Everett Collection
It was thrilling because I got to see from the very beginning how it all came to life.
We ad-libbed and had fun with it, came up with our own silly stuff.
Two months later, we got the call that youre Timon and Pumbaa.
I was like, Whos Pumbaa?
Wed read for the hyenas.
So we went from there!
BRODERICK:Each character had their own animator.
I would base my acting on what he drew too.
It was a very interesting process.
I was recording over two or three years.
NATHAN LANE (Timon):It was a period of two years when we recorded.
They assembled rough footage and drawings to see what they had and venture to improve on that.
It was their vision of a Broadway show going out-of-town and rewriting based on what they see.
There was a song we did called Warthog Rhapsody, then that went away and became Hakuna Matata.
When we heard Hakuna Matata, we thought it sounded like a classic Disney song.
It was just a bouncy, catchy tune.
We had a great deal of fun.
Nathan and I were not really awake yet, but they went right into it.
He was trying to be funny, but [he was] dragging.
So just to make him laugh, I did a little fart noise.
He said dont do that.
I didnt know it made him laugh that much, Id never done it before.
So hed say a line, and halfway through, I would do it.
This went on for half an hour.
He was in tears.
I felt very passionately [that] it had to be disturbing so you can be affecting.
There was something raw and intense about Simba tugging on his dead fathers ear.
When Mufasa dies, its likeHamlet.
Everybodys dead on the stage.
Where do we go now?
So along came Pumbaa and Timon.
LANE:The fact that people still remember it fondly…is very gratifying.
Its Billy Eichners problem now.
