The Lion King 1½
2004 animated film directed by Bradley Raymond
The Lion King 1+1⁄2 (known internationally as The Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata) is a 2004 American animated direct-to-video musical comedy film directed by Bradley Raymond and produced by Disneytoon Studios. The third Installment in the Lion King trilogy, the film is both a midquel and sidequel to The Lion King (1994), focusing on the supporting characters Timon and Pumbaa. A majority of the voice cast from the first film returns to reprise their roles, including Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella as the voices of Timon and Pumbaa, respectively. The film's structure is inspired by Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a tragicomedy that tells the story of Hamlet from the point of view of two minor characters. The Lion King 1+1⁄2 was released by Walt Disney Home Entertainment on February 10, 2004 and received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot
In a home theater (a parody of Mystery Science Theater 3000) Timon and Pumbaa watch the opening act of the first film until Timon fast forwards to the Hakuna Matata scene where they appear. However, Pumbaa rewinds the film to the beginning so as not to confuse the audience. Timon decides to tell the story about how he and Pumbaa met and learned Hakuna Matata, which Pumbaa agrees to. They rewind the film to back before the beginning as their own story begins.
The meerkat Timon lives in his colony on the outskirts of the Pride Lands with his Ma and Uncle Max but is an outcast to the meerkats.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q223217. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Lion King 1½” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.