Uncle Max

Uncle Max is one of the main protagonists in Disney's 2004 film The Lion King 1½, midquel to the 1994 film The Lion King. He is Timon's uncle, voiced by Jerry Stiller.

Physical Description
Uncle Max has scruffy gray fur on his head and fur that has presumably dulled tan from old age. He has dark circles around his eyes, darker grey stripes on his body, and bushy eyebrows. He is overall slender, although having a slightly pudgy tummy.

Personality
Max is flinchy, irritable, easy to disappoint, a stickler for the rules, and very pessimistic about life in general. He is especially against the concept of being eaten.

The Lion King 1½
Uncle Max is the uncle of Timon, and it is assumed that he is either the brother of Timon's Father or Ma. He lives in a colony of meerkats, far from the Pride Lands. In the film, Ma asks him where Timon is until the tunnel is collapsed by Timon's "handy work". Because Ma wants Timon to fit in with the meerkat colony, she requests of Uncle Max to assign Timon to lead the sentry duty. At first, he is very reluctant, but he ends up mentoring him. When Timon is caught off-guard singing " That's All I Need " while on sentry duty, he was nearly eaten by Shenzi, Banzai and Ed who infiltrated the colony, but he recovers.

Later on in the film, Rafiki tells Ma that Timon is "looking beyond what he sees" and he follows Ma as they go look for Timon. Near the climax, he is reunited with his nephew Timon and meets Pumbaa. Timon and Pumbaa make a plan with him and Ma to build a trap to keep the hyenas away from Simba.

Along with Ma, he builds a tunnel while Timon and Pumbaa stall the hyenas. The tunnel he builds with Ma initially fails leading to Timon to finish the tunnel which leads to the downfall of Scar and the hyenas. When Timon finishes the tunnel, he hugs Timon so hard that he feels nearly choked. Finally, he is present with Timon, Pumbaa, and Ma as they see Simba take back his throne.

Finally, he is seen demonstrating a pose in a session of tai-chi with other meerkats in the oasis, and when Pumbaa states he wants to watch the movie again, Max comments he has brought extra butter to go with his grubs.

Trivia

 * Originally, there was going be another meerkat in Max's place: Timon's father, but the character was deleted.
 * It is unclear whether Uncle Max is Ma's brother or not, but since Timon's father was deleted, it is much more likely that he is related to Ma.
 * Max is Timon's uncle, but refers to his nephew as "sonny boy" during the film.
 * There is another Disney character, Goofy's son, named Max, and another, Maximus, from Disney's Tangled.
 * Max could be short for, Maximilien, Maximiliano, Maxwell, Maximus, Maxim, Maximo, Maxfield, Maximino, Maximilian, Maxey, Maxie, or Maxa, all of which mean "the greatest" like Max.
 * Max has an uncanny resemblance to Iron Joe, and even gets a part of his tail fur bitten off early in the movie.
 * Ma also refers to Max as "Uncle," so Max could also be Ma's uncle and Timon's great-uncle.