The Lion King Needs More Meerkats
The Lion King is still #1 after another huge weekend, but there is one thing wrong with the movie. Meerkats are funny, but they belong in pairs!
On vacation last week I took a long road trip through six states and saw plenty of sites, and one of my stops took me to the zoo in Pueblo, Colorado. The kids and I saw zebras, lions, snakes, and penguins, but the coolest exhibit might have been the meerkats. They seemed the happiest! The Pueblo Zoo had an entire community of playful meerkats frolicking around, and anytime there was a noise they didn't recognize or something that startled them, the meerkats would stand up at attention and cock their heads and listen until the danger passed. They're small and a little goofy, but they have some fierce guard animal skills that they didn't hesitate to show off at the zoo. And also in real life, they seemed a lot braver than Timon did in The Lion King. Disney could probably make a whole movie on meerkats. Maybe that's next.
Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog are great friends in The Lion King and they're good for some comedic relief too, at times stealing the show. Forbes says The Lion King earned $75.5 million in its second domestic weekend and it's still number one. It's got a $350.8 million ten-day total so it's doing okay with just one meerkat.
If you want to go check out these fascinating creatures for yourself, the Dallas Zoo has some meerkats on display that are a little closer to home. They can live for up to twenty years in captivity, so we've got plenty of time to check them out.
And maybe Disney will get to work on meerkat movie too. I'm sure the meerkats will be alert and waiting for that one.