The Hakuna Matata stories are a collection of three-part tales based on the Disney film The Lion King. These stories were originally published in the children's magazine The Lion King: A Nature Fun and Learn Series, circulated from 1994 to 1997, and there are 32 stories in all spread over the 80 issues.
The stories are set during the time period in which Simba, following his self-imposed exile from the Pride Lands after the death of Mufasa, lives with Timon and Pumbaa in the jungle. Each three-part story follows the adventures of the trio as they explore their jungle home, encountering various new characters, locations and villains along the way. Other stories tell the backstories of existing characters, such as how Timon and Pumbaa met or what Nala was doing while Simba was away from Pride Rock.
Hakuna Matata provides examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Played for Laughs at the end of Snake Attack. Timon resolves never to play mean tricks on his friends again... but he might just have his fingers crossed behind his back when he says it.
- Ambiguous Time Period: There isn't much to go on when it comes to a timeline. Some stories feature Simba as a child, meaning they must happen shortly after he met Timon and Pumbaa, while others show him as an adult, meaning they take place prior to reuniting with Nala.
- Artistic Licence – Biology:
- A minor one in Pumbaa's New Friends - Pumbaa joins a family group of warthogs led by a female, who pass through the territory of a herd of adult warthogs lead by a large male. In reality, adult male warthogs are solitary, although adolescent males do form groups of their own.
- Blockhead has the pale color of a white rhinoceros, but the hooked beak-like lip of a black rhino instead of the wide, square mouth of the former.
- Cliffhanger: Due to the multi-part nature of the series, each chapter of the stories aside from the last one tends to end on one of these.
- Cruel Elephant: Harak from The Elephant's Graveyard, who is jealous of the attention his sister Belee receives from their mother and plots to get her killed.
- Did Not Think This Through: Snake Attack has Timon play a prank on his friends with a skull on a stick. Unfortunately, it works too well and he ends up separated from them - not a good thing when a hungry python is about.
- Swifty the cheetah challenges Simba to a race, with a cave as the finish line, even though a storm is brewing. When a lightning strike starts a wildfire, Swifty ends up trapped in a cave by the flames.
- Dumb Muscle: Blockhead the rhino is fierce but not too bright. Simba takes advantage of this by tricking him into headbutting his own reflection in a mirror-like rock.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: All Mud and Motor Mouth tells the history of how Timon and Pumbaa met. Hunt for Help details some of Nala's history under Scar's reign at Pride Rock.
- Honorable Elephant: Giganta the albino elephant from The Ghost Elephant. He safeguards a sanctuary for wild animals hidden behind sheer cliffs and ensures that no outside forces can endanger them. When the trio arrive at his sanctuary, Giganta saves Pumbaa from jumping into quicksand and allows the trio to stay awhile.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Many of the villains faced in the stories face some kind of direct punishment for their actions:
- Snarl from Timon in Trouble refuses to give up the hunt for Timon, despite a rockslide that claimed some members of his pack having happened moments ago. Shortly after, a massive boulder is dislodged by his efforts to catch the meerkat, rolling over and crushing him to death.
- Growler from Pumbaa's New Friends tries to get Pumbaa killed by the adult warthogs so that his mother will pay attention to him again. When his plan is exposed, his mother is furious with him and banishes him from the sounder - not the attention he was hoping for.
- Blockhead the rhino is tricked into headbutting a reflective rock he mistakes for another rhino. Thinking he has been defeated by a rival, he leaves the watering hole in shame, letting the other animals drink in peace.
- Messy Pig: Pumbaa has an obsession with wallowing in mud in these stories - the smellier, the better. It's what got him kicked out of his old sounder.
- Rhino Rampage: Blockhead, from the story of the same name, is a territorial brute of a rhinoceros who charges anyone who tries to drink from his watering hole. Thankfully, it's difficult for him to stop once he gets going, which Pumbaa and Simba take advantage of.
- Shown Their Work: Pumbaa's New Friends shows that warthogs live in family groups lead by adult females. The second chapter also demonstrates that they will eat anything, including small mammals and carrion. Pumbaa, however, is no good at hunting, and the idea of eating dead meat grosses him out.
- In Staying Alive, Timon warns Simba that hippos are powerful animals and are not to be messed with. The hippos that Simba meets are friendly enough to him, but soon prove this point when they fend off an entire float of crocodiles - real life hippos have been known to kill crocs.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Swallow-Whole, the villain of Snake Attack, is a thoroughly unpleasant python who seeks to make a meal of Simba, Timon and Pumbaa.
- To Win Without Fighting: Pumbaa finds himself corned by a herd of angry warthogs who think he's planning to take their territory. But by being his usual cheerful and jokey self, he manages to de-escalate the situation and convince the other hogs he means no harm.
- Villainous Glutton: Many of the foes encountered by the trio are predators trying to make a meal out of them. Swallow-Whole the python is the most prominent example, as he plans to devour all three of our heroes.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Simba is shown to have a deep-rooted fear of wildebeest in Staying Alive, freezing in terror whenever he sees them. Given that he was almost trampled to death by a whole stampede of them and then had to witness his father dying to that same stampede, it's to be expected.
