Timon and Pumbaa are an animated meerkat and warthog duo introduced in Disney's popular 1994 animated film The Lion King. Timon was portrayed through his many appearances by Nathan Lane (in all three films and early episodes of the show), Max Casella (the original actor in The Lion King Broadway musical), Kevin Schon (in certain episodes of the show), Quinton Flynn (in certain episodes of the show), Bruce Lanoil in the Wild About Safety shorts and Kingdom Hearts II, while Pumbaa is voiced by Ernie Sabella (in all of his animated speaking appearances), and was portrayed by Tom Alan Robbins in the original cast of the Broadway musical. Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella first came to audition for the roles of the hyenas, but when the producers saw how well they worked together they decided to cast them as Timon and Pumbaa. Lyricist Tim Rice however was pulling for Rik Mayall (for Timon) and Adrian Edmondson (for Pumbaa) to play the roles, as he got the idea for the lyrics to "Hakuna Matata" by watching their show Bottom.
The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa, often simply referred to as Timon & Pumbaa, is an animated television series created by The Walt Disney Company. It centers on Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog from Disney's 1994 film The Lion King, without most of the other characters in the franchise. The show ran for three seasons on CBS, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, and in syndication as apart of The Disney Afternoon. It aired from September 8, 1995 to September 24, 1999. It is also the first Lion King related media to show humans, as humans were not present in the movie. It the first of two television series to be based on the film, the second being The Lion Guard.
The show stars Timon, a meerkat, and Pumbaa, a warthog, both characters from the Disney animated film The Lion King and its sequels. Set after the events of the original film, the series involves the characters having misadventures in the jungle of Africa, as well as across the globe in various settings such as Canada, Britain, the United States and Spain.