Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Little Mermaid"

As you know, The Little Mermaid is the film that pulled Disney out of its slump and got the Disney Renaissance up and running. The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Company helped as well, but The Little Mermaid - THAT was the film that really got theatrical animated movies seen as something worth doing again. If it weren't for The Little Mermaid, we might not have gotten The Lion King. Or Beauty and the Beast. Or Frozen, or Tangled, or maybe even Toy Story.

So let's go back in time to 1992. The Disney Renaissance is going on, Beauty and the Beast was successful, Aladdin is going to be released in November. Disney knows that people love The Little Mermaid, I'm sure Ariel dolls were still flying off the shelves. Surely there's a way to keep the movie's hype going. And Disney was just dipping its toes into making TV shows based on their animated films - The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and TaleSpin were both successful. So why NOT make a cartoon show starring Ariel?

And thus was created The Little Mermaid... the TV show. Premiering on CBS in September 1992, the series was a prequel to the movie, taking place before Ariel met Prince Eric (since, y'know, it wouldn't make sense to call the show The Little MERMAID if the main character had legs). Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Samuel E. Wright, and Kenneth Mars reprised their roles as Ariel, Ursula, Sebastian, and King Triton for the show. Flounder was now voiced by Edan Gross, then Bradley Pierce (who you might recall as the voice of Chip in Beauty and the Beast), and Scuttle was now voiced by Maurice LaMarche as opposed to Buddy Hackett. There were songs, there were bad guys for Ariel to fight, there were presumably also increased sales of Ariel dolls and Flounder plushies. They even had an episode where Ariel met Hans Christian Anderson, who for those unaware wrote the original Little Mermaid story. Neat, huh?

Three seasons, making for a total of thirty-one episodes, were produced of The Little Mermaid. Since its run on CBS, reruns have aired on Disney Channel, Toon Disney, and Disney Junior. A couple episodes were released on VHS and DVD, and now you can find the whole show, except the pilot movie for some reason, on Disney Plus. I've watched the show before - first via reruns (I recall my older sister loved The Little Mermaid at some point, it might have been her favorite Disney movie but don't quote me on that) then at some point in the 2010s I found episodes of the show on YouTube. From what I recall, it's a pretty good show. Since I'm probably going to be looking at all of these Disney shows adapted from their movies at some point on this blog (I already did Aladdin, 101 Dalmatians, and Hercules, you'll recall), I might as well give this show a review too. I'm tempted to do a review of the episode where Sebastian turns into a giant, or the one where Ariel encounters dinosaurs (this show could get pretty out there), but nah, I'll do the seventeenth episode, "Save the Whale", instead. This is The Little Mermaid!

First of all - no, this episode does not focus on Ariel becoming a member of Greenpeace or trying to prevent whales from beaching themselves. A shame, because the more we can do to spread awareness of whale conservation, the better. To learn more about saving the whales, visit this website.

The episode starts off with Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian on the surface of the water... which, as the movie establishes, is a big no-no for Ariel because her father does not want her to get caught by humans, lest she wind up served as an entree at a Red Lobster or mounted to a plaque on somebody's wall singing novelty songs (you're welcome for that mental image). But then a shark fin pops out of the water and comes their way!

Dah-dun, daaaaaaaah-dun, daaaaaaaaaaah-dun...

Oh, wait. It's not a shark fin. It's the fin of an orca. And not just ANY orca - Spot, the orca who Ariel met in the aforementioned pilot movie. One look at his Casper the Friendly Ghost-shaped head and his weird bulbous human-esque nose (which Flounder also has, have you ever noticed?) and Ariel is overjoyed.

Y'know what this reminds me of? Did anyone else have Brother Bear on DVD? I recall there was a game part of the bonus features where you could put together fossils, and then once the fossil was complete, the narrator would tell you about the animal that fossil came from accompanied by clips of a Disney production featuring that animal. One of those animals was an orca, and the clips you'd receive were of Spot from this show. If you also had that DVD and played that game, well, there's your daily dose of nostalgia for the day.

He reminds me of the octopus from that animated Titanic movie.

King Triton shows up, and he says that he hopes they don't have a repeat of the previous time Spot visited. Ariel assures him that this time, Spot will stay outside the palace. "Good. Better make it outside of Atlantica as well," King Triton suggests. Ariel asks why everyone is so afraid of orcas.

