Rafiki's Apprentice

"Rafiki's Apprentice" is the second segment of the fifteenth episode of Season 1 of The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa, and the thirtieth episode of the series overall. It premiered on November 4, 1995 on CBS' Saturday morning line-up, alongside "Unlucky in Lesotho".
==Official synopsis==
"Rafiki's nephew Nefu pays his uncle a visit." Accessed 12 November 2019.
==Plot summary==
When Rafiki is about to take a nap, he runs into his nephew, Nefu. Nefu tells his uncle that his parents are at the fine country for a getaway weekend and that he wanted to stay with him instead of going with his parents. The young mandrill then tells Rafiki that he wants to be a shaman just like him, with the older mandrill teaching him how he draws on his tree and how he makes magic. Rafiki will show him how.
Rafiki and Nefu go to Rafiki's storage room, with Rafiki telling his nephew that he has to stack the shelves with his golden gourds, which are the key to his magical connection. He then takes Nefu to the gourd trees and makes him go back and fourth to pick up the gourds and place them in the shelves in the room without any help.
When Nefu goes in the room with few of the gourds, the gourds magically place themselves in the shelves. The young mandrill believes that Rafiki tricked him into doing his chores and he decides to use Rafiki's stick to make the gourd trees come to life and place the gourds in the room for him. Later when the room is completely filled with gourds, one of the trees continues throwing more in the room, with Nefu trying to get it to stop.
The spell spirals out of control and causes many animals to be accidentally hit with magic spells as he tries to make the trees disappear, eventually ending up with breaking Rafiki's walking stick in two.
Nefu then runs into his uncle and the two mandrills go back in the room. Rafiki sees that the room is now filled with gourds, but he becomes suspicious as he believes that Nefu had help, which the young mandrill denies. The tree comes back to life and throws more gourds in the room. After Rafiki sees the tree, he wonders what happened to stick, explaining to Nefu that it was given to him from his grandfather and that one of his ancestors used it to save his people from a herd of angry ostriches by bridging a gorge. Nefu then confesses his action and says that he'll never mess with magic again. Rafiki then reveals that has a number of back up sticks in his possession and uses one of his additional sticks to reverse Nefu's original spell.
Rafiki sees that Nefu has learned what the consequences of using spells and magic without thinking about what can happen. He then forces his nephew to return the extra gourds back to the trees, offering him part of his old magic stick for him to use for help, but Nefu decides to do the chore on his own instead, which Rafiki replies that it is very wise of him. However, when the two mandrills enter the storage room, Nefu accidentally changes the color of Rafiki's tree, showing that he still has a long way to go to reach his uncle's level in magic skills.
==Voice cast==
===Starring===
*Robert Guillaume as Rafiki
===Guest Starring===
*Tahj Mowry as Nefu
==Appearances==
==Trivia==
* Rafiki's tree is revealed to have a storage room.
** Rafiki is shown to have a collection of sticks in the room, presumably from his ancestors. One of these staffs may be selected if an old one gets broken or lost. With Rafiki's stick now being broken, Rafiki now uses another staff as an alternative while Nefu now owns part of the old one.
* Rafiki's stick is revealed to have magical powers.
** It is explained that the gourds on the stick are the key to Rafiki's mystical abilities.
** Rafiki is revealed to have his staff given to him by his grandfather at a young age, as depicted in one of the paintings in the room.
* The title and plot are likely taken from the story, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
==Media==
Rafiki's Apprentice|The full episode of "Rafiki's Apprentice"
==References==
Category:Episodes
Category:The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa episodes
Category:The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa: Season 1
Category:Rafiki Fables Episodes
Category:Real world