Trivia / The Little Mermaid (1989)

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: The creators of the film intended for it to be a case of Adaptational Location Change, deciding to set the story in the Mediterranean and Eric's kingdom in Italy instead of in Denmark, where they assumed the original story took place due to the author, Hans Christian Andersen, being Danish. However, not only does the original story not mention any specific locations, a careful examination indicates it isn't set in Denmark: when the mermaid pulls the prince to shore, she sees orange, lemon, and tall palm trees (implying a tropical to subtropical climate) and snowcapped blue mountains (Denmark is a flat country whose highest point of elevation is a hill only 171m tall). In fact, those imageries and others in the original story (vineyard-covered hills, crystal-clear cornflower blue seas, marble statues and pillars reminiscent of Greco-Roman architecture, etc) all accurately describe a Mediterranean setting (and particularly the Italian coast and countryside). Hans Christian Andersen even visited Italy in 1833 and wrote extensively about his travels and what he saw in The Improvisatore, a book published in 1835, only two years before The Little Mermaid. Thus, by choosing to "move" the film to Italy and the Mediterranean, Disney likely ended up being more faithful to the original story than they would've if they'd had it take place in Denmark.
• Acting for Two:
  • Jodi Benson fittingly voices both Ariel and Vanessa (Ursula's alter-ego, using Ariel's stolen voice).
  • Caroline Vasicek voices Attina and Aquata in the original English version. Hilariously enough, Vasicek would later go on to voice Ariel in the 1998 Austrian German dub.
  • Paddi Edwards voices Flotsam and Jetsam.
• Ascended Meme: The "Hipster Ariel" image macro got turned into an officially licensed Disney toy, specifically a Funko POP figure of her. Also mutated as a lookalike character named Helvetica in Traci Hines' short lived webseries "Life Lessons From A Hipster Mermaid", which can be watched on Traci Hines' YouTube Channel.
• Baby Name Trend Killer: While it was never an extremely popular name, "Ursula" used to have its fans, and was associated with Ursula Andress. This all changed with this film's villain. Today, the name is usually thought of as "ugly" and is firmly associated with the Disney villain (though the plucky and relatably ordinary Ursula from Spider-Man 2 provided some unexpected relief on that score).
• Baby Name Trend Starter: The name "Ariel" experienced a surge in popularity after the movie's release.
• Creator Backlash:
  • James Baxter was embarrassed by most of his animation of Ariel, particularly the scene where she says "Daddy, I love him!"—in his own words, he said he made her look like a fish eyed freak and apologized to her head animator Glen Keane for drawing her too Off-Model.
  • Animator Will Finn enjoyed working on The Little Mermaid, but he stated on his Small Room blog that he was not happy with his animation of Grimsby, saying there are only one or two scenes he did that don't make him cringe today.
  • Ariel's character designer and animation industry veteran, Dan Haskett, said in a 2005 interview that Sebastian had several distasteful traits shared with stereotypes of black people, Jamaicans especially, namely his exaggerated accent, protruding lower lip and popping eyes. Haskett had a rather dim view of Disney and the coworkers who were in charge of conceptualizing Sebastian.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Flotsam and Jetsam, both male eels, are voiced by Paddi Edwards.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Ursula was voiced by Ángel Garza, who was credited under Serena Olvido. Ironically enough, he is an actual Drag Queen. The Arabic dub also had a male actor provide her singing voice.
• Cut Song: "Silence is Golden" was an early song for Ursula, cut because the creators didn't like it.
• Cross-Regional Voice Acting: The 1998 Austrian German dub retains Beate Hasenau, Ron Williams, and Oliver Stritzel as the respective voices of Ursula, Sebastian, and Flotsam & Jetsam from the dub produced in Berlin and Munich. Meanwhile, local actors from Vienna were used for the rest of the cast.
• Dawson Casting: Jodi Benson was in her mid-twenties voicing the sixteen-year-old Ariel.
• Deleted Scene:
  • The "Fathoms Below" number ran longer and revealed that Ursula was actually Triton's sister, making her Ariel's aunt.
  • A scene just before the concert where Sebastian discovers that Ariel is missing.
  • An extra bit of Ursula/Ariel dialogue before "Poor Unfortunate Souls" explaining why Ursula was banished.
  • More of Sebastian getting lost in Eric's castle.
  • Sebastian giving Ariel even more advice.