Well, Ariel, orcas might look cute - particularly when they have big round heads and bulbous human noses like Spot does - but they are carnivorous. They are sometimes referred to as "wolves of the sea" because they live and hunt together in pods (which is what a group of whales is called) much like a pack of wolves. Among the things an orca can and will eat include fish, walruses, seals, sea lions, penguins (as Happy Feet showed us), sea turtles, sharks, and even other kinds of whales, and the average-sized orca can eat about five hundred pounds of food a day. There. Now you can't say you've never learned anything from one of my reviews.

I don't think orcas eat human beings, but I imagine Ariel's being half-human half-fish makes things
a bit more complicated. Maybe he'd just eat her tailfin?

"I know Spot wouldn't hurt anyone. I'm just not sure Spot knows it," King Triton tells her. Ariel seems pretty sure, though, and starts teaching Spot how to do fancy leaping-out-of-the-water tricks. After this, Spot went on to star in Free Willy.

Boy, that's the chubbiest orca that I've ever seen. He should really lay off the walruses...

While leaping out of the water, Spot is spotted (see what I did there?) by two sailors, one of whom looks very much like Jasper from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. "Just what I've been looking for," the Jasper lookalike says. "Something to make Pettigrew's Penguin Park a real money-maker." Then he lets out an evil chortle, making it pretty clear who the episode's bad guy is going to be.

Dr. Doofenschmirtz, before he went crazy and devoted his life to fighting a platypus.

Ariel wants to introduce all of Atlantica to Spot, but King Triton isn't sure - most of Atlantica's residents are afraid of orcas (since most of Atlantica's residents are sea creatures, and orcas are also sea creatures, would this be considered some sort of underwater racism?). Ariel says that if everyone sees Spot perform tricks, they'll see that they have nothing to fear. "We'll do it out in the Shallows! Away from Atlantica!" she insists. "Oh, it'll be great!" King Triton agrees to let Ariel have her little undersea carnival, with Flounder as a shark-tamer and Sebastian as the ringmaster.

The carnival... well, technically it's more of a circus, but apparently the writers thought circuses and carnivals were the same thing... begins with a kickline of octopuses.

I wonder if they had any difficulty deciding which tentacle to kick.

A squid juggles sea urchins, Flounder attempts to tame a tiger shark (and fails at it), and Spot performs his leaping-out-of-the-water tricks. I'm trying so hard not to make another Free Willy reference... you know what, I'll make a reference to Moby Lick from Street Sharks instead. In hindsight, isn't it kind of funny that Moby was an orca and yet it was another character on that show, the whale shark mutant, who was named "Slammu"? Wouldn't it have made more sense to name the orca "Slammu"?

The Atlanticans like Spot - they really, really like Spot.

Hey, look, it's that fish from Pinocchio.

But then a b-b-b-b-BOAT shows up overhead. Sebastian tries to stop Spot from getting too close, but they both wind up getting caught. Ariel and Flounder swim off after the boat.

Is it just me, or does the water look really polluted?

The boat, of course, belongs to the Jasper lookalike, Pettigrew, and the other sailor, Tom... who is revealed to be Pettigrew's son. Pettigrew has a son? So somebody actually married this guy? Boy, and I thought Bluto having a wife was hard to wrap my head around...

They bring Spot (and Sebastian) to Pettigrew's Penguin Park, which is kind of like SeaWorld, except it's EEEEEEEEEE-VIL! They've also captured the penguins from Mary Poppins. Good to know they survived when the rain washed away that chalk drawing...

"I told you guys we should've stayed in the chalk drawing. But NOOOOOOOOOO... 'Let's take
a vacation,' you said. 'We could go to Denmark, I hear it's nice this time of year,' you said..."

"Look on the bright side, David. It could be worse."

"Yeah, we could be forced to appear in a direct-to-video sequel with a walrus who's just Pumbaa
from The Lion King in all but name and species."

"...how do you even know who Pumbaa is? This is 1992. The Lion King hasn't been released yet."

"I'm telling you, Tom, once we get this big fella trained, he'll make my penguin park a WHALE of a show!" Pettigrew declares. Tom thinks that Spot is too young to train, but Pettigrew claims that the younger a whale you capture and try to turn into the next Shamu is, the sooner they forget about the ocean and the sooner you get rich, rich, rich. It should be clear by now what Pettigrew's motivation is...

...aaaaaaaaaand now I wish they'd gotten Eric Idle to do this guy's voice. And given him a musical number.

He doesn't have that whip because he's a fan of Devo.

