Seems like Journey to the West is referenced and copied so much in Eastern cultures without any fear of it getting old or going stale.
Is there something similar for Westerners? Is there some Shakespearean story we keep re-imagining again and again without shame?
Evil Uncle who becomes king. Former King becomes a Ghost Dad after Hamlet/Simba goes crazy on drugs. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern (Timone and Pumba) jump in and provide 4th wall breaking commentary and comedy.
You seem to have missed quite a few references.
Ophelia doesn’t get driven suicidally insane in the lion king.
I’m not sure there being a couple funny guys is unique enough to count, comedic duos are a very standard setup and appear in totally different Shakespeare plays as well. Both center on royalty though, that’s true.
The ghost dad thing happens in completely different places in the story. Simba grows up in exile instead of being back from college at the beginning. The Ophelia thing. Everyone doesn’t die at the end in an accidentally comical pileup of errors. There’s no Fortinbras, but there is Rafiki. I can’t remember if there’s anything like the hyenas in Hamlet, but I kind of don’t think so. At best the uncle had a couple of henchmen.
If the meme was that they’re strikingly similar, I’d agree with that, but the meme is that it’s an exact ripoff.
Gravediggers at the Elephant Graveyard.
Eh, it’s a stretch. Maybe they included a bunch of bones thinking of hamlet, but they used them in a totally different way. IIRC that was another comical duo with little connection to the story, and then Hamlet shows up and makes it edgy.