I had a revelatory moment this afternoon, one of those moments where you go "oh, that's what it means". Not quite an epiphany, but probably as close as I'm going to get trawling the internet on a Tuesday at 3pm. But before revealing the revelation, some historical context is needed
Let me set the scene for you: it's a winter's Sunday evening, everyone's one tucked underneath their duvets and sitting on their comfy couches at home, the thought of leaving the house doesn't cross anyone's mind. It's 6 o'clock and 'The Simpsons' comes on TV, it's an episode I've seen about 100 times in which Lisa's musical mentor Bleeding Gums Murphy dies. To honour her idol, Lisa plays his only record at the local radio station whose weak frequency range is quadrupled by a lightning strike, sending the song across every radio station in Springfield simultaneously. Bleeding Gums suddenly makes a heavenly appearance in the clouds to give Lisa a final message, though he's rudely interrupted by Mufasa from the Lion King, Darth Vader, and James Earl Jones as the CNN announcer, all saying their respective popular lines of dialogue. When Mufasa appears, he says "You must avenge my death Kimba... I mean Simba". I never understood that joke and for whatever reason never bothered to look it up. Until today...
It turns out that 'Kimba the White Lion' is a 1960s anime series by Osamu Tezuka, heralded by many as the God of Manga and the Father of Anime. The story follows Kimba, a young cub born on a circus train whose father was killed by a hunter. His mother teaches him his father's ways and tells him he must return to the wild where he belongs. In his many adventures, he meets lots of animals as well as humans and discovers that all species must learn to coexist together for there to be peace in the world. If the story isn't exactly the same as 'The Lion King', many of the situations are very similar; I'd strongly suggest looking at this site which shows a close comparison of the characters and situations in both films whilst this site gives more of a historical background to the whole debate with many references suggesting that Disney intended to make a Kimba remake before turning it into "an original story". I mean, Jesus, the characters' names are practically the same! But Disney being Disney stick to their official line: it's just a coincidence. The Simpsons meanwhile, with its gluttonous love of pop-culture references, couldn't help but poke fun at the controversy at the time by including the joke in the aforementioned episode.
So there you have it. The joke finally made sense to me and I'm sure I've ruined The Lion King for any Disney fans who didn't know it was pure plagiarism. Everyone's a winner!
Reading this back, I'm starting to think the interest factor is on a very personal level and that many people didn't even know or care about that joke in the first place. More interesting is how I came across my discovery in the first place. I was doing some research for a couple of articles I'm writing for an online British film magazine called Film & Festivals. It's a magazine written by filmmakers for filmmakers, providing information about festivals all over the world even including entry deadlines; there are also interviews with industry personnel from all walks of life, showing the diversity that exists within the worldwide film industry. I got in contact with one of the writers in the hope to write some sort of contribution, most likely a film review, and by a stroke of luck I was contacted by the editor who told me the next issue would be focused on Latin American Cinema and that they needed someone to write previews for several Brazilian film festivals that are happening in the next months. I must've done something right in the past year to deserve this much luck. Or perhaps fortune favours the bearded.
To find out more about the magazine and read past issues, check out www.filmandfestivals.com
