Trivia / The Lion King II: Simba's Pride

• Blooper:
  • When Nala attacks Vitani, she's supposed to be saying "Vitani". The problem is that it sounds more like "Vitalani" or "Vitelleni" than "Vitani".
  • In the scene where Simba and Nala meet at night, for a brief second when Nala's about to sit down, it looks more like she's about to take a crap while her husband watches◊.
• Character Outlives Actor: Madge Sinclair, who played Sarabi in the original film, died a year after it came out. This is why Sarabi does not explicitly appear in the movie.
• Deleted Scene:
  • In a scrapped scene, young Kovu was shown playing with a bug, and was scolded by his mother Zira for letting it go rather than killing it when he was finished playing with it.
  • Originally, when Nuka died, his last words were not "I'm sorry mother, I tried", but "I'm sorry mother, I tried. Well, I finally got your attention, didn't I?" This extended scene was not included in the final release because the executives feared that this would give the children a wrong idea about pleasing their parents by doing dangerous things. Interestingly enough, his final groan sounds like a remnant of the idea as it comes off as "Didn't I" rather than a final gasp.
  • Zira was going to refuse Kiara's help at the climax with a Big "NEVER!" and commit suicide, but this was cut out for being too dark. It's left ambiguous in the final product and some the animation was still used, including Zira smiling while falling to her death.
• Executive Meddling: A good version in this case. The original plan was for Kovu to be Scar's son, but Disney relentlessly hammered the filmmakers on how this would have created an incestuous relationship with Kiara, so it was changed with Kovu being Scar's adoptive son.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's sold a series of stuffed animals in their Happy Meals. These consisted of Simba, Kiara, Kovu, Zira, Zazu, Timon, Pumbaa, and Rafiki. They recieved slighty different designs in Europe.
• Non-Singing Voice:
  • Liz Callaway sings for Neve Campbell. Oddly enough, if one watches a couple of episodes from Party of Five, Neve Campbell's singing is actually quite decent.
  • The Lion King series in general has had a habit of dubbing singing voices despite the actor being a decent singer. Both films did this to Matthew Broderick despite him being a Tony Award-winning actor in several Broadway Musicals and did this to Lacey Chabert, who voiced the younger Vitani despite the fact that Chabert has a good enough voice that she has been called in to dub other voice actor's singing voices (such as dubbing Kirsten Dunst as Young Anastasia, despite Dunst herself also having a pretty decent voice).
  • In the Finnish dub, Zira's actress Ulla Tapaninen doesn't sing "My Lullaby". The change is quite noticeable, as Ulla's voice is quite a bit raspier and she isn't replaced until Zira walks away from Kovu.
• The Original Darrin:
  • Matthew Broderick reprises his role of Simba after Cam Clarke voiced him in Timon & Pumbaa, though Clarke provided Simba's singing voice in "We Are One".
  • Nathan Lane reprises his role as Timon after being replaced partway through Timon and Pumbaa's first season, first by Quinton Flynn, then by Kevin Schon.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Due to contractual obligations and scheduling conflicts with Bean, Rowan Atkinson was unable to reprise his role as Zazu in this film. Edward Hibbert filled in for Atkinson instead, just like Michael Gough did on Timon & Pumbaa.
  • Jim Cummings replaces Jeremy Irons as Scar in the nightmare sequence of the film, due to the latter's scheduling conflicts with Lolita and The Man in the Iron Mask.
  • Cam Clarke provides Simba's singing voice instead of Joseph Williams. Williams would return for the computer game Lion King II: Simba's Pride: Active Play
• Playing Against Type:
  • A lesser example for English viewers; it's pretty unnerving to hear Matthew Broderick sentencing banishment. His tone during that scene is almost terrifying. Who would've known?
    Simba: When you first came here, you asked for judgement, and I pass it now....EXILE!!
  • In the Japanese dub, Nuka is voiced by Yuji Machi, aka the voice of Ultraman Tiga. Also he's known by some non-Japanese viewers for playing himself in Seiyu's Life!
  • The same goes in the Latin American Spanish dub with the same character, as his voice actor (Sergio Bonilla) is very well known for voicing heroic roles, like Trunks.
  • In the Finnish dub, Zira's speaking voice is provided by Ulla Tapaninen, whose most famous role in 1998 was the soft-spoken, motherly Moominmamma in the '90s Moomin anime. Fortunately, this only makes Zira even creepier, because the voice is just close enough to Moominmamma to be creepy. Curiously, Ulla also voiced Sarabi in the original Lion King.
• Real-Life Relative: Eduardo Tejedo and Ricardo Tejedo, who respectively voiced Zazu and Kovu in the Latin American Spanish dub, are father and son.