"Dad, don't you care about anything but making money?" Tom asks. "Of course I do! I care about PENGUINS!" Pettigrew insists. And speaking of penguins, they comfort Spot over the whole "stuck in an evil version of SeaWorld" thing. Isn't it kind of funny how in this show, the crabs and fish can talk, but the whales and penguins can't? Of course, in the movie there was a shark who didn't talk... I wonder why some sea animals are capable of speech but others don't seem to be.

Ariel and Flounder make it to Pettigrew's Penguin Park (I'm tempted to start calling it "PPP") by nightfall. Now they just have to figure out how to get by that big wooden fence... the obvious answer is "just swim under it", but for some reason they don't think of that. Maybe it's because they're too distracted by the fireworks...

Wow, Ariel, that's quite a sunburn you've got there. Even mermaids have to use sunscreen,
ya know.

Fortunately, the gate opens up so a boat full of people can enter the park, allowing Ariel and Flounder to swim inside.

Which is good, because apparently swimming under the gate isn't an option after all...

Pettigrew puts on his show, forcing the penguins to do tricks for a cheering crowd. Ariel finds a glum-looking Spot. Where's Sebastian? Pettigrew decided to make him part of the show as well - as Crabby, the ever-so-creatively-named Tap-Dancing Crustacean. Don't worry, Sebastian, this ISN'T the most humiliating moment of your life. You still have two lousy direct-to-video sequels to appear in.

Sebastian's Michigan J. Frog impression is always a crowd pleaser.

Then it's Spot - or, as Pettigrew calls him, "Gargantua" - to perform. Sebastian is horrified to discover that Ariel and Flounder are there, presumably because he believes that if Pettigrew sees them he'll force THEM to be in the show as well. Or maybe he'll sell Ariel off to a circus sideshow or something.

Fortunately, seeing Tom turn the wheel that opens and closes the door to Spot's corral gives Ariel an idea. They'll wait until they open the gate to let the boats out, then Ariel will somehow get the door to Spot's corral open, then Spot - with Sebastian sitting on his back - will make a swim for it, with Ariel and Flounder right behind him. It all goes off without a hitch, but wouldn't you know it, Pettigrew sees this going on and he's all "THE WHALE, IT IS GETTING AWAY!"

"AND HE'S GOT MAH DENTURES!"

And on top of that, Spot can't bear to just leave those poor penguins behind. Fortunately, Tom decides to let the penguins go.

"So long, Pettigrew! We're going back to our chalk drawing!"

But Pettigrew decides to actually do something instead of just standing there looking agitated in his purple suit and closes the gate. Gee, I wonder if Spot will use one of his leaping-out-of-the-water tricks to just jump over the gate... yep, that's exactly what he does. I don't know if an orca can actually jump that high, but it's a cartoon, just go with it.

Is this supposed to be an E.T. reference? Probably not, since nobody's on a bike...

"That was one WHALE of a LEAP!" Sebastian exclaims. The episode did that joke already, Sebastian. And then guess who shows up? King Triton, making a hilarious facial expression.

"I am not amused."

Fortunately, all it takes for him to calm down is for Ariel to say that she had to save Spot to save him the trouble of doing it. Then they find a pod of orcas, meaning that it's time for Spot to go back to his own kind. The penguins go with him... I sure hope none of those other orcas are hungry. And that's about it.

What's the Verdict?

Like with the other Disney cartoons based on their animated movies, I personally think The Little Mermaid holds up quite well. The animation, while obviously a downgrade from the movie, is still pretty good. Everyone is in-character. The voice actors all do a good job. And the Mary Poppins penguins showing up is a nice touch. If I do have one complaint, it's that the villain is kind of a bore, and Tom's arc isn't given much focus. Does Pettigrew even get any sort of comeuppance? Aside from, y'know, his penguins all leaving. Surely he can find MORE penguins, or another orca for that matter. But those are nitpicks. As a whole, I enjoyed this episode.

If you're a fan of the movie, give the series a watch. If you haven't seen the movie, watch it first and then check the series out. And remember - places that force aquatic animals to perform are the scum of the earth. Way to make kids feel bad about visiting the aquarium, Disney.

Did You Know? - Fun Facts About "The Little Mermaid"

Welcome to another edition of a series that I like to call Did You Know?. Inspired a little by the Nostalgia Critic's "What You Never Knew" series, this series will allow me to share with you some interesting tidbits, behind-the-scenes information, and fun facts about an animated movie or TV series. Because I like sharing new information with people.

