Obsessions, Loves, and Favorite Things. Like Oprah, Only Nerdier: The Lion King

Disclaimer: If any of you thought I was remotely cool, I'm about to nip that in the bud REAL fast.


Caroline's Obsessions, Loves, and Favorite Things. Like Oprah, Only Nerdier Blog Series #1:

Walt Disney's "The Lion King."

So...no surprise to anyone I'm sure...even with a super-awesome-blog-series-idea, I STILL can't seem to update this thing. Luckily, over the past two weeks, I've managed to rekindle not one, but two of my obsessions, loves, and favorite things. Most recently (as in like...last night) it is The Lion King. 

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I need to explain The Lion King. That's the dumbest thing I've ever come up with. If you need to have The Lion King explained to you--don't kid yourself--you clearly spent your entire life locked in a cellar or the "chokey. Like in Matilda.  

"The Lion King" is one of the greatest Disney movies ever MADE and I feel so fortunate to have been the ideal Disney-target-demographic-age when it was released and remember distinctly seeing it in theaters. In fact, when I saw the Lion King in theaters, I ate a KitKat bar. BOOM. 

But do you want to know what I really, really think of The Lion King? Here we go.

1. I still haven't decided whether or not, if Simba and company were humans, if they would be African. 
I'm sorry, but when you have Matthew Broderick, (the whitiest of white men) voicing Simba, NOT excluding the ever-glorious Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Young Simba (who's equally as whity-white. I mean, he was on Home Improvement. Period.), it's preeetty darn hard to imagine Simba being African. Yes, in the Broadway show, all the lions are African, but frankly, I have yet to meet anyone who is African and/or African-American who mouth-breathes like Matthew Broderick. 

REGARDLESS, let's be real. Human or lion, Simba be fiiiiiiiine. You KNOW it's true. First, he's a LION. Second, he has amazing hair. (And really, what else matters?) Third, he's essentially a bad-ass. Oh, not to mention, his dad is uhh...Mufasa. (que pasa?) 

I mean, LOOK AT HIM! 

Matthew Broderick WISHES he was as bad-ass as his animated counterpart. Too bad for him, it's Not. POSSIBLE. Sorry, Ferris.

2. The death of Mufasa is the #1 reason for PTSD in children.

Honestly, if this moment in The Lion King didn't traumatize you as a young child, you were born with no soul. Compared to Bambi, for instance, where you only hear the gunshot, Mufasa would be the ANTI-Bambi. 

Did Disney spare all us small children the horror of witnessing our beloved-character-and-let's-be-real-surrogate-father Mufasa  being thrust from a 30 foot cliffside into a stampede of mad wildebeest? 

Noooooo.....

In fact, not only did Disney force us to watch his murder, they forced us to watch another SMALL child, SIMBA, race down into the gorge and ask his dead, trampled father that it was time "to wake up and go home" which...obviously...he didn't wake up. 

Why? Because we just watched him DIE. 

Ooh ooh WAIT, it gets better. Now, let's add some Hans Zimmer score and have small Simba cuddle under his dad's DEAD paw and WEEP. O_O 

Here's a little trauma refresher. Thank can me later when you're suffering from a long-term fear of cliffs and wildebeest:

They really should have support groups for solely this reason. In fact, I'm genuinely surprised there aren't.

3. FUN FACT. 
The boy who played Young Simba's singing voice a la I Just Can't Wait To Be King? Jason Weaver. AKA Taj's brother Marcus from the show, "Smart Guy." You're welcome.

4. "Pinned ya AGIIIN." 

5. "The WATA-HOE? What's so great about tha' wata-hoe?!" ...Why is she ghetto...

6. "SARAAAHHHHHH-BI!"

Speaking of Sarabi, isn't she AWESOME?! You rarely see her really, but everytime you do, I looove her. She has that awesome regal, deep, slow voice. Speaking of: How on EARTH did Mufasa and Sarabi produce an offspring that sounds like Matthew Broderick? He should have gotten some kind of gene. I know, I took biology...

7. The Elephant in the Room: Mufasa seems to be the only male lion (not including Scar, what a joke of a lion). Wouldn't that make Simba and Nala?....

We'll leave it there.  

8. I remember the day I discovered Zazu was played by Mr. Bean. 
It was genuinely confusing because...well, Mr. Bean is an embarrassing, annoying moron and doesn't SPEAK.

9. Nala should be every girl and woman's role model. 
There's nothing really more to say. She's an awesome character and she's pretty. Except for she's a lion. But for some reason, you just know she's pretty. Plus, she was really frightening when she was hunting Pumbaa with those black gums of hers...

                                                     That's pretty terrifying. Girl power?

10. I'm so glad our moment of seeing Simba as an adolescent is about .5 seconds long. 
He looks weird and awkward. And weird. 

                              God, that makes me feel so uncomfortable. Uhhlllll....weeeeiiirdddd....

11. Jeremy Irons as Scar. That's all.

12. Elton John. 
Let me put it briefly. There's a reason he won Oscars for this. If you disagree, then you're stupid.

12. When I have a baby one day, I plan on rubbing fruit juice across his/her forehead and throwing dust in their face. 
Hopefully my future husband will have no problem with this. Although he may have a problem with allowing a baboon to hold our baby over a giant cliff in front of a mass of wild animals.

13. The last scene of the Lion King when Simba takes his place on Pride Rock? Could be one of the most epic moments in cinema history. 
Aside from...oh wait, nothing.

Don't remember? 

Goosebumps? I'm thinking yeeeah. 

There's so much else to say about The Lion King... So many great moments and memories...it's just so good.

I know Disney announced they wouldn't make anymore "fairytales" and while, yes I'm angry,  The Lion King isn't a fairytale. So, why don't they make more movies like The Lion King?... Talk amongst yo-selves.