rafiki is prodly a hybrid

in the old lionking (before special edition) ed banzai and shenzi are brown while the others are grey!! i thught it was wierd!!

I support the idea that they were colored grey and black because
they're supposed to be bad guys, as opposed to the more
colorfully-tinted good guys.

And about Rafiki: in an
official Disney book that I once owned, it was stated that Rafiki is
officially a baboon. He was just given a colorful face so that he
would appear more shamanistic.

maybe they made them darker to make them look more mean i mean like
take scar for example he is darker than all the other lions in the
lion king 1 and lions arn't usually have brown fur and black mane
..... just my opinion.

well the hyenas i would say are kind of a cameo, so they
didnt need to be purfect

well you can tell what animals they are and i'm sure little
kids are too bothered about what a hyena's colour is.
and besides, no one's done an article like this on the
lions and they're pretty different to the lions in the lion
king. the lions have reddish or bornw manes in the films but
in real life their manes are pretty similar to their fur
colour but with dark ends. and the difference between
colours of the male and female lions is differnet too. in
real life both male and female lions are a pale goldish
colour.
so reall, the animators probably wanted to
give their hyena characters a darker colour to go with their
dark and evil personalities.

Well actually they cannot make animated hyenas in movies
look like the real wild ones like Aniu_loup said.

yeah who really cares? i think because all of the "good
guys" were like a goldeny brown colour, and the bad dudes
have quite a bit of black on them hence them look darker and
more evil

Maybe it's 2 show that they r evil!

They look a very different color.There are a tan in the
picture but in animation there gray.

there are different kinds of hyenas

i have to agree with aniu loupe because its an animated
movie the animals dont have to be the same or have the same
design like in the wild because when your making a movie or
something its all about using your imagination.

Well if they had to color the hyenas and their was no brown
crayon maybe they had to use grey.Its just a point.

You can get grey hyenas in real life.

Its just an animated movie... Thanx fer pointing that out
though...

maybe its to show there on the bad side

ummm... maybe the hyenas are more black because they got burned. because you know how they were living in that volcano place where fire always spews up? maybe they all got burned once or twice by it. i don't know. that's just my opinion. or, maybe the disney animators wanted to make them black to make them look more evil since black is a symbolism of darkness. cause if they were brown like real life, they would look more cute and cuddly instead of mean and ugly. haha

I agree with the post above mine. It's not really a big issue...

its an animated film for children, it doesnt have to be exact. children liked it and so do i, it doesnt matter. so basically i agree with Aniu_loup.

He referred to himself as a baboon in TLK...hmm...maybe they thought children would be more familiar with baboons than mandrills.

i thought rafiki was a babopon too.

well at least we can tell they're hyenas by looking at them...i agree with Aniu_loup...but lexipooh10, i thought rafiki was a baboon??

I agree with Aniu_loup.For example: Rafiki shouldn't have a tail because he's a mandrill.

First of all it's an animated movie, so the designs do not need to be exactly the same as the real animals. And the hyenas weren't the only ones. All lions, Timon, Pumbaa, Rafiki and Zazu do NOT have the same colours as the real animals.