The International Implications of The Lion King
rewatched The Lion King (my all time fav movie as a kid) with my baby cousin and took a note of things the Lion King characters are aware of despite being animals:
Zazu knows about fur rugs and Mufasa calls him out on it lol
Nala and Simba know about Dodos, an extinct species not native to Africa
Zazu is aware of the continent of Africa
The hyenas are aware of sandwiches, "ordering" food, and "to go" food
Timon quotes Shakespeare (fun, because of the Hamlet influence of the Lion King)
Timon knows the taste of chicken ("tastes like chicken!"). He either knows of the human phrase "tastes like chicken" or he himself has consumed a chicken.
Pumba correctly theorizes that stars are balls of gas burning billions of miles away (I always loved this joke once I was old enough to get it as a kid)
Zazu and by extension Scar know about Disneyland/world. Specifically "It's a Small World After All". Similarly Zazu sings "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen", and "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".
The hyenas know Spanish "¿Qué pasa?".
Timon knows about Hawai'i and Hawaiian culture, as well as appropriating it.
Timon knows drag. Nathan Lane showed his hand and I'm so glad for it because can you imagine cartoons nowadays getting away with that.
Timon calls Pumba "porky" and later "bacon".
Scar quotes Ruth Hubbard's 1988 essay Science, Facts and Feminism ("truth is in the eye of the beholder" which is a spinoff of the quote "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" from Margaret Wolfe Hungerford's 1878 novel Molly Baun.)
Rafiki knows martial arts specifically Bruce Lee's style. He knows meditation too, but I'm willing to believe mandrills meditate, since he's shamanistic by character. I won't explain further.