Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed

**Shenzi**, **Banzai**, and **Ed** are a trio of spotted hyenas who first appeared as the secondary antagonists of *Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventures of The Lion King*. They are a trio of spotted hyenas who were loyal followers and henchmen of Scar. Known for their sadism and haunting laughter, the hyenas dwell in the Elephant Graveyard. Because of their destructive habits, the hyenas are outcast from the Pride Lands. By forming an alliance with Scar, they hope to usurp the lions and overrun the Pride Lands, thus allowing themselves and other hyenas the freedom to eat as much as they desire.

Scar has an extremely low opinion of them, considering them to be stupid and incompetent - but still cared for them by regularly providing food prior to allowing them and the rest of the hyenas into the Pride Lands to gain hunting rights and eventually more to scavenge.

## Bio

The hyenas were featured in two spin-off books of *The Lion King*, set before the events of the original film.

In *A Tale of Two Brothers*, the young hyenas appear at the beginning where they surround a helpless Rafiki who had just arrived in the Pride Lands. King Ahadi comes to the rescue just in time, with his sons Mufasa and Taka (Scar) in tow, and demands that the hyenas leave. Later, Scar meets with the hyenas, the story revealing that he asked for their help. Shenzi advises Scar to make himself look good by making Mufasa look bad. Taka is intrigued by the suggestion and plans to incite a cape buffalo called Boma to fight Mufasa. His plan goes badly and his eye is wounded by the buffalo herd in the process, hence the nickname "Scar".

In *Friends in Need*, the teenage hyenas appear again at the beginning, where they are preparing to boil a teenage Zazu in the elephant graveyard, as in the first film. A teenage Mufasa passes by, scares the hyenas away and befriends Zazu.

### Shenzi

**Shenzi** is the leader and female of the trio. According to Timon in *The Lion King 1½*, her full name is **Shenzi Marie Predatora Veldetta Jacquelina Hyena**. Her first name means "savage", "pagan", "uncouth", or "barbarous" in Swahili. Her distinguishing features are five prominent bangs hanging over her face and a mane that reaches all the way to her bangs. She also lacks the dark gray 'stubble' snout of the males, the dark patches around her eyes are shaped to resemble heavily applied eye-shadow, and she has thicker lips with what seems to be black lipstick.

Despite the common belief in the Pride Lands that hyenas are stupid, Shenzi's sense of humour hides a ruthless sense of cunning. She is not merely the leader of the trio, but becomes the Matriarch of a Pack of over 200 hyenas, and her powerful leadership and diplomatic skills resulted in incredible gains for her Pack, regardless of the cataclysmic results to the Pride Lands. And at the climax of the movie, she tells the hyenas that Scar has betrayed them. Additionally, despite not appearing in the sequel, it seems that she has successfully hidden from Zira the fact that the hyenas, and not Simba, killed him, allowing her Pack to escape the Graveyard and leave the Pride Lands.

Despite her dislike of Mufasa, she clearly has a measure of respect and fear for him, as she gets the "shivers" when she hears his name and, though she elbows Banzai before he can say the name in front of Scar, clearly agrees with his opinion that they were better off when Mufasa was in charge (even if he didn't like them or permit them to live in the Pride Lands, he still treated them better and didn't abuse or insult them for amusement, unlike Scar). Despite this, she has shown cowardice along with her partners on several occasions: running away from Pumbaa in the final battle and Mufasa during their first encounter.

Shenzi can be just as ruthless as Scar, but unlike him, her first duty is to strengthening her clan, rather than the pursuit of personal power. She allies the Clan with Scar even though the hyenas dislike the lions simply to provide for them, tells Scar that Simba is dead to get them into the Pride Lands, and is even unafraid of informing him that there's no food or water left, meaning the Clan is starving and dehydrated. When Scar tries to pin Mufasa's death on the hyenas at the end, she doesn't hesitate to inform the Clan of his betrayal, resulting in his elimination, and in *Simba's Pride*, she presumably has taken the Clan away from the elephant graveyard to find better hunting grounds.

Shenzi is one of the most popular characters in the franchise. She was originally going to be male and played by Tommy Chong, reuniting him with his old comedy partner Cheech Marin, who was playing Banzai, but apparently, the two had had a falling out. Many of Shenzi's facial expressions and voice were copied from her voice actress Whoopi Goldberg.

### Banzai

**Banzai is the second hyena of the trio. His** name means "skulk" or "lurk" in Swahili. It can also mean "Suicide" or "ten thousand years" in Japanese, possibly a reference to his aggressive nature but more likely coincidental.