  • The original climax was slightly different. Ariel would have knocked the Trident out of Ursula's hands to prevent her from attacking Eric, Flounder and Sebastian, but would have been knocked unconscious in the process. Ursula would then fight Eric (in normal size) and Eric would defeat Ursula by obtaining the Trident from Sebastian and using it to impale her. Ursula's shell would then fall to the sea floor, restoring Ariel's voice and bringing her back to life.
  • In addition, after Ursula's defeat, Ariel would have had a short scene where she apologizes to Triton.
  • Ariel transforming into a human at the end would have her walking on the beach singing a Triumphant Reprise of "Part of Your World", which then segues into the wedding.
• 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 DVD.
• Died During Production: Ben Wright, who played Grimsby, died of complications from heart surgery on July 2, 1989, four months before the film's release.
• Dueling Dubs: In some countries, such as Finland, France, Germany and Greece, the film has been dubbed twice with the original dubs being released in 1990 and redubs in 1998. In the case of the 1998 German dubs, the first was produced at FFS Film-& Fernseh-Synchron in Munich and Berlin, and the second at Tonstudio Heinz in Vienna; to this day, it is the only Disney film to feature an Austrian German dub.
• 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.
    • An interesting point of Irony: All Dogs Go to Heaven ends with Charlie B. Barkin having lost his chance of getting into heaven, and nevertheless sacrificing himself to save Anne-Marie, but then that selfless act actually gets him into heaven. Thematically, this is more in the spirit of Andersen's fairy tale than the Disney film that's actually based on it.
  • In 1997, The Little Mermaid again entered a competition against Don Bluth, when it returned to theaters on the same day that Anastasia premiered. Anastasia earned a higher gross.
• Enforced Method Acting: When Jodi Benson sang "Part of Your World", she recorded the song in a darkened room to get that "under the sea" feeling.
• Executive Meddling: Jeffrey 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 and then struggle to clean it up during that moment in a test screening, which Katzenberg interpreted that it was not holding up the children's attention. Animator Glen Keane eventually persuaded Katzenberg to let them test the film again with a more adult audience and that scene intact with the scene being placed in a different part of the movie, and the positive response convinced Katzenberg to leave it in. He admitted in a 2006 interview that the whole experience was "deeply embarrassing."
• Fake Nationality: Samuel E. Wright, the voice of the Rastafarian crab Sebastian is actually from South Carolina.
• Flip-Flop of God: The order in which Ariel's sisters are in. The earliest materials have Aquata as the oldest but later material usually have Attina, likely due to her crown. Disney has flipped between the two since.
• I Am Not Spock: Jodi Benson has been in many things over the years, but to most of the world, she will always, always be Ariel. She loves it, adores meeting her fans, has voiced the character in just about every Disney project she appears in, and has always said that she will never get tired of singing "Part of Your World" because the memory of recording that song is so special to her.
• In Memoriam: The Sirius XM station Disney Hits began frequently playing "Under The Sea" and "Kiss The Girl" after the passing of Samuel E. Wright, who played Sebastian. It got to the point where the latter became the 11th most-played song on the station over a 30 day period.
  • The same thing would happen after Pat Carroll, the voice of Ursula, passed away, where the station kept playing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" in honor of her.
• Kids' Meal Toy:
  • In 1989, McDonald's released a set of four bath toys. These consisted of Ariel, Flounder, Prince Eric, and Ursula. That holiday season, McDonald's released plush ornaments of Flounder and Sebastian, but only if customers bought McDonald's holiday gift certificates.
  • In 1994, McDonald's released a toy of Ariel and Flounder as part of their Happy Birthday Happy Meal, which also featured toys based on Ronald and Friends, Barbie, Hot Wheels, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Sonic the Hedgehog, 101 Dalmatians, Cabbage Patch Kids, Tonka, The Berenstain Bears, Muppet Babies (1984), Peanuts, Tiny Toon Adventures, Looney Tunes, and the Happy Meal Guys.
  • In 1997, McDonald's released a set of eight toys to promote the film's theatrical re-release. This promotion featured both regular and golden variants. The characters featured were Ariel, Flounder, Sebastian, Scuttle, Prince Eric, Max, Glut, and Ursula, with Ariel, Flounder, Prince Eric, and Ursula being rereleases from the original 1989 Happy Meal promotion.
  • In 1998, McDonald's released a set of four toys in Europe