The Lion Guard: Timon and Pumbaa’s Christmas

[Elton John]

what

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/p ... ans/169734

briefly mentioned near the end.

pardon my ignorance but is Christmas widely celebrated in Africa?

[escobea1]

I don't know but I am excited to see these two get a Christmas Special again.

[Panpardus]

I actually saw that today in passing and wanted to hold off on Christmas stuff for another couple weeks, but oh well.

In short, ew.

Christmas has been celebrated in various regions of Africa for centuries depending on the religious demographics - northern Africa has the oldest traditions, being closer to the Middle East - and the further south you go, such celebrations are usually increasingly combined with traditional ideologies and customs to try and give everyone a reason to join the festivities since to many regions it's a relatively recent cultural colonial artifact, and for this reason it just seems weird introducing it into the Lion King universe. (Why would sub-Saharan African animals be celebrating Jesus...?) Like, there's caroling, lights, and even Christmas trees and Santa Claus - from what I've seen and heard, nowadays it's usually a 50/50 toss whether he's depicted as white or black, but he's historically the former - but most of those elements we'd recognize as Christmas-related are fairly new diffusions into African cultures with the advent of radios and TVs.

You can't really do a Northern Hemisphere-styled Christmas because obviously it doesn't snow in most parts of the continent, and for most of those regions it's usually early to mid-summertime when the season comes around, so the winter aesthetic that we're used to seeing is gone. (They managed to get away with a December winter theme last year with "The Lost Gorillas", but I'm not too keen on seeing those characters again.) So far the show has done a good job with having holiday-themed episodes that don't blatantly reference an actual human holiday - especially those that aren't actually celebrated in Africa, like the two Halloween-ish episodes we've gotten - but something with a title that explicitly mentions Christmas...? Unless it's one of those holiday specials that happens outside of the actual series' canon, I can't see this working well, or at least not in a way that I won't find cringe-worthy.

[Elton John]

my guess is that

1: It’ll be the secular parts of christmas

2: They chose timon and pumbaa as stars because they’re known for breaking the fourth wall? I guess? remember how timon knew the lyrics to ‘in the jungle’ ? they knew what dressing in drag in spite of there being no traditional clothing in the franchise. Not to mention the whole luau scene! they knew about hawaiian traditions.

[Panpardus]

Having Timon and Pumbaa for it makes sense, but those are mostly just gags in the movies; having a whole episode about an out-of-place element is a bit different, especially if it ends up being set within the actual Lion King/Guard continuity.

Obviously they can't (or at least shouldn't) get into the real-world religious aspects, but if they're going to focus on the secular aspects of Christmas, then I don't really see a need to explicitly call it Christmas. Why not just make an original Pride Lands holiday that involves gift giving and give it its own mythology? It just seems odd to me if they're not going in that direction.

[Kallo]

The episode's plot itself won't necessarily have anything to do with Christmas, despite it being in the title. Even if it does, it will very likely have nothing to do with the religious aspect of Christmas. That time of the year has always been celebrated, long before Christmas. The show's writers have so far been quite respectful and seemingly interested towards African traditions. At least careful not to offend them, so I doubt they'd break that in any awful way.

Furthermore, I'm pretty sure it's meant to be a special Christmas episode anyway, not in continuity with the regular series. Just Timon & Pumbaa doing their own thing, with maybe cameos form the regular cast. So even if the plot does end up being literally about Christmas, I feel there won't be much damage done.

[Elton John]

My predictions for the lion guard christmas special.

1: Santa Claus crashes his sleigh in the pridelands. Timon and Pumbaa must hide his dead body so that the prideland animals don’t discover humanity.

2: Whoops its too late and now Christmas is cancelled forever unless Kion can use his lion magic to deliver all the presents of the world.

3: Fuli learns the true meaning of Christmas. Bunga learns about Jesus, and converts to Catholicism. Ono meets Yoko Ono, wife of former Beatle John Lennon. Beshte transforms into a giant robot warrior with a magic sword. Kion and Jasiri get married.

4: Music is all sung by William Shatner drunk on hard eggnog

[Kallo]

[quote]4: Music is all sung by William Shatner drunk on hard eggnog[/quote]

I'd prefer if we got Scar singing "Be Prepared for the Christmas of a lifetime, Be Prepared for sensational holidays!"

[SimbasGuard]

Much like Elton John has suggested, this special could involve Timon and Pumbaa (more likely Timon) embellishing certain facts. I think the episode will be in continuity, why else call it The Lion Guard: Timon and Pumbaa's Christmas. Instead of just Timon and Pumbaa's Christmas (it would still allow them to have the characters from The Lion Guard be in it). Essentially Timon and Pumbaa will get to give an episode of The Lion Guard the Lion King 1 1/2 treatment. In retaliation for The Lion Guard using the type of premise that The Lion King 1 1/2 should have used.

I agree with Panpardus that they won't do a straight up Christmas episode, just introduce some type of gift giving concept.

Now in the spirit of Elton John's plot predictions. I have some of my own.

#1. Kion will invite Fuli on an actual hunt with The Royal Family, followed by a zebra dinner.

#2. This episode will mark the last appearance of Thurston.

#4. Ono will fly above Kion and Fuli at just the right moment with some mistletoe.

#5. As a present to Kiara, Kion will have the rest of The Guard sneak Kovu into The Pride Lands for a visit.

#6. Ono will fly above Kovu And Kiara at just the right moment with some mistletoe.

#7. Vitani will sneak into The Pride Lands to find Kovu.

#8. Kion will negotiate a deal with Vitani so that she does not inform Zira about Kovu sneaking into The Pride Lands to see Kiara.

#9. Vitani will agree to keep her silence in exchange for Kion kissing her.

#10. Kion will kiss Vitani. (This will be a present for me )

#11. As a present to Kion, Fuli will not kill him for kissing Vitani.

#12. At the end of the episode it will be revealed to have been a story told in a flashback by Timon and Pumbaa. We will then see The Guard as Adults.

[Kallo]

[quote]I think the episode will be in continuity, why else call it The Lion Guard: Timon and Pumbaa's Christmas. Instead of just Timon and Pumbaa's Christmas (it would still allow them to have the characters from The Lion Guard be in it).[/quote]

Because they wanna make sure people KNOW it'll involve characters from The Lion Guard, and it's a good way to capitalise on the show's success. If it WAS in continuity, then why would it be especially titled "The Lion Guard: Timon and Pumbaa's Christmas", when it could be just another Lion Guard episode.

I think it's pointless to worry about it at this point, either way. We don't know how they'll handle it yet. If it IS in continuity and they royally screw it up, then we can complain. Though, personally, if that is the case I will rather just ignore it ever happened.