Timon and Pumbaa step into their own with Virtual Safari, which is included in the new Lion King special edition DVD. All images © Disney. All rights reserved.

Timon and Pumbaa have come a long way since their Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-like turn in The Lion King. Early next year, the zany meerkat and warthog star in their own Disney DVD premiere, The Lion King 1-1/2, but in the meantime they host Virtual Safari, a fun and fitting set-top game on the new Lion King special edition DVD that’s a cross between the venerable Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones Disney theme park rides. With a simple flick of the remote, viewers can choose between the jeep and jungle cruiser options and take a wild ride with their nervous guides as they navigate through dangerous territory, while familiar images from the movie dart back and forth. You may think you’re in control of the direction, but Timon and Pumbaa are in the driver’s seat (with Ernie Sabella reprising the voice of Pumbaa and a Nathan Lane sound-alike voicing Timon).

Three Disney divisions worked together for the first time to create Virtual Safari.

Thus, Virtual Safari marks the first time that Buena Vista Home Entertainment has partnered so ambitiously with its colleagues at Disney Feature Animation and DisneyToon Studios to produce a virtual set-top game of this type. “Our quest was to expand the set top experience and, given that it was The Lion King, to try and do something that was a higher benchmark,” explains Andy Siditsky, sr vp worldwide creative services and DVD production. “We thought: wouldn’t it be cool to create a virtual tour through The Lion King experience. We started thinking about various theme park rides land Timon and Pumbaa were our natural hosts. That led to different ways of doing it and different pieces and wondering where would you go?

“We talked about a jeep tour and a boat tour and even a walking tour, but then it became too long. Working with re-recording mixer Terry Porter, we brainstormed [within our small group]. We worked very closely with the Feature Animation team in developing the animation and assets for this kind of experience. Honestly, we didn’t know if we could pull it off. This had never been done before. We went down to Walt Disney World and hung out on [The Jungle Cruise] and read some of the scripts and really used those as our guide. In fact, I had a script that Disneyland had issued a long time ago. By doing this experiment as we did and ending up where we did, it’s given us a whole new avenue to create these virtual safari type of experiences.”