Timon & Pumbaa

Because of the trend that was being formed for all the Disney Afternoon cartoons back in the day, I was hoping for a "Lion King" cartoon to come out. And it did!!!!! The cartoon was called "Timon and Pumbaa," created in 1995 and shown on The Disney Afternoon for a couple years then.

Like with "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin," more adventures have sprung up for the main characters - those being Timon the Meerkat and Pumbaa the Warthog (a.k.a. MR. PIG)! I liked all the new characters and the new enemies (they were soooo funny!!!!!), and there were some episodes that had only the Hyenas or Rafiki, and those were good, too! Note: I mentioned about Mr. Pig because of what Pumbaa sometimes said when he was called a name:

"What did you call me????? What did you call me?????? WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?????

THEY CALL ME.....

MR. PIg!

Aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

Man, this show was the classic!!!!!

10 stars

This wasn't one of the best Disney Cartoons. I miss Their old classics like Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Tale Spin and Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Timon and Pumbaa was somewhat a "kiddie" version of Ren and Stimpy. STill with the farting and belching. The show became repetive when Timon and Pumbaa's arch enemey, Quint would arrive. Yeah.. I didn't like Quint and he wasn't funny.

Neither was that bear that was featured on the Toon Disney version. The Bear falling in love with a human irked me.

Some of the Timon and Pumbaa cartoons were tolorable. I am just tired of them running into Quint!

The thing that Disney has done a billion times in every single one of their movies such as Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, etc. Is those annoying sidekicks with one-liners that the kids admire and the adults only like them because they are voiced by people such as Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy. But every time they bring in characters like this, they just have to make spin-offs of the sidekicks, of which I don't know how they get made. Timon and Pumbaa which is a spin-off of Lion King is fairly decent, despite some of the same tiresome Looney Tunes style Cartoony situations with other characters who won't be remembered. The side shows to Timon and Pumbaa, which are the one's with those Hyena's are not so bad. The Rafaki Baboon episodes are very blah. Note to anyone who has kids: Be careful of getting your kid hook on pointless spinoffs, for there have been things worse than this. Timon and Pumbaa in themselves make a great comedy couple.

The Timon and Pumbaa television series is generally ragged on as another way to make a quick buck for Disney.

Well, it is. Every TV show is designed to make money and become famous or use the fame of others.

However, Timon and Pumbaa are nonetheless charming in their hyperbolated character flaws, such as Timon's chronic greed and selfishness, and Pumbaa's idiot savant genius hidden behind his naiveté and ignorance.

Some of the episodes are lacking in animation, cleverness, and satisfying resolutions. But most are great fun to watch, and have some very humorous (some made me laugh out loud) gags in them, from simple physical comedy to plays on words through Timon and Pumbaa's bantering and the episode titles, and sometimes it is just the sheer silliness of their predicaments and dialog (just check out some of the quotes). Their adventures take them all over the place (and that's meant literally and figuratively).

Other minor characters like Zazu, Rafiki, and the hyenas feature in their own episodes, but generally these aren't as good, except for perhaps the Zazu episode where he loses his job for being off by one animal in a survey. Like this and others, some of the episodes have some sort of moral lesson at the end, but in general the show is at its best when Timon and Pumbaa are being themselves with good writers at the helm.

The ambidextrous and many aliased Criminal Quint is funnier than some give him credit to be, and what show is it without a recurring villain? All shows have such.

In all, I'd rate this cartoon as "decent." Nothing to get worked up about, but definitely worth watching when you catch it. If you're lucky you'll get one of the good ones.

Timon and Pumbaa can be described as Looney Tunes Lite. Though some of the episodes are fairly close to screwball comedy they usually end with some kind of lesson to be learned. A prime example is the episode where Pumbaa has trouble catching bugs. Timon gets the idea that it must be because Pumbaa needs glasses because he can't see how many fingers he is holding up from 100 feet away. The episode even starts with Road Runner-like title cards in pig Latin. The end features a vision of the ghost of Pumbaa's uncle who gives the lesson of the day: Believe in yourself. In conclusion I have to say that although I like the sometimes intellectual aspect of the show there are many instances where it's just plain slapstick humor with Timon getting everything dropped on his head that flattens him. I have watched the show about a dozen times and the best episodes are actually not the ones with Timon and Pumbaa as central characters but the side characters the hyenas. They feature one of my favorite voice-over actor Tress Macneille who can imitate everything from a teenage boy (Jimbo and Milhouse on the Simpsons) to a brainless blonde.