Original airdate: September 15, 1995
Kenya Be My Friend?: Timon and Pumbaa fall out on Bestest Best Friend Day and resolve to find new friends, meeting each other's polar opposites in the process.
Rafiki Fables: Good Mousekeeping: Nobi the mouse, sick of being bullied, gets Rafiki to grant his wish to become bigger so he can earn respect.
Kenya Be My Friend? contains examples of:
- Awkward Poetry Reading: Timon forgets to buy Pumbaa something for the Bestest Best Friend Day, and one of his lame attempts at a last-minute gift is a "poem" he's just making up on the spot. Pumbaa notices that the poem doesn't even rhyme, which kicks off their argument.
- Butt Sticker: Pumbaa meets Monti after he accidentally sits on him.
- Convenience Store Gift Shopping: Pumbaa gets Timon a nice bug juicer to celebrate Bestest Best Friend Day, which Timon has forgotten about. He tries giving Pumbaa a bunch of random things from the savanna, like grass and a rotten log, but Pumbaa refuses to accept them because Timon has used all of them as emergency gifts before. In the episode's end, Timon decides to just gift his own bug juicer to Pumbaa instead, re-establishing their friendship.
- Feud Episode: Timon and Pumbaa fall out when it becomes clear that the former forgot about Bestest Best Friend Day and didn't get a present for the latter.
- Palette Swap: Monti is Timon with blonde hair and a red nose, while Bampuu is a blue-coloured Pumbaa with a brown mane.
- Rebound Best Friend: Monti is this for Pumbaa and Bampuu is this for Timon. However, it's all the ways that they don't act like their counterparts (Monti hates bugs and Bampuu blithely accepts whatever Timon says) that makes the duo realize how much they miss each other.
- Replacement Goldfish: Monti and Bampuu are this to Timon and Pumbaa respectively.
- Secret Handshake: Monti and Bampuu apparently have one of these, which consists of leaping and rolling around while spouting nonsense phrases.
Rafiki Fables: Good Mousekeeping contains examples of:
- An Aesop: Respect doesn't come from size or strength, but from within, i.e. you have to respect yourself before you can earn it from others.
- Be the Ball: The elephants' idea of fun is to play baseball... with Nobi as the ball.
- Big Damn Heroes; Rafiki jumps in just as the elephants are about to "play Tackleball" with the transformed Nobi and scares them off with his kung fu skills.
- Cruel Elephant: A trio of elephants bully Nobi, using him as a baseball at the start of the episode. When a transformed Nobi confronts them yet again, they simply poke fun at his appearance and decide to play tackleball instead.
- Didn't Think This Through: Nobi's wish is to become a larger, more impressive creature to earn respect from others, even though Rafiki warns him that it won't work out. True to Rafiki's warning, Nobi merely gets laughed at by the other animals for his strange appearance, and his efforts to force respect out of others start to turn him into an even bigger bully until Rafiki interferes. Worse, when the elephants who bullied him see him, they simply change their method of bullying rather than being intimidated.
- Dirty Coward: The elephants pick on Nobi specifically because he won't fight back. The moment they meet any kind of resistance (either Rafiki or a post-Character Development Nobi), they fold like lawn chairs.
- Elephants Are Scared of Mice: Inverted; It's Nobi who's scared of the elephants at first, who push him around due to his smaller size and unwillingness to fight back. Eventually downplayed when Nobi finally stands up for himself - the lead elephant leave him alone, but more out of annoyance that his target is fighting back.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Via Rafiki's wish, Nobi gains a long neck like a giraffe, a fish-like tail and bird wings.
- He Who Fights Monsters: In his bid to gain respect from other animals, Nobi starts to become just as big a bully as the elephants were to him. It takes a whack on the head from Rafiki to make him realise this.
- Loophole Abuse: Rafiki changes Nobi back via this. While he normally only grants one wish per animal, in this case he just takes back the wish Nobi made, so it doesn't count as granting another one.
- Took a Level in Badass: After spending the entire episode being insecure and trying to forcibly earn respect from others, Nobi finally learns to respect himself first and stands up to the elephants bullying him, giving a sharp "The Reason You Suck" Speech to tell the leader off.
