Timon and Pumbaa

**Timon and Pumbaa** is an American television series created by Bobs Gannaway and Tony Craig. It is based on the 1994 film The Lion King.

It focuses on Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog, as they live their problem-free philosophy "Hakuna Matata".

The series premiered on Syndication and CBS on September 8, 1995 and aired for three seasons on Toon Disney until September 24, 1999.

## Plot

The show stars Timon, a meerkat, and Pumbaa, a warthog, both characters from the Disney animated film The Lion King. The series is primarily set after the events of the first film, although some episodes are set before or during those events. It involves the characters having misadventures in different settings, including the jungles of Africa, Canada, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Whereas the show focuses on Timon and Pumbaa, four episodes centre respectively on Rafiki and the hyena trio Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed, named Rafiki Fables and The Laughing Hyenas, and two episodes tell the backstory of Zazu.

## Cast and Characters

### Main

* Timon
	+ Nathan Lane and Quinton Flynn (Season 1)
	+ Kevin Schon (Season 2-3)
* Ernie Sabella as Pumbaa

### Recurring

* Corey Burton as Speedy
* S. Scott Bullock as Fred
* Brad Garrett as Boss Beaver
* Charlie Adler as Irwin

### Villains

* Corey Burton as Quint
* Jeff Bennett as Toucan Dan / The Three Natives
* Rob Paulsen and Jim Cummings as Cheetata and Cheetato
* Jim Cummings as Smolder
* Joe Alaskey as Little Jimmy

## Episodes

See Also: List of Timon & Pumbaa Episodes

 2 | 21
 3 | 39

## Production

On January 24, 1995, it was announced that a Lion King television series starring Timon and Pumbaa was set to premiere during the fall, as part of The Disney Afternoon. Gary Krisel, who was then president of Walt Disney Television Animation, found Timon and Pumbaa to be the best new comedy team to come on the scene for a long time and that they had the potential to be just as classic as Abbott and Costello, Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, and Nichols and May.

Bobs Gannaway stated that he and Tony Craig wanted to expand on Timon and Pumbaa's personalities as a comedy team to keep the series fresh and to keep the show interesting, they decided to not have Timon and Pumbaa be locked into the Serengeti, but allow them to explore the world and meet different kinds of animals. According to one of the show's writers Kevin Campbell, at the beginning of the series, he and Gannaway made a giant list of puns using country names to open the doors on how many places they could go. After figuring out which funny animal or obstacle situation Timon and Pumbaa would face, they used a "Which Animals Live Where" atlas reference book to find where in the world an episode could take place and check a list of country puns they could pick.

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 proceeded to transform itself from its legendary role as a diversified conglomerate with a strong industrial heritage into a media giant 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.

Animation production was done by a consortium of overseas animation studios, including Walt Disney Animation Australia, Toon City, Wang Film Productions, Thai Wang Film Productions, Rough Draft Korea Co., Ltd., Sunmin Image Pictures Co., Sunwoo Animation, Koko Enterprises, Toonz Animation, Gnome Productions, Jaime Diaz Productions, Project X Animation, Shanghai Morning Sun Animation, Sichuan Top Animation and Studio B Productions.

## Release

The first two seasons of the show aired simultaneously on The Disney Afternoon and CBS, whereas the third and final season aired on Toon Disney. Reruns of the series aired on Disney Channel from 1997 to 2008. Reruns were shown on Toon Disney up until the channel's demise on February 8, 2009. As a result, the show went off the air for three years.

On March 23, 2012, the show returned to television when Disney Junior was launched as its own channel. However, only selected episodes were shown and some episodes were abruptly edited (presumably due to scenes being deemed inappropriate for pre-schoolers). As of 2014, the show was removed from the channel. However in Russia continued air this show until the channel closed in 2022.