Banzai is the most physically aggressive of the trio. He's short-tempered, violent, glutonous, and impulsive, thinking with his teeth first and his brains never. However he always submits to Shenzi, who is both smarter and more controlled than him.However multiple times in the movie we see Ed irritating him, and Banzai jumps into the fight every time.

His most distinguishing feature is his unusually heavy eyebrows. Apart from these, Banzai is the model for most generic hyenas. He is the greediest of the three, frequently making references to hunger, and asking for food. He also speaks and acts without thinking, complaining when the Pride Lands lacks food under Scar's rule ("*It's dinnertime, and we ain't got no stinkin' entrees!*"). He even quietly remarks to his friends that Mufasa was a better king than Scar, showing his audacity. In addition, when about to commence the Wildebeest Stampede, he complained to Shenzi that he wanted to attack the wildebeest early, which would have thrown the whole plan off, but was stopped by Shenzi, reminding him to wait.

Otherwise, Banzai appears to be Shenzi's intellectual equal. He understands pig Latin, as Zazu tried to keep Simba from calling the hyenas stupid ("*Who you calling upidstay?!*"); Spanish, when he immediately refrained from saying "Mufasa" in front of Scar any further ("*I said, uh, ¿Qué Pasa?*"); and French, for which "entree" and "buffet" are associated with food. He learned that he and his two comrades couldn't defeat Mufasa on their own, let alone kill him, which he explained to Scar after the failed attempt on Simba and Nala's lives; this would eventually lead to the entire Clan overwhelming Simba and, at the battle's end, Scar.

Banzai seems to have bad luck, and tends to take the injuries; in "Be Prepared" he was fired out of a geyser and handled roughly by Scar, Banzai's buttocks were severely lacerated by Mufasa's sharp claws, causing him to be unable to sit down for a week, ("*I won't be able to sit for a week!*") he tells Shenzi and Ed; and later when he is knocked into a thorn patch while chasing Simba out of the Pride Lands.

### Ed

**Ed** is the only hyena not to have a Swahili name. However, there exists in English the word *eddy* meaning *whirlpool*.

Ed' distinguishing features are two round cuts on each ear, his tongue often lolls from his mouth and he has no eyebrows. He laughs rather than speaks, and also seems to have difficulty holding back his laughter. Jim Cummings recorded over four hours of various laughter clips for any situation Ed might be in; excited, amused, angry, etc.

Ed comes off as the 'idiot' of the trio, but Shenzi and Banzai never actually treat him as stupid. They treat him as an equal, despite the fact that he responds only by laughing, and his laughter to meaningful language. He repeatedly shows lucidity, being the first to notice Simba, Nala, and Zazu escaping while his two peers are busy cracking jokes about lions. When Shenzi comments that the hyenas would be running the show if the lions weren't around, he nods in agreement, listening to the conversation, and when Scar betrays the hyenas at the end, he understands that they have been betrayed just as well as Shenzi and Banzai, and is just as angry as they are. In addition, both Banzai and Shenzi have waited until Ed's reply before deciding on a response or a proper course of action at least twice: The first time when Shenzi and Banzai were rhetorically asking who was present in the elephant graveyard, and the second when noting that Scar had earlier called them their enemies before exacting revenge with the other Hyena Clan members.

Banzai seems to be the only one who can translate Ed's laughter to have meaning, suggesting they have known each other for a long time. However, Banzai and Ed seem to scuffle frequently, mostly down to a combination of Banzai's short temper and Ed's total lack of tact.

Ed definitely seems to have difficulty with some things, though. When they were attacked by Mufasa and Shenzi and Banzai denied knowing that Simba was his son, Ed confirmed it with a rapid nod; during a scuffle with Banzai, he chews on his own leg obliviously; also, when Pumbaa saved Timon and Zazu from being ganged up upon by Shenzi and Banzai in the final battle, he had no idea what to do and ended up cowering with the rest of the hyenas after Pumbaa beat them up.

Whatever his shortcomings, Ed was smart enough to block the entrance to a meerkat tunnel, thus leaving Uncle Max briefly at the trio's mercy, and not only does Jim Cummings insist that Ed 'knows the score', we have no strong reasons to believe otherwise.

## Trivia

* Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed guest star and work with Diesel 10, Devious Diesel, Shere Khan and the other villains in order to get revenge on Thomas, Twilight Sparkle and Simba and tries to eat them in Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventures Series like *Thomas' Adventures of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - To Where And Back Again (Full Movie).*