Shenzi, Banzai and Ed: Lion King Hyenas at Disneyland Paris

Christmas Day 1994: Walt Disney World's Very Merry Christmas Parade provided my first glimpse of The Lion King's Hyena Furcharacters. It was to be my last glimpse for almost eight years. Quite by accident I stumbled upon a photograph late in 2002. The more I was able to find via the internet the more fascinated I became. Their rendering was so enormous, had taken so many anthropomorphic concessions; by all rights the effect should not work and yet it does brilliantly, the characterizations and fine details of these suits are among the best in the long history of Disney's Furcharacters.

But unlike Timon and Rafiki, the Hyenas were never put into a comparably frequent meet-and-greet rotation and as a consequence their visits are often shamefully all too rare. At the present their most reliable presence has been as part of Mickey's Boo-to-You Halloween Parade at Walt Disney World, but it is an atrocious inclusion to the parade. Their unit is sandwiched between two large floats and has no lighting save for the flashbulbs of tourist cameras. Videos from that parade posted on Youtube barely show the Hyenas; they are dark shapes ghostly moving through an otherwise 'dead zone' in the parade. I think that is a terrible choice because they have been and remain three of the most intriguing characters of the entire Disney troop.

In the winter of 2004, the Hyenas participated in Disneyland Paris' Lion King Carnival. This video comes from that carnival, one of those rare occasions when the Hyenas met park guests on a regular schedule. It portrays Shenzi, Banzai and Ed (with a cameo by Timon) interacting with park guests.

This video was recorded by Timduru and uploaded with permission from the Fursuit Archive. The original video can be found at http://fursuit.fr.timduru.org/view/FursuitVideo/Misc

My friend Alex saw the Hyenas chasing kids near Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom in early July 2008. If anybody has video of the Hyenas at a Disney theme park please post it as a response.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Lion
• King
• Hyenas
• Disneyland
• Paris
• Shenzi
• Banzai
• Ed
• Furcharacters
• Timon
• Rafiki

[nostalgiateenable]

Ed came on here and disliked this video 3 times.

[MChelada]

@nostalgiateenable Or perhaps it was Scar ;)

[mrclankdog]

i have seen the lion king in 3D

[MChelada]

@mrclankdog How did the Hyenas look?

[mrclankdog]

@MChelada wait are the hyenas still at disney land or have they gone

[MChelada]

@mrclankdog It seems that they are long gone, as no one has seen them in seven years.

[flippywolfie]

poor Ed being beating up by that brat

[WolvenClawPeacemaker]

Wow! They certainly know what their doing and do what they do well!

This would be an absolute dream job for me! Heh, although I can already tell the hyena costumes would have taken some getting used to.

[TheBigRedMario]

in my opinion, the ed costume looks even creepier then in the film 0_o

[mrclankdog]

@MChelada well they were good and it was amazing

[BrainyxBat]

@MChelada Yeah. What brats those kids were though.

[MChelada]

@BrainyxBat Yeah, but he looks like he can take care of himself.