Now, in the 1980s, Disney wasn't doing so well with their animated movies. Most of the films from this era are some of their lesser-known entries in the Disney Animated Canon (The Black Cauldron immediately comes to mind). In fact, animation as a whole was for all intents and purposes in a dark age at the time. Then in 1989, they released their twenty-eighth animated movie.

That movie was The Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid marked a turning point for animation. It was the first film released as part of the Disney Renaissance, which lasted for an entire decade and included films like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King (but we'll talk about those movies in later editions of "Did You Know?"). It's one of Disney's most iconic movies, spawning two sequels, a prequel TV series, a Broadway show, theme park attractions, and mucho merchandise. Predictably, a live action remake of the film is going to be released next month... which is why I'm posting this now.

There are a lot of things that you probably don't know about the film. Sure, you probably know that the film won two Academy Awards, and that Jodi Benson recorded "Part of Your World" with the lights dimmed so she'd feel like she was really underwater. You probably know that Sherri Stoner, the voice of Slappy Squirrel from Animaniacs, was the live action reference model for Ariel. And of course, there's the whole thing with the priest's knee (I want to keep this blog PG, so I won't go into any more detail than that). But did you know THESE things?

1) Disney had wanted to make an adaptation of The Little Mermaid since the 1930s (either as a full feature, a Silly Symphony, or a segment in one of those "package films" they were doing in the 1940s). Development started after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but was put on hold due to various circumstances.

2) When Ron Clements, one of the film's directors, pitched the idea of a Little Mermaid adaptation to Jeffrey Katzenberg in the 1980s, he initially turned it down. In fact, he didn't just turn it down, he went over to a large gong and banged it to let everyone know that he didn't like the idea (this was apparently what he did to EVERY pitch that he didn't like - he called these meetings "the gong show"). Part of the reason why is that Disney was already making a movie about a mermaid, 1984's Splash. Fortunately, Ron had a story treatment document with him and gave it to Jeffrey for him to read. After that, Jeffrey decided to greenlight the film after all.

3) Ariel is the first red-haired Disney princess. Originally, she was going to be blonde, but the filmmakers felt that would make her too similar to the mermaid from the aforementioned Splash. Many different hair colors were considered before they decided to make her a redhead.

Concept art for Ariel.

4) Patrick Stewart was offered the role of King Triton, but he had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts with Star Trek: The Next Generation. This was one of the many, MANY Disney characters Patrick Stewart had to turn down doing the voice of due to that show.

5) Jim Carrey - yes, THAT Jim Carrey - auditioned for Prince Eric. I've heard that Matthew Broderick was also considered, but I don't know if there's any truth to that.

6) Sebastian was originally to be an British crab named Clarence. When Howard Ashman read the script, he suggested making the crab Jamaican instead. When Samuel E. Wright auditioned for the character, he had no idea what it was for - and when he found out it was a Disney movie, he was thrilled.

7) According to Will Finn, who was instrumental in designing Sebastian,  the filmmakers wanted a "Geoffrey Holder-type voice" for the character before Samuel was cast. The trouble was, Will couldn't imagine a voice like Geoffrey Holder's coming out of "the rough sketches I had seen of the beady-eyed, Frisbee-shaped crustacean". He kept thinking of Holder's long face and soulful eyes, and eventually decided to just forget about a crab's real anatomy and "have a face like that just extend out of the shell" - he described it as a cross between a turtle and the Twiddlebugs from Sesame Street. He was also inspired by the caricatures of Brazilian musicians he'd seen in a book called Echole! that fellow artist Haroldo Guimaraes had lent to him.

Will did a few scribbles of the crab he was envisioning. When Howard Ashman saw them, he loved them, so the directors wanted Will to do a more finished model sheet. Problem was, in Will's words, "I was still very inexperienced at the time and although I could get lucky with the odd scribble, I had never designed a feature character before and could only bring the drawings to a point. Story artist Ed Gombert and animator Chris Buck worked up the design a good deal more successfully as storyboarding began, and then that work in turn was handed to the amazingly gifted Duncan Marjoribanks, who, as Supervising Animator, ultimately fashioned the character into the version we all know and love."

Concept art for Sebastian.

