In 1995, before the theatrical release of Tom and Huck (you know, the one with Johnathan Taylor Thomas, because that was a thing that existed), a new Lion King short premiered. It didn’t feature Simba, but instead involved breakout characters Timon and Pumbaa. And they sang a song. And that song was “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King.
It was kind of surreal. It made no sense. And it was pretty wonderful.
Basically, Timon sang to Pumbaa about how he wanted him to always stand by him, but every time he sang the fateful words “Stand by me,” something horrible would happen to Pumbaa. And by horrible I mean he’d get killed over and over again, but he survived, because he was a cartoon, an aspect that was also embraced in the equally strange TV series that aired at the time.
But I do love that this happened. I mean, somewhere during the 90’s, someone at Disney said, “Hey, how about we make a Timon and Pumbaa short for theaters?” And someone else said “Great, what’s it about?” And then somehow they decided it would be Timon singing a classic song as Pumbaa got endlessly tortured. And they made it!
Unfortunately, a theatrical version of this short has been incredibly hard to come by. Tom and Huck bombed, so most people saw the song on various Disney home video releases–most notably Disney Sing Along Songs: Topsy Turvey–which removed the opening and closing titles. This Russian version is the closest thing we have to how it played in theaters, as it has a title card in Russian and includes the English language end credits. For whatever reason, Disney has never released this short on DVD or Blu-ray in the states.
Have a great night, Avocados!