• Technology Marches On: Timon's line "Somebody's gotta get a beeper for this kid!" references the beeper's height in popularity in the late 90s. Beepers fell largely out of use in the Turn of the Millennium.
• Those Two Actors: Adult Kiara's Neve Campbell and cub Vitani's Lacey Chabert had played sisters in Party of Five.
• Uncredited Role: As is the norm for Disney, this happens a fair bit.
  • The singing voices of the characters are not mentioned at all. They are named in the liner notes on the soundtrack, though.
  • Jennifer Lien, who voices the adult Vitani, is completely uncredited.
• Unspecified Role Credit: The cub voices of Kiara, Kovu and Vitani — Michelle Horn, Ryan O'Donohue and Lacey Chabert, respectively — along with Zazu's voice actor Edward Hibbert are credited under additional voices.
• What Could Have Been:
  • As mentioned above, Kovu was intended to be the son of Scar, sent in to woo Simba’s daughter. Then-Disney CEO Micheal Eisner called for an overhaul of the film’s writing as this would have made them cousins.
  • In the earliest iterations of the sequel, the villain wasn’t Zira, nor was it a pride of lions, but a rouge elephant known as Brutus. After unintentionally putting Simba’s daughter in harm’s way, Simba himself would’ve humiliated the rouge as a youngling resulting in a chip on the elephant’s shoulder. Brutus would’ve been the second in command of a gang of animals lead by Scar’s son Kovu, much to the elephant’s disgust. In an attempt to claim the Pride Lands for his own, Brutus would’ve sought out Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed’s clan in the Elephant Graveyard to help him use Kovu as a puppet ruler to take Simba’s kingdom.
    • Additionally, one of Brutus’s pawns would’ve been a suitor for Shani, selected by Simba, who viewed Kovu as a threat to his impending marriage to Shani and his spot as king
  • Zira's original name was Bianca, which means "White". Vitani's was changed because it sounded a little too close to a certain English expletive, and Zira's was most likely changed because it wasn't menacing enough and because it's an Italian name, not Swahili (not to mention that she would have shared her name with another Disney character).
  • Kiara's original name was Shani, then Aisha. In the early drafts where she was named Shani, she would’ve had a brother named Chaka, who was cut very early on in production. Rather Hilarious in Hindsight considering The Lion Guard, which introduced Kiara's younger brother Kion nearly twenty years later. Although Chaka would have been Shani's older brother; he, rather than she, was meant to have been the cub shown at the end of the first film.
  • Zazu was supposed to have a love interest named Binti of whom they would have reared eight (yes eight!) hornbill chicks together. The characters were scrapped, probably because it took away from Kovu and Kiara's plot. Jane Leeves was sent in to voice Binti before her character was put on the cutting board.
  • James Earl Jones recorded a scrapped piece of dialogue where Mufasa's spirit would've visited Simba in a dream sequence. Simba would have lamented Kovu’s relationship with his daughter, submitting defeat to Scar ‘beyond the grave, to which Mufasa would reply by saying "You have let your family break apart, and in doing so, you have broken the Circle of Life".
  • Zira and her followers were originally supposed to live in a giant crystal cave.
  • Nuka was originally portrayed as a deceptive and devious villain^note based on his facial expressionsand was a lot more groomed and healthier in earlier concept art. His intelligence gets downplayed and becomes more scruffy in later concepts until Nuka became the unkempt, stupid, comic relief villain in the final version.
  • When Kiara flees from Timon and Pumbaa during her first hunt, originally Timon complained, "Somebody's gotta tie a boomerang around her neck!"; in the final version, this was changed to "Somebody's gotta get a beeper for this kid!". However, Timon's mouth movements do not sync up with the final product.
  • The hyenas were originally going to team up with Zira (then named Bianca) in early drafts. Several alpha scripts depict Shenzi and Banzai singing “My Lullaby” to Kovu alongside Zira. Cheech Marin reportedly was set to reprise his role as Banzai. The hyenas ended up being replaced by the Outsiders due to the fact that they were the ones who killed Scar and it would not make sense for the hyenas to ally themselves with the supporter of the lion who betrayed them, nor for Bianca/Zira to ally herself with Scar's killers.
  • At one point when Kovu was still going to be Scar’s biological son, Zira/Bianca was going to be his aunt (either paternally or maternally) rather than his mother.
  • Vitani and Nuka were originally unrelated to Kovu in the early scripts. Nuka was an unrelated Outsider who Kovu admired in spite of the former’s jealousy against him, and Vitani was assigned to be Kovu’s bride, showing a strong sense of lust for the young lion.

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