Commentary by Alex Kupershmidt

(supervising animator)

Picture of Alex Kupershmidt

There was a performance of the actors who recorded the voices that really kinda nails down what the character will do in a scene.

Whoopies character (Shenzi) came on as somebody who's particularly scheming all the time. She's the leader of the gang and its true about actual hyenas, they're led usual by females - by what is known as an alpha-female. So, her character was always cool, always scheming, very rarely lost composering and so on.

Cheech's character (Banzai) was kinda of the opposite, you know, very volatile, sparely ever able to speak in whispers, very "on" all the time, "high pitch".

And Ed was sort of a comic relieve. I think that the directors always thought that Ed was a guy who knew the score, but pretended to be an idiot, so, you know, that's kinda how they treated him.

Download this audiocommentary (70sec mp3, 358kb)
early designs done by Alex Kupershmidt


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