The Little Mermaid (1989 film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Development Hell: Walt Disney himself commissioned an early storyboard that hedged much closer to the Andersen original, which the crew of the final version eventually discovered. You can see these sketches on the recent[when?] DVD.
  • Dueling Movies: Released just a few days before All Dogs Go to Heaven, and unlike the last Walt Disney vs. Don Bluth matchups, the Disney film would be the most successful.
  • Executive Meddling: Jefferey Katzenberg caused the animators and others working on the film quite a bit of grief. One memorable instance was his insistence that the whole "Part of Your World" sequence be excised from the film, saying that he found it "boring" and also because he saw a child drop a box of popcorn during that moment in a test screening. Animator Glen Keane eventually persuaded Katzenberg to let them test the film again with that scene intact, and the positive response convinced Katzenberg to leave it in.
  • Fan Nickname: "Somewhere That's Dry" for "Part of Your World", because of its similarity to "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors (also written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman).
  • Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Throw It In: Ursula's "Pathetic." from her Villain Song lyrics aside to Flotsam and Jetsam was actually ad-libbed by Pat Carrol.
  • What Could Have Been: Or rather, what could have not been. See "Executive Meddling" above.
    • Ursula was originally intended to be played by Divine, who died before he could record the role. Bea Arthur turned down the role because she was busy with The Golden Girls, and Jennifer Saunders auditioned but didn't get the role.
    • In addition, Kanako Urashima was originally supposed to play the role of Ariel, but was beat out by Jodi Benson.
    • A deleted draft detailing an alternate version of the ending had Ariel and Flounder trying to rush to the wedding barge only for Glut (the shark from earlier in the film who got stuck in an anchor ring) to ambush them, causing Flounder to gain a second wind, deliver an already exhausted Ariel to the ship, and bait Glut into chasing him with the barrel still lassoed onto his back (hint: it's actually a gunpowder barrel), causing Glut to bite the barrel and get caught in an explosion.
    • Broadway singer Elaine Stritch was the original voice of Ursula, but her constant clashing with the crew had her fired and replaced with Pat Carroll.
  • Ariel was imagined as a blonde early on, but the animators didn't want to be seen as ripping off Splash too closely.
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