# Things I just found out about The Lion King **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171 "2015-01-06T23:25:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/41 "2015-01-12T20:49:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Sherrerd** : > > A quick look at the character design for Kimba, and that for Simba, renders denials of influence rather implausible. Those character designs look about as different as it’s possible for two depictions of lion cubs to look. Going beyond the character designs, the only similarity between those two pictures is that they show a bunch of different animals standing next to each other. This is evidence for what, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/42 "2015-01-12T21:43:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Those character designs look about as different as it’s possible for two depictions of lion cubs to look. It’s subjective. Certainly Kimba was drawn more quickly (to suit the needs of television production, as opposed to a feature film). There are a lot of similarities (many of which have been detailed in this thread). Few would posit that Disney staffers rubbed their hands together gleefully and said ‘let’s rip off this Japanese show; we can get away with it!’…but at the same time it seems imprudent to claim that there was _no_ borrowing, conscious or subconscious. [![](https://i.imgur.com/AbZol.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/AbZol.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/43 "2015-01-13T00:31:09Z")
Because “heroic figure posing dramatically on a rock outcropping” and “hero dangling by his fingertips from the edge of a cliff” have never appeared in any other work prior to or since Kimba. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/44 "2015-01-13T01:42:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Because “heroic figure posing dramatically on a rock outcropping” and “hero dangling by his fingertips from the edge of a cliff” have never appeared in any other work prior to or since Kimba. If you take each similarity _one at a time_, of course you can say ‘this one element is in all sorts of stories, and therefore you’ve failed to support the argument for conscious-or-unconscious plagiarism.’ But it’s not just one element of similarity: it’s the list as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/45 "2015-01-13T04:03:59Z")
Yep: it’s a statistical exercise. Reject the null hypothesis, or not? Some say yes, and some say no. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/46 "2015-01-13T04:38:11Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > But it’s not just one element of similarity: it’s the list as a whole. Are you taking into account the much longer list of scenes which have no counterparts in the other 998 hours of Simba? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/47 "2015-01-13T04:38:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > They both have a wise baboon as a mentor, It isn’t just any baboon, either. They’re both Mandrills, a kind of baboon that’s only found in tropical rainforest in Central Africa and doesn’t occur in the same habitat as lions. If you were just going for a baboon that might be seen with lions you would pick the Yellow Baboon of East Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/48 "2015-01-13T05:23:19Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > It isn’t just any baboon, either. They’re both Mandrills, a kind of baboon that’s only found in tropical rainforest in Central Africa and doesn’t occur in the same habitat as lions. If you were just going for a baboon that might be seen with lions you would pick the Yellow Baboon of East Africa. Unless, for artistic reasons, you wanted the most colorful baboon. Neither would pass for a nature documentary. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/49 "2015-01-13T06:44:46Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Are you taking into account the much longer list of scenes which have no counterparts in the other 998 hours of Simba? If we’re looking for similarities between the Gospel of John and The Revelation, we usually don’t waste a lot of time noting how different Hemingway and Updike are. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/50 "2015-01-13T12:38:06Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If we’re looking for similarities between the Gospel of John and The Revelation, we usually don’t waste a lot of time noting how different Hemingway and Updike are. Are the three similar images from that link from a single episode of Simba? Or are they picked from multiple episodes? With the huge disparity in the amount of material I might be able to pick and choose images that match up as well. I’m serious about the question, as I have no idea of the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/51 "2015-01-13T14:22:29Z")
The overall percentage of matching scenes is irrelevant. Kimba came first and Disney had strong connections to the production. Twenty years later, most of the essential elements get recycled into one of their films… and they claim they and their animators never heard of this Kimba or Tezuka guy. Riiiiiggghhht. But stick a picture of Steamboat Willie on a button and see how good their memory gets. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/52 "2015-01-13T15:18:04Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Twenty years later, most of the essential elements get recycled into one of their films… and they claim they and their animators never heard of this Kimba or Tezuka guy. It’s certainly possible that they used scenes or images from Simba. But the idea that “most of the essential elements” is IMO unsupported. If all those elements came from a single episode of a Simba cartoon then it would be a slam dunk. But if they came from number of different ones, scattered among 500 available Simba episodes, and the images are common motifs, then I think the case is considerably less strong. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/53 "2015-01-13T15:26:13Z")
