7.8 /10 1 Votes
8.3/10 Created by Walt Disney Television | 7.1/10 Genre ComedyAdventure Theme song Hakuna Matata | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Voices of Quinton FlynnErnie SabellaCharlie AdlerCorey BurtonNancy CartwrightCam ClarkeS. Scott BullockTownsend ColemanBrian CummingsJim CummingsMichael GoughRobert GuillaumeJess HarnellFrank WelkerJeff BennettTress MacNeilleBrad GarrettRob PaulsenKevin SchonApril WinchellNathan Lane Program creators Disney Television Animation, Walt Disney Television Cast |
The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa, often simply referred to as Timon & Pumbaa, is an American animated television series created by Walt Disney Television Animation. It centers on Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog from Disney's 1994 film The Lion King. The show ran for three seasons on CBS, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, and in syndication as a part of The Disney Afternoon. It aired from September 8, 1995 to September 24, 1999. It is also the first Lion King related media to show humans, as humans were not present in the movie. It is the first of two television series to be based on the film, the second being The Lion Guard.
Contents
- Premise
- Production
- Main
- The Lion King alumni
- Other characters
- US releases
- European Australian releases
- DVD releases
- Awards and nominations
- References
In 2004, Timon and Pumbaa starred in their own released feature film The Lion King 1½, a direct-to-video adaptation of the television series to the first of two films. Robert Guillaume, Matthew Broderick, Cam Clarke, Julie Kavner and Estelle Harris, Nathan Lane, Quinton Flynn, Kevin Schon, Ernie Sabella, Scott Bullock and Jerry Stiller, provided the voices of Rafiki, Simba, Timon's Mother, Timon, Pumbaa, Fred and Uncle Max respectively in The Lion King 1½, and two seasons of television series episodes Mombasa-In-Law/The Laughing Hyenas: TV Dinner, Once Upon a Timon.
Premise

The show stars Timon, a meerkat, and Pumbaa, a warthog, both characters from the Disney animated film The Lion King and its sequels. Set after the events of the original film, the series involves the characters having misadventures in the jungle of Africa, as well as across the globe in various settings such as Canada, Britain, the United States and Spain. While the show focuses primarily on Timon and Pumbaa, it has four episodes centering on Rafiki and the hyena trio Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed, which are under the names Rafiki Fables and The Laughing Hyenas, and two episodes centering on Zazu.
Production
The series premiered on September 8, 1995, airing on Fridays on the syndicated block The Disney Afternoon. Eight days later, on September 16, the series also began airing on Saturday mornings on CBS. The show was one of the last Disney productions to air on CBS, which had a cross-promotion agreement with Disney, as Disney bought ABC in 1996, the same year that this show (and all other Disney properties still airing on CBS at the time) left the network. Also, in 1995, Westinghouse acquired CBS outright for $5.4 billion. As one of the major broadcasting group owners of commercial radio and television stations (as Group W) since 1920, Westinghouse sought to transition from a station operator into a major media company with its purchase of CBS. Music underscore by Stephen James Taylor featuring frequent use of a microtonal xylophone and pan pipes based on an African tribal tuning.
After the second season, Roberts Gannaway and Tony Craig, the series' producers and directors, left the show to work on 101 Dalmatians. The series then returned in 1998 for a 39-episode third season, with a change in writers and new directors. Since February 8, 2009 (after its final airing on the now-defunct Toon Disney), this show went off the air for three years. However, it returned to broadcast reruns on March 23, 2012 on Disney Junior.
Main
The Lion King alumni
The following characters from The Lion King movies appear in this series:
Other characters
US releases
Six VHS cassettes containing 18 episodes of the series were released in the United States under the name Timon & Pumbaa's Wild Adventures.
European & Australian releases
Three VHS cassettes containing 21 episodes of the series were released in Europe and Australia, each containing six episodes and a music video. The first VHS, Around The World With Timon And Pumbaa, doubles as an OVA as it features an original story in which, after Pumbaa develops amnesia from a lightning strike, Timon tries to restore his friend's memory through the episodes featured on that video.
DVD releases
Three DVDs containing 21 episodes of the series were released in Europe and Japan.
To date, none of the series has yet been released on DVD in the United States.
Awards and nominations
Daytime Emmy Awards