The Pitfalls of Misinterpretation

Let me tell you about the pitfalls of misinterpretation in which one for instance views something that is not bad as bad because they misinterpret it.  One contemporary example is some asinine drivel that is circulating on YouTube and the Internet touted by bizzarotards such as an amateur movie critic known as confusedmatthew and a commentator/reviewer/troll known as supergodzilla12 who adamantly believe that the characters of Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa in The Lion King are evil all because they grossly misinterpret the film and its characters due to obsessive nitpicking.  I ALWAYS knew that Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa in the movie The Lion King were good characters ever since 1994 the year the film was first released in theaters since it was so obvious!  Although I always knew that Timon and Pumbaa were good in The Lion King movie itself, there was once a dark period in my life in which I hated Timon and Pumbaa all because of something that I misinterpreted which is now my deepest childhood regret.  So this brings up my deepest fear about the false belief that Timon and Pumbaa are evil in The Lion King film, that it will infect me in such a way as to repeat a past obsession that I now deeply regret.  At least I never though Simba turned bad in any way, just thought that about Timon and Pumbaa.

Anti-Timon & Pumbaa Fanaticism (ATPF)

(August 26, 1995-August 1, 1997)

The true story of what happened to me when I got caught in the pitfalls of misinterpretation started in the morning of Saturday, August 26, 1995 when I was watching Saturday morning cartoons on CBS with some foster brothers.  During the commercial breaks, there were advertisements for a then brand new set of Saturday morning cartoons on CBS that premiered on Saturday, September 16 that year.  The two cartoons that stood out most in my mind were The Mask Animated Series which was a spin-off show of the 1994 live action release called The Mask and The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa Show.  I visually misinterpreted two clips of the Timon & Pumbaa Show; the first one having Pumbaa jumping off a wall screaming while the second clip had Timon standing on a panda bear's butt with the panda's head apparently in the ground screaming.  From this I thought that Timon and Pumbaa were going to pound the panda into the ground head first in an effort to suffocate the panda; in another words, I thought that they were killing the pandas and that they changed from being good to being bad.  This was a big issue for me because I already knew by then that pandas are an endangered species that is almost extinct.  Juleene Suzanne Brady Hebbler rightfully told me that Timon and Pumbaa were actually saving the pandas, but sadly I did not listen and instead started to hate Timon and Pumbaa and the Anti-Timon & Pumbaa Fanaticism (ATPF) began.  This panda misinterpretation that started ATPF was not nearly as bad as the asinine belief that I fear from the likes of confusedmatthew because of the circumstances that were required to make it possible.  People like confusedmatthew misinterpret Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa's characters while watching the entire film which blows me away.  The panda misinterpretation occured only because 1) I was watching a commercial (esp. for various cartoons) instead of an actual film or TV show and 2) I am more visual than auditory.  Had I watched the actual Timon & Pumbaa show and that actual episode featuring pandas; Don't Break The China, I would have known in advance that Timon and Pumbaa were saving the pandas and would not have gotten ATPF.

ATPF was in its prime during the 1995-96 school year when I attended Encanto Elementary School for the sixth grade.  When I was at Encanto during recess and PE when I was in the field, I saw what I at first thought were speedy caterpillars but later found out were small lizards that were difficult to catch.  From this, lizards became my favorite animals and I turned them against Timon and Pumbaa in my mind.  I also threatened to erase the Timon & Pumbaa Show by recording an astronomy program over it on occasion.  I also drew in ATPF, one of the most notable examples was when I was taking DARE class on how to say no to drugs.  I depicted meerkats like Timon as drug dealers offering drugs to lizards and the lizards saying no to the drugs.

Throughout the ATPF period, I did have an internal conflict since there were pockets of anti-ATPF resistance in me from a part of me that liked Timon and Pumbaa.  One proof of this was my dislike of hyenas that I still had at the time despite ATPF, which is ironic for reasons that I know so well.  One of the most depressing aspects of this chapter of my personal history is that ATPF happened to be at its strongest when one of my favorite childhood movies Toy Story first opened in theaters.