_shrug_. Okay. If it were anyone other than Disney, which has perhaps the highest level of interest in IP protection on the planet, I’d let it pass. They are good at upholding the standards most scrupulously when it’s their material; they have a history of being a little casual about “influences” from [del]weaker[/del] other artists. That they fail to even nod graciously towards what is an obvious influence, one they were connected to, is telling, on many levels. That they did not secure even those vague rights, for likely a token fee, is typical. (Remember that Ridley Scott bought the rights to an obscure novel named _Blade Runner_, which has absolutely no other connection to the film or the original PKD work or much of anything else, just to be sure he had proper rights to the title, which is not a copyrightable entity in the first place. Disney could learn something there, perhaps.) That they also have one of the largest and most aggressive phalanxes of IP lawyers probably had nothing to do with Tezuka et al. giving it a genial pass. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/54 "2015-01-13T15:58:34Z")
So, you expect Disney to never make any work that contains a lion, ever, because they were loosely connected once to a foreign show that starred a lion? Because that’s about the extent of the true similarities: Both star a lion. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/55 "2015-01-13T16:04:08Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Unless, for artistic reasons, you wanted the most colorful baboon. Perhaps, but none of the other animals are inappropriate for being shown in lion habitat. > [@Chronos](#): > > Because that’s about the extent of the true similarities: Both star a lion. This is incorrect, as already amply shown in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/56 "2015-01-13T16:13:45Z")
What’s been shown in this thread is that a tiny, tiny percentage of scenes from Kimba show a superficial similarity to a handful of scenes from _The Lion King_. This would be inevitable for any movie starring a lion. Hence, the true extent of the similarities is that both star a lion. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/57 "2015-01-13T17:41:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What’s been shown in this thread is that a tiny, tiny percentage of scenes from Kimba show a superficial similarity to a handful of scenes from _The Lion King_. This would be inevitable for any movie starring a lion. Hence, the true extent of the similarities is that both star a lion. It appears we must be reading different threads. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/58 "2015-01-13T19:08:13Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Disney had strong connections to the production. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/59 "2015-01-13T22:40:00Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Are the three similar images from that link from a single episode of Simba? Or are they picked from multiple episodes? With the huge disparity in the amount of material I might be able to pick and choose images that match up as well. I’m serious about the question, as I have no idea of the answer. Different episodes. Again, it’s a statistics question. How many similarities need there to be for you to reject the null hypothesis? My only point, now, at this point in this thread, is that it isn’t meaningful to look for other scenes that aren’t similar. In statistics, and science in general, you almost never argue for the null hypothesis. The NH is already granted. It’s the “law of the land” which you are trying to overturn. You want to know if a new medicine helps with headaches. You presume it doesn’t, and then see if you can accumulate enough evidence to overturn the presumption. You don’t get anywhere by amassing large tables of people who took the medicine but still had headaches: that’s already built in to the presumption. You look for people who took it and got better…and hope that this is a large enough number to be mathematically meaningful. Say you want to argue that “Forbidden Planet” is similar to “The Tempest.” It doesn’t help to look at all the ways in which they are different – a spaceship, a planet, an invisible monster that leaves deep footprints, a giant underground power station, Krell steel, and so on. Instead, you look at the similarities: the lonely guy with his daughter, his secret power, the menace, the people exiled, the love interest, etc. Are the similarities enough to overcome the null hypothesis? Most people say so. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171/60 "2015-01-14T06:53:52Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Kovu, from Lion King 2, who fell in love with Simba’s daughter, and betrayed his mother and their pride. > > I am not proud of knowing this, and blame my niece. Except they go out of their way to say he’s not actually Scar’s son, to avoid the squickiness of him marrying his grand-niece. And, **Chronos** , you’re supposed to be a scientist. Stop looking for ways you can be right and do a proper Bayesian analysis against the null hypothesis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-just-found-out-about-the-lion-king/709171.md?page=4)