8) Another character whose design was hard to pin down? Ursula. Before deciding on the half-octopus look, they went through a number of designs based on different sea creatures. At one point, Ursula looked like a manta ray. Some concept art depicts her as looking like a lionfish or a scorpionfish. Dan Haskett did some hypothetical designs for Ursula that were inspired by Patti LaBelle. One thing that Ron Clements and John Musker DID know was that they didn't want to make Ursula look too beautiful because at one point she turns into the beautiful but wicked Vanessa and they wanted to have some contrast. Rob Minkoff (the director of The Lion King) whipped up a sketch where Ursula looked like, in Ron Clements' words, "a Miami Beach matron". Ron, John, and Howard Ashman all liked it. Eventually, they started modeling Ursula after Divine, the famous drag queen who starred as Edna in 1988's Hairspray.

Storyboard artist Matthew O'Callaghan was the one who came up with the idea of giving Ursula octopus tentacles. Chris Buck helped refine the design into the Ursula we got. Glen Keane was originally going to be Ursula's supervising animator, but he wanted to animate Ariel instead. So then the job of Ursula's supervising animator went to Rob Minkoff, but he left production to work on a 1990 Roger Rabbit short. Ruben Aquino was given the task of animating Ursula after that.

9) Thus began the quest to find Ursula's voice. While writing the script, Ron and John envisioned Bea Arthur as the character, whereas Howard though Joan Collins would be a good choice. They weren't able to offer Bea the part - it would seem that her agent was upset that they envisioned her playing a witch. They also considered Nancy Marchand, Nancy Wilson, Charlotte Rae and Elaine Stritch before Pat Carroll was chosen.

Concept art for Ursula that has her looking like Miss Piggy with octopus tentacles.

10) The multiple scenes in the movie where Ariel sits on a rock? That's a reference to a statue of Hans Christian Anderson's original Little Mermaid located in Copenhagen.

11) At some point in the 1980s, the animation section of the Walt Disney Studio Lot got the axe to make room for the bigger live action productions being made. So the animators worked in a warehouse and a bunch of trailers next to a Glendale bowling alley. On the bright side, this meant that the animators were freed from the looming pressure of Disney's former glory that had haunted their previous offices and could define their own style. Peter Schneider, the president of Disney's animation division at the time, called this "the best thing that could have happened to the animators."

12) Ariel is named after Lori Singer's character from the film Footloose. Physically, she's modeled after Alyssa Milano (she didn't learn that until Disney asked her to host a TV special about the making of the movie).

13) Among those who auditioned to provide the voice of Ariel was Liz Callaway (who also provided the singing voice of Jasmine in the Aladdin sequels and Kiara in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride), as she confirms here. Voice actress Melissa Fahn also auditioned, as did Anne Marie Bobby, who acted alongside Jodi Benson in the Broadway show Smile.

14) Andreas Deja was given the job of animating King Triton because "he was a very dynamic, aggressive character that had to be drawn realistically." He based the design on his own father, who would often argue with his sisters when they brought home boys.

Concept art for Flounder.

15) Remember that shark from the beginning of the film? Glut? He was originally supposed to show up again when Flounder was trying to get Ariel to the wedding ship. Flounder apparently would've tricked him into biting a gunpowder barrel, resulting in the shark blowing up.

16) Of King Triton's daughters, Ariel is the only one to wear her hair down - this is to help her stand out.

17) Speaking of which, the animation of Ariel's hair underwater was inspired by footage of astronaut Sally Ride in weightless conditions.

18) As Ursula is turning herself into the human Vanessa, among the things she includes in the potion is a butterfly. "Vanessa" is a genus of butterfly. It's a visual pun. Now, where Ursula found a butterfly underwater I have no idea...

19) Cameos, cameos, cameos! Who doesn't love a good cameo? And The Little Mermaid is full of 'em. For example, look closely during the scene near the beginning of the film where King Triton is arriving at the concert. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Kermit the Frog are part of the crowd (as are a few kids wearing those Mickey Mouse ear hats).

In addition, the King and the Grand Duke from Cinderella are in attendance at Prince Eric's wedding...

There's a painting of Aurora and Phillip from Sleeping Beauty in Eric's castle...

And a non-Disney character appears at the end of the "Under the Sea" sequence - one of the fish in this screencap is none other than the Incredible Mr. Limpet!

Mr. Limpet also makes a cameo in the Little Mermaid dark ride at Disney's California Adventure. Look for him across from the animatronic of Ariel awkwardly scratching her back on a piece of coral. And no, for whatever reason he's not in the Disney World version of the ride.

20) The animators created a brand new color for Ariel's tail. That color's name? Fittingly enough, "Ariel".

