My Lion King Forum

There used to be a subsection of LionKing.org that was available here: http://www.lionking.org/~ryan/. Ryan McGinnis was the webmaster, but he stopped updating around 1997 and eventually the site went offline around 2006. Thanks to the Alexa Digital Archive, parts of it can still be seen and I came across something intriguing while combing over it. He mentions that he got a lot of preliminary information about the then upcoming sequel from an anonymous source. Here's the full document where he details what his friend sent him.


One of the most interesting things is that it talks about Binti, the scrapped girlfriend for Zazu. His friend says, among other things, that she uses a rhino to get around:
[quote="Ryan McGinnis's Anonymous Source"]Zazu is probably going to get a girlfriend. Her name's Binti and the
animators can't decide how she looks like. I saw about 20 different
Bintis ranging from standart cute Disney bird to hip African beauty
queen. Oh, she rides a rhino.[/quote]

This made me think about what I posted earlier about Thomas Haden Church recording lines for a rhino, but it getting left on the cutting room floor as well.
[quote="July 23, 1995. Austin American-Statesman"]"The coolest thing that's happened to me recently is I'm doing the sequel to The Lion King,'' Church said. "I'm doing the voice-over for a rhinoceros, and he's a really butch rhinoceros, too"[/quote]
I wonder if they could be connected? Regardless, had any of you seen that text file before or had the prelivage to view Ryan's website?

Ah, yes...I remember that site back from when I first started getting into the TLK fandom around Y2K.

I've heard about Binti before as well (usually just described as a "rhino jockey"), and I've sometimes wondered if any of that concept art of her has ever surfaced, especially when there's that many designs. I only heard about the rhino recently, though, and one of the first things I thought when I read it was, "Hey, could that be one of Binti's rhinos?"

.....Ryan's Lion! It didn't dawn on me til now that all those old GeoCities sites from the early fandom are now gone I don't remember much about it because it was an "old" website even in 2003-2004 when I started wading into the fray.

I wonder if the decision to cut Binti might've been made because they couldn't get Rowan Atkinson back to voice Zazu? Not that that's the only reason things get chopped, superfluous character is superfluous, but its possible.

Kinda glad it never happened cause I can't see Zazu with a sporty type XD

Yep, I believe there was a connection, but, no, I never saw Ryan's site.

[quote="Akril"]I've heard about Binti before as well (usually just described as a "rhino jockey"), and I've sometimes wondered if any of that concept art of her has ever surfaced, especially when there's that many designs. [/quote]

I speculate the little bird in the upper right of this concept art of the rhino stampede is Binti. Here is a closer shot of the bird.

[quote="cleargreenwater"]I wonder if the decision to cut Binti might've been made because they couldn't get Rowan Atkinson back to voice Zazu? Not that that's the only reason things get chopped, superfluous character is superfluous, but its possible.[/quote]

I initially thought the reason why Binti was cut because Zazu was a minor character, so it wasn't important enough to the story to give him a girlfriend. But, with this new information about Binti being associated with a rhino, I believe if the rhino character she was to be associated with was cut, so was Binti at the same time.

Never seen that! Very interesting

If anybody's having trouble opening the text file, I've attached it here. The archive sometimes screws up and you have to click "Impatient?" in the bottom right hand corner to view things correctly.



Here's a screenshot from his "Reading Room" that gives some more info.

I believe I had been to that website more than once, I have never heard about Binty (although I had heard that Zazu was originally supposed to get a girlfriend). I assume you are right about The scraped Rhino character and Binty being connected though.