Simba Henn animated the character's first appearance as an adult that occurs near the end of the "Hakuna Matata" musical number. Released in theaters in 1994, "The Lion King" marks Simba's first appearance. All the animals in the Pride Lands gather at the foot of Pride Rock to commemorate the birth of Simba, who will eventually succeed to the throne and take his father Mufasa's place as king. Furious by the fact that he is no longer next in line, Simba's jealous uncle Scar refuses to attend the ceremony. While Simba grows into a rambunctious lion cub who frequently boasts about
Simba more seasoned animators gravitated towards "Pocahontas" because "The Lion King "was deemed a "risk", while less experienced animators were assigned to work on "The Lion King". Co-director Rob Minkoff received this positively, saying that this decision "gave a lot of newer animators a chance to step up to leadership roles." The role of animating Simba was divided between Ruben A. Aquino and Mark Henn, the former of whom was the first animator to be assigned to the project. While Henn served as the supervising animator of Simba as a cub, credited as Young Simba, Aquino was placed in charge of