Are Timon & Pumbaa Really Important?

[cleargreenwater]

[quote="Ninaroja"]Finally found someone to agree with me Having watched quite a few Timon and Pumbaa episodes over years, I think a TV show about the lions of pride rock would have been insanely cheesy. It made sense to do a comedy cartoon about Timon and Pumbaa since they were the comedy relief of the film anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBK0i83ip78
Take this clip and try to imagine Simba/Mufasa etc. in the place of Timon and Pumbaa. I don't think I'd be able to cope with that [/quote]

Not to mention if that's their not! Nathan Lane, DEAR GOD, what would imitation James Earl Jones sound like?

(Except now there is an endless loop going on in my head of a satelite falling on Simba while Mufasa sings "They Live In You".... )

[TheBlackCatCrossing]

[quote="cleargreenwater"][quote="KentuckyWildcat"]I can see validity in the overexposure angle. I think they're important to the original film (minus the fart jokes) as I already explained. However, I can't for the life of me figure out why Disney latched onto them so much in the following years.[/quote]

That's actually a really neat thing to trace further.

I think they zeroed in on Timon & Pumbaa specifically because The Lion King did turn out to be such an unexpected huge phenomenon--remember, TLK was the "B" movie to Pocahontas, and because it was the B movie, I think it got away with being a way more mature themed and tightly scripted/wrapped up film than most other more formulaic traditional Disney fare.

So because of that unexpected popularity and resounding response to the movie, they were then faced with the curious problem of having to decide on how to market a Disney movie as a Disney movie when most of that movie went a little heavier than their norm.

I don't necessarily think Disney latched on to Timon & Pumbaa JUST on account of dollars, (although that surely kept them going and running on them,) I think they latched on to Timon & Pumbaa because Timon & Pumbaa were the only safely and iconically ***Disney*** element they could extract from a movie people had responded to so much that lacked almost all of the other known hallmarks of Disney.

There really is no magic fairies, no princesses, even Elton John was horrified when they didn't let him do a more classic/conventional Disney love ballad. Timon & Pumbaa were sort of the only things they safely *could* market from it that stuck with their brand enough to be comfortable with.

Really, could you see Sarabi working in an appropriately innocuous standard after-school TV show week after week?

Timon & Pumbaa sort of HAD to be their flagship from TLK.[/quote]

They were kid friendly. I mean, come on, our fictional characters have to eat. It would have been....difficult to circumnavigate that if a weekday cartoon touched upon the lions and what they had for lunch versus a safer alternative, i.e. Timon and Pumbaa eating bugs.

[DGFone]

Also look at it this way: back then (and even now), chances are, if a Disney movie comes out that is a Disney animated feature film, it is very likely that the main female character would join the ranks of "Disney Princesses", thus ensuring loads of extra cash. In fact, contrary to popular belief, The Princess and the Frog made loads of money, primarily for this reason.

But when The Lion King came out, Nala can't exactly join the Disney Princess group, being non-human. So Disney, seeing that The Lion King was rapidly becoming their biggest success in history, had to find another way to make a merchandise cash cow that is kid friendly.

Insert Timon and Pumbaa. Cash cow goes moo.

[Timon the great]

I really don't get how some recent posts state on here that they could have easily been replaced.
I'm sorry to say this, but those are ill-thought statements. Once they have been created, they're created. So you can't just "replace" a character like that. And they are officially important to the film. No matter which way you look at it.

And concerning my previous post in here, this thread is Still relatively pointless.

[Sigurd]

They are definitly important, since they saved Simbas life and developed him as a character. Simba would be a completely different character if they hadn't raise him. They are also important as comical reliefs.