I never realized what a closet Lion King fan I was until the amazing panel Lion King panel at D23Expo. I know what you are thinking, “how can someone be a closet fan of The Lion King?!” Somehow I have been all these years. Thanks to Disney for inviting me to attend the Disney D23Expo the love was reawakend there. I remember seeing The Lion King in theaters and again at school or at home. Then when Aramis was 3 I put him in tap and ballet (I did it for the coordination, ya’ll!) one of the songs they danced to was “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King.” I literally cannot hear that song without tearing up. I’m such a sap. So yeah, a fan from the get go, gets a “Hakuna Mata” wake up from Ernie Sabella at D23Expo.
What a great moment! One that I will never forget. As you can see the Lion King Panel was pretty awesome to have the voice of Pumbaa there. Let me tell you about the rest of the panel.
One of the interesting things we learned about during the panel, was that The Lion King was the movie that almost didn’t make it. If you know your Disney history, you know Disney only made one film at a time. Well the studio pushed its boundaries and at this time was (if I remember correctly) making three films during the time of The Lion King. In total the Disney classic made over $6 billion dollars. That’s so exciting for a movie that almost didn’t happen!
The Lion King panel was fantastic. I honestly didn’t know what to expect so to say it took my breath away a few times was an understatement. It all began with a little sing along with Executive Producer Don Hahn. Who doesn’t want to belt out, “Oh I just can’t wait to be king” with all their blogging friends?! It was fantastic!
We were also joined by Director Rob Minkoff we had a great more surprise guests join us for the panel. Here’s who came by..
- Animators- Tony Bancroft and Mark Henn
- Voices – Ernie Sabella “Pumbaa”, Jim Cummings “Ed”, Disney Legend Whoopie Goldberg “Shenzi”
I have to say, if Nathan Lane would have walked out on stage, I might have passed out. But this group of people provided such awesome insight to the film.
All of the stories they shared on how the film came together and awesome tidbits about the music were some of the things they talked about. Turns out, the first run of Elton John’s “Circle of Life” was not very good. Glad they recommended some edits! It’s a Disney song that will be sung for generations to come as well as the other songs in the film. Who’s ready to dance The Hula with Pumbaa?!!
Are you ready to watch it with your kids like I did? Great news!! The Lion King would be released from the vault in a Signature Collection Edition Blu-ray with fantastic bonus features! You will be amazed and fall in love all over again! It’s actually available TODAY via Digitial and you can grab it on Blu-ray on 8/29.
A little bit more you can expect from the Walt Disney Collection The Lion King Blu-ray Bonus Extras:
- Footage of The Recording Sessions
- Archival footage inside The Story Room
- An peek inside the creation of The Lion King villain, Scar
- Sing-along version of the movie
- & more!
As in any Disney fashion they had one more suprise for us. I mentioned the Circle of Life song earlier and I was brought to tears at the end of the panel because they totally brought the choir, dimmed the lights, had the dancers and the original singer Carmen Twilly, sang the song 23 years ago. It was truly incredible. Sharing the movie with you.
What an amazing panel at D23Expo! I love sharing these posts with you because I get to re-live it all over again. Listening to all the videos I took and looking at all the pictures too. I’ll have to make a point to share them from time to time. Gotta share the magic right?! I’ll be sharing one more post about The Lion King next week going over some of the bonus extras and hopefully a giveaway too!