I tried to make a foster brother who was then half my age at the time feel bad for buying a Timon & Pumbaa's Wild Adventures tape called True Guts.  On occasion I did envision spacecraft such as the USS Voyager from a then brand new TV series called Star Trek Voyager being used against Timon and Pumbaa.  There was an unhealthy friendship between me and some teenage African-American girls who got off on and fed ATPF.  Juleene and Bob Hebbler told me many times in late 1995 and throughout 1996 that my hatred of Timon and Pumbaa was all because of something that I misinterpreted but I did not listen.  When my class was broken up into different groups for group projects on terrariums on various habitats on Earth, I wanted to be in a group either working on the rain forest or the ocean.  I ended up in a group working on the Savannah and got upset because I feared being associated with Timon and Puumbaa.

I also got all upset when I found that there were Timon & Pumbaa comic pages in the Comic Zone of a Disney's Adventures book on James And The Giant Peach and misinterpreted how Timon and Pumbaa were acting towards the other animals which obviously stemmed from the aforementioned panda misinterpretation that started it all.  Juleene rightfully explained it, but I did not listen.  When I bought my own copy, I sought to have the Timon & Pumbaa pages torn out and on my sixth anniversary of moving in with the Hebblers on May 25, 1996, through an episode, someone did as I wanted with those pages that I hated.  I was also up in arms when Burger King was selling Timon & Pumbaa toys in their Kid's meals.  I had some awful episodes during ATPF, some of the ATPF-theme fits were physical.  By 1996, Komoto Dragons became my favorite animals.

With my Star Wars phase that began by the second quarter of 1996, the edge was taken off of ATPF as to why the ATPF-related incidents I would create would not be as bad as in late 1995 or early 1996 and be shorter lived.  However, I had a few nitpicks regarding the Star Wars Trilogy that I suppressed my feelings towards.  In November 1996, the movie Star Trek: First Contact first opened in theaters and was not allowed to see it on opening day for some fit that I had.  After some pep talk with a friend, I did get to see Star Trek: First Contact in a theater in College Grove that has long since been torn down on December 26, 1996.  When I saw First Contact in theaters, the Star Wars phase was over and I declared the then brand new Enterprise-E as my favorite starship and First Contact as my favorite movie that I like much better than any Star Wars movie.  As a result, ATPF began to lose momentum at a progressively accelerated rate.

In mid January 1997 when I was in the drive-thru of what was at the time a Taco Bell; I heard on short notice that the Star Wars Trilogy was being brought back to the big screen, and I blew up in a fit that I call the "Theater Episode" and started to hate Star Wars for the first time.  The Theater Episode sealed the fate of any pre-existing obsessions that I had of being against certain things including ATPF.  As a result, I only performed a few ATPF-related acts with only one of them resulting in an episode.  Due to comprehension issues that I had throughout the 1990s, the only thing that could possibly beat ATPF at the time was in imperfect solution that I hatched in the evening of Friday, August 1, 1997 which was inspired by a classic known as The Wizard of Oz.  I came up with the scenario that the only reason that Timon and Pumbaa would kill the pandas is because some wicked witch cast a bad spell on them to make them do it.  Then I envisioned two lizards taking a two week round trip, with one week for one-way, to melt the witch with water and break the spell.  This solution worked beautifully and I finally defeated ATPF over 706 days after it started.  I was excited and celebrating throughout the month of August 1997 my victory over ATPF.  I finally realized that Timon and Pumbaa were saving the pandas as early as late 1999 or as late as early 2001.  It was my Project Orion II concept that was born out of the end of a comprehension issue that I had about Project Orion that was key to me realizing that Timon and Pumbaa were saving the pandas without watching the aforementioned Don't Break The China.

My deepest fear about this dogmatic belief saying that Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa are evil in The Lion King is that it will reinfect me with the exact same type of misinterpretation-based hatred of Timon and Pumbaa that I now bitterly regret, even if those who tout the nonsense don't intend at all to do so.  On being against Timon and Pumbaa for me in particular: Been there; done that, it sucked!  If the first one sucked, why would I want the sequel?  And that is exactly why I ban that belief stating that Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa are evil in The Lion King from any Project Orion II-related activity because I am certainly not going to let it happen again.  SuperGodzilla12 and ConfusedMatthew are both shallow and very prejudice against the characters of Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa and that makes me furious since it is highly unfair.