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1. What is the young lion prince's name?
Simba
Simba is Swahili for lion, which is as far as the naming went; the cub is voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, with Jason Weaver singing I Just Can't Wait to Be King. Kovu, Kiara and Kion, among the distractors, come from the sequel and the television series.
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2. Who is Simba's father?
Mufasa
Mufasa dies in the wildebeest stampede, a sequence that took the animators close to three years to build with early computer work, after Scar lets him fall from the cliff. Rafiki, among the distractors, is the mandrill shaman, and Zazu the king's majordomo.
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3. How is Scar related to Simba?
He is his uncle
Scar is Mufasa's younger brother, which is the Hamlet of it: the uncle kills the king and the prince goes into exile. The film never explains the scar across his eye; the backstory, and the name Taka, came later in spin-off books.
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4. What kind of animal is Timon?
A meerkat
A meerkat voiced by Nathan Lane, who was cast after he and Ernie Sabella auditioned together for the hyenas and the filmmakers liked the double act. Timon is the one with the plan, usually one that involves Pumbaa doing the work.
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5. What kind of animal is Pumbaa?
A warthog
A warthog voiced by Ernie Sabella, Lane's co-star in Guys and Dolls on Broadway, which is how the two came to audition together. Pumbaa gets the first fart joke in a Disney animated feature, and he eats grubs by the dozen.
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6. What does Hakuna Matata mean in the movie?
No worries
It is Swahili, roughly 'no trouble', and the song that goes with it replaced a number called Warthog Rhapsody that had been written for Pumbaa. Simba spends his adolescence on the philosophy in the jungle, until a hunting lioness from his past tracks him down.
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7. What is Simba's childhood friend's name?
Nala
Nala, voiced as a cub by Niketa Calame and as an adult by Moira Kelly, finds Simba years later while hunting Pumbaa for dinner, and pins him as she did when they were cubs. Sarabi, among the distractors, is Simba's mother; Kiara is his daughter in the sequel.
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8. What kind of bird is Zazu?
A hornbill
A red-billed hornbill, voiced by Rowan Atkinson, who sings I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts while caged under Scar's reign and is forbidden It's a Small World. His morning report to Mufasa doubles as Simba's pouncing lesson.
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9. Who voices Mufasa?
James Earl Jones
Jones had been Darth Vader's voice for Lucas, and he was the only cast member asked back for the 2019 remake, reprising Mufasa a quarter of a century later. Mufasa's ghost in the clouds, telling Simba to remember who he is, is his other big scene.
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10. Who voices the adult Simba?
Matthew Broderick
Broderick recorded his lines alone, as most of the cast did, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas voices the cub. The adult Simba's singing in Can You Feel the Love Tonight is by Joseph Williams of Toto, son of the composer John Williams.
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11. Who voices Scar?
Jeremy Irons
Irons had just won an Oscar for Reversal of Fortune, and Scar's 'You have no idea' is a nod to his Claus von Bulow in that film. He blew his voice out during Be Prepared, and Jim Cummings, who voices the hyena Ed, finished the song for him.
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12. Which song opens the film?
Circle of Life
Lebo M's Zulu call opens it over the sunrise, and the studio liked the sequence enough to release it whole as the film's first trailer. Elton John and Tim Rice's song was nominated for the Oscar, which went to their own Can You Feel the Love Tonight.
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13. Which animals help Scar carry out his plans?
Hyenas
Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin and Jim Cummings, live in the elephant graveyard and do Scar's dirty work for the promise of never going hungry again. The arrangement does not end well for him.
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14. What is the kingdom's famous rocky landmark called?
Pride Rock
The promontory where Rafiki presents the newborn Simba to the animals, and where Simba returns to challenge Scar amid the fire. Its silhouette is the film's logo, and the Broadway version opens with the same gathering done with puppets and stilts.
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15. Who composed the film's orchestral score?
Hans Zimmer
Zimmer won the Oscar for the score, his first, and brought in Lebo M for the African choral arrangements, which later became the spine of the stage musical. Alan Menken, among the distractors, had scored Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast.
