Like virtually all Disney classics of the 90s, “The Lion King” is full of hidden details. Press “pause” 1 hour and 14 minutes of the film, and you may be surprised!
Is this a conscious and calculated reference to another famous feature film from Disney studios? Or a simple anomaly in the animation, which some have mistaken for an easter egg? Still, at the end of The Lion King, a strange silhouette has always fascinated fans of the film…
It is in the last part of the feature film that you will have to look to locate it: at 1 hour, 14 minutes and 25 seconds of film exactly.
Just before the final battle breaks out, when Simba has just made his grand return to the Land of the Lions and receives an icy welcome from his uncle Scar, we can observe the hordes of hyenas, ready to go to the ‘stock.
However, in the background, one of the distant shadows that we can see does not look like the others at all. Indeed, instead of a hyena, the silhouette seems to represent… a dog. And not just any! It is in all likelihood the Scottish terrier Jock, from Lady and the Tramp.
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Did the animators of the film deliberately choose to give him a small cameo in The Lion King, almost 40 years after his role in the 1955 Disney classic? If so, how is it that a friendly doggie from New England suddenly found himself propelled into the middle of the African savannah?
To answer this improbable question, let’s simply point out that in the long history of Disney easter eggs, not everything is always very logical. In addition to Jock among the hyenas in The Lion King, we can also find Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Kermit under the ocean, at the start of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin’s carpet in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or the skin of Scar in Hercules.
(Re)discover all the hidden details of the film…