Trivia / The Little Mermaid (1992)

• The Danza: In the Greek dub, Áriel Konstantinídi voices Ariel.
• Disowned Adaptation: Many animators who worked on the original film disliked the television series, as they felt all their work was being trivialized.
• In Memoriam: "Thingamajigger" is dedicated to its writer, Chuck Menville.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Only over half of the series is available on VHS and LaserDisc (plus three as part of the Disney Princess DVD line). The rest went unreleased. In 2018, however, the complete series was released on iTunes. In addition, the entire series is now available on Disney+ as of November 2019 (except, surprisingly, the pilot "Whale of a Tale").
• Kids' Meal Toy: In 1993, Burger King released a set of four toys; wind-up toys of Ariel and Sebastian, and squirt toys of Flounder and Urchin.
• Late Export for You: The Little Mermaid didn't reach Japan until 1994, when the first 23 episodes aired on WOWOW between October and November. The remaining eight episodes premiered in December 1996.
• Missing Episode: The pilot episode "Whale of a Tale" is missing from the Disney+ stream.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Due to passing away earlier, Ben Wright was unavailable to play Grimsby. He was replaced by another veteran character actor, Kay E. Kuter, in the TV series and The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.
  • Jeff Bennett voices Eric instead of Christopher Daniel Barnes.
  • Edan Gross and Bradley Pierce voice Flounder instead of Jason Marin due to the latter's aging.
  • Cathy Cavadini, Mary Kay Bergman and Sherry Lynn respectively voice Andrina, Arista and Adella instead of Kimmy Robertson, though the latter returned as Alana.
  • Maurice LaMarche voices Scuttle instead of Buddy Hackett.
  • Mona Marshall and Kath Soucie respectively voice Aquata and Attina instead of Caroline Vasicek.
  • In the Japanese dub:
    • Masahiro Anzai voices Sebastian instead of Tsunehiko Kamijo.
    • Taro Ishida voices King Triton instead of Akira Kume.
    • Hidetoshi Nakamura voices Louis instead of Yasutaka Anzai.
    • Yu Hayashi voices Flounder instead of Daisuke Otomo.
  • In the Norwegian dub, Guri Schanke voices Ariel instead of Sissel Kyrkjebø.
• Posthumous Credit: The first season episode "Thingamajigger" aired in November 1992, nearly five months after Chuck Menville's passing. His other episode, "Eel-Ectric City", aired that December.
• Unspecified Role Credit: The show's ending credits lists the voice actors and not which characters they voiced.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An episode centering around how Ariel's mother died was pitched, but was rejected for being too dark. The script would later become The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning.
  • Before this, an attempt was made at a live-action show with puppets, Little Mermaid's Island, with Jim Henson Productions co-producing for the Disney Channel (then a pay service); Henson and Disney were attempting a merger at the time. Grimsby would've been the only other recurring human, here as a friendly sea captain. However, Henson was disappointed in the results; it wasn't long after this that he died and the merger was called off (Disney would eventually acquire the Muppets characters in 2004).

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Miscellaneous Trivia

• This was the only animated Disney series of the 1990s to not be part of The Disney Afternoon or One Saturday Morning, since it aired on CBS. However, it did air on international versions of the former.