Baruch atah adonai elohainu meerkat ha'olam....

I found Gael Sweeney's entire ""What Do You Want Me to Do? Dress in Drag and Do the Hula?" Timon and Pumbaa's Alternative Lifestyle in The Lion King" article to be both fascinating and extremely well-supported. She had a ton of evidence to support a really valid point that I (being as oblivious as I am) had never thought of before. It makes total sense!!! In my defense, I never knew any background info on the Broadway actors who played Timon and Pumbaa, but this knowledge doesn't really surprise me. Finding out that they often improvise lines and record together made me smile. As amazing as Timon and Pumbaa's on-screen relationship is, it gets SO much greater when you learn a little bit more about the actual actors' relationship :')

Of course, I was especially amused by all the details pointing at Timon being Jewish. That thought had literally never crossed my mind, but now I feel so silly for never noticing it! I was weirdly really into The Lion King 1 1/2 as a kid, and the Jew references are SO blatant. I do remember Timon's mom calling him meshugener, and me thinking that that easily sounds like some Yiddush jargon my grandma would use, but essentially it all went over my head. It's quite interesting to see the 180˚ turn around from Walt's anti-semitism to a key character having a ton of Jewish traits. I LOLed at the Nathan Lane's quip that the Jew-hating Walt must be "spinning around in a refrigerator somewhere". RIP, Uncle Walt (except maybe 'RIP' is not the correct term, because who know's, right?)

I agree with Sweeney's totally valid point that a NY inspired, Gay-ish, Jewish-ish meerkat is just slightly out of place in the middle of Africa. Especially when Timon's personality is compared with those of the rest of the jungle-like characters. But then again, we can't forget that this is an animated Disney film. Realistic isn't the name of the game. If you need some reminding of that, just check out 2:18 in the "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" music video where Zazu is literally holding up 340859234059 lbs. of animals. Damn, Zazu must be going hard at the gym to have guns like those.