Being a spin-off of The Lion King (1994) as well as a series made by Disney, it's not that surprising this show has its dark and scary moments.
- Timon nearly going to Hell, or "Heck", as it is called.
- In "Uganda be an Elephant" the scene where Ned and his hippo henchmen are about to plummet to their deaths. The scariest part is when the branch Ned was hanging on to ends up breaking when he grabs on to one of Pumbaa's tusks. Good thing Pumbaa was strong enough to drag Ned and the hippos back to the edge of the cliff, otherwise he would have fallen and died as well. The reaction Timon had when he saw this would be the exact same reaction one would likely have the first time they see this episode.
- *STINKBUG!!!!!!!*
- Zazu's numbers nightmare.
- Timon being followed in "Timon Alone".
- Smolder the Bear trying to break into the restaurant in "Dapper Duck Burgers".
- Smolder can be terrifying when he's angry in general. In "Don't Wake the Neighbear", he came so close to hurting Timon and Pumbaa due to them unintentionally disturbing his sleep. Also, in "Ready, Aim, Fire", he shows Timon and Pumbaa that he ate two children alive for lighting a fire, as he warns them that he'll do the same to them if they do what the kids did.
- Subverted with the hyenas, whose designs were said to be "horrifying" in an article, when they're actually far more likeable in the series.
- Timon has a nightmare in "Rocky Mountain Lie" where he is put on trial accused of lying to Pumbaa about the whereabouts of a rare bug (which he thinks he's eaten by accident). The judge and jury are made up of the bug he supposedly ate . He is found guilty almost instantly and sentenced to death by guillotine. As he pleads for his life, the blade is released resulting in a Gory Discretion Shot, with Timon's blood (colored black) splashing over the screen, waking him up.
- There was one Halloween episode where Timon and Pumbaa chase a bat (which Timon mistook for a moth) into a rather creepy haunted house. They both are welcomed by the Vampire Bat leader, who is just at terrifying as you'd expect. He seems nice at first glance, inviting them both to a dinner with him and giving them comfy beds to sleep on, until it's revealed he's actually planning on drinking their blood. After a series of convoluted events, Timon and Pumbaa manage to flee and escape the house at the end, it all seems nice until they start complaining about feeling very thirsty and with pain on the neck. Then, the camera pans away to reveal Timon and Pumbaa with bat wings flying away into the darkness as the scary Evil Laugh of the Vampire boss is heard in the background, and if it weren't for Negative Continuity, they'd be vampires.
- In fact, there are many episodes that end on a morbid Downer Ending due to the show's Negative Continuity. Imagine if you were a kid watching the show for the first time, and it's one of those episodes...
- In a hyena episode, the cheetahs successfully get them to leave the Pride Lands for an extended period of time, apparently several months. When we cut back to the cheetahs, they've become morbidly obese, apparently from eating countless animals uninterrupted. The hyenas return, unhappy they've been tricked, and the cheetahs try to flee, but have grown so fat that they can't run away, and get cornered. Banzai declares they're about to "chew the fat", and the cheetahs are too pathetically fat to get away. It's subverted when an actual goose appears, and everyone runs off to catch it, but the cheetahs were about to become a buffet themselves.
- In "Maine-Iacs", Timon and Pumbaa being stuck inside a cut down tree trunk with a saw blade coming towards them.
- In "Washington Applesauce", Timon and Pumbaa get Swallowed Whole by a worm that grew gigantic from eating apples. They then decide to escape by eating the worm from the inside out (and they gain Balloon Bellies as a result).
- The natives. While they are really university students looking for a job, the things they do are still pretty scary, such as kidnapping Pumbaa and almost eating him, attempting to throw Timon into the volcano, attempting to kill Pumbaa in order to remove his tusks, and throwing Timon and Pumbaa into a "bottomless pit" where it takes weeks to land.
- Pumbaa being so close to becoming someone's lunch in "Dealer's Choice Cut", and when Timon tries to rescue him, he keeps sticking to the rules he learned during the game of Poker.
- Timon is later seen crying Pumbaa's name while lying down as if he's having a nightmare about Farmer Joe's attempt to turn Pumbaa into someone's lunch ending in success. Seeing his friend having that kind of experience is probably the most traumatizing thing Timon has ever seen.
- The mummy beetle in "Guatemala Malarkey".
- Bahuka in "Oahu Wahoo". He is a powerful tiki statue who speaks telepathically so that only Timon can hear him. In addition to being overly demanding, he is quite deadly and vengeful, as he puts very little value on life. He will also threaten your life if you are to even question your obedience to him. When Timon throws Bahuka into the volcano, the statue wipes out the entire island, nearly killing Timon and Pumbaa.
- Ned's fate in "Unlucky in Lesotho". When he falls into a ravine from trying to escape the panther cub (as he believes it causes bad luck), he gets eaten by piranhas (or tigerfish). And we never see him again because of that. Pumbaa may as well have let him fall back in "Uganda Be An Elephant"!
- Little Jimmy. He may seem like a baby bluebird with a sweet, innocent voice, but he is actually dangerous and deadly.
- Simon from "Big Top Breakfast" gets hit with this. He is a young circus monkey who falls out of a plane (therefore getting separated from his father, who is unaware as he is taking a nap) and gets stranded in the Serengeti with three hungry hyenas trying to catch and eat him, with one moment where he nearly gets swallowed whole by Banzai, and if Shenzi didn't interfere, the young monkey would've been done for.
- While everything to do with Bruce the land crab in "Back Out in the Outback" is Played for Laughs, there’s something about his Blood Knight demeanour that can be uncomfortable to watch. The way he curb-stomps Timon over and over again, on top of seeming to enjoy the conflict a little too much, is unsettling.
- Pumbaa being crushed by a giant anchor in "Frantic Atlantic" due to Irwin's accident-prone nature. Considering that this particular moment is what Pumbaa remembers the most in "Shopping Mauled" whenever Timon reminds him of how clumsy Irwin is, this may have been a traumatic experience for Pumbaa.
Pumbaa: Gee, I've never been crushed by a big heavy anchor before. That hurts!
- Timon being cursed by gypsy moth Madame Credenza in "Beetle Romania". This results in Timon getting transformed into a beetle the next morning and getting eaten by his best friend, as he mistakes him for a real bug.
- "Ugly" Timon and Pumbaa's designs in "Monster Massachusetts".
- The Rabbit. Not that his personality is scary (at least not that much), but moreso his design. Just look at him.
- It gets even worse in "Africa Dabra", which is animated by a higher-tier studio that gives his face a lot more detail.
- It gets even worse in "Africa Dabra", which is animated by a higher-tier studio that gives his face a lot more detail.