21) The Little Mermaid is actually considered a "transitional" film of sorts - it was one of the last Disney movies to use xerography and the first to introduce the CAPS system. It was also the final Disney film to use a multiplane camera.

22) Ursula technically isn't an octopus - she's a cecaelia, a mythical creature that's a cross between a human and an octopus. She only has six tentacles (her arms serve as the other two limbs that make for eight in all). This is because animating EIGHT tentacles would've been too expensive.

23) Among the things Ariel has in her grotto are a bust of Abraham Lincoln and the painting "Magdalene With the Smoking Flame" by Georges De La Tour.

Another piece of concept art for Ursula.

24) Long before he was cast as the Genie in Aladdin, the filmmakers considered having Robin Williams in the movie voicing a dolphin. Then they decided that Ariel was too passive, so they decided to cut the dolphin and give the character's "agency" to Ariel.

25) The song that Scuttle attempts to sing when Ariel and Eric are in the rowboat is the love theme of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture. Earlier in the film, when Scuttle is first introduced, he is singing "1492". 1942 is the year when Christopher Columbus went sailing and thought he spotted mermaids.

26) Will Finn admitted on his blog that he doesn't think very highly of his animation of Grimsby. He said that "At this point I learned that it was one thing to make a decent sketch and quite another to make useful animation drawings. Simply put, the character was just too sophisticated for my skill level at that point... it was a year-long struggle from start to finish, and not an ultimately successful one. As much as I loved the character and wanted to do it well, I would say that I only got a few of the scenes right and both I and the directors knew it. At one point I noticed with a kind of despair that just about every time the character appeared in storyboard form, director John Musker himself had done the sketches, which was not typical. It dawned on me that this was exactly the kind of character that embodied his own dry sense of humor and he undoubtedly would have knocked it out of the park if he had animated it himself. Both John and Ron were world-class animators before they became directors so pleasing them is both a challenge and a reward. I knew that what they had in their heads was better than what I was capable of doing most of the time, but I kept on keeping on anyway."

27) Would you believe that Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted the iconic "Part of Your World" song cut from the movie? After a test screening, he decided that kids would find the song boring (apparently at least one kid in the test audience was more focused on picking up his popcorn than he was watching Ariel sing). Literally no one else in production agreed with him, especially not Howard Ashman, who gave Jeffrey a piece of his mind. He said, "You can’t cut the song. It’s an ‘I want’ song. And if you cut it, they’re not going to fall in love with Ariel and root for her for the rest of the film. There’s not going to be any heart in it whatsoever." Glen Keane urged Jeffrey to give the song another chance, and the rest is history. Just to be on the safe side, the animators added Sebastian into the scene so he could keep getting into hijinks involving Ariel's "gadgets and gizmos" - which would hopefully keep younger audiences more interested in the song.

Concept art of Ariel and Eric.

28) Surprisingly, many of the animators who worked on the film didn't care for the prequel TV series that premiered in 1992, feeling that their work was being trivialized by limited animation and foreign animation studios.

29) Speaking of people not being a fan of things, do you know who wasn't a fan of Disney's take on The Little Mermaid? None other than beloved author Maurice Sendak! It wasn't that he didn't like Disney or anything, it's just that... well, in his own words, "The tale is about sacrifice. The Little Mermaid has all the risks and no rewards. That's a hard lesson. The movie is about getting married, having cupcakes for bras and going to live in the White Plains somewhere."

30) This film was the most effects-heavy Disney animated feature since 1940's Fantasia. The storm sequence where Ariel rescues Eric took ten special effects animators over a year to finish. Effects animation supervisor Mark Dinal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for the film - the directors insisted that each bubble be hand-drawn as opposed to Xeroxed.

31) As you probably know, the voice of Melody in The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea was provided by Tara Strong. Melody is actually Tara's favorite role, because she loves the original Little Mermaid and was incredibly excited to be working with Jodi Benson. Tara also voices two of Ariel's sisters in The Little Mermaid 3: Ariel's Beginning.

Did you know any of these things before reading this post? If so, congratulations! I just wasted your time!

Sources:
- https://www.looper.com/850123/the-untold-truth-of-disneys-the-little-mermaid/
- Will Finn's blog
- https://www.insider.com/the-little-mermaid-ursula-concept-art-2019-7
- https://www.looper.com/1116014/disney-almost-removed-the-little-mermaids-part-of-your-world-from-the-films-final-cut/
- https://www.insider.com/little-mermaid-part-of-your-world-jeffrey-katzenberg-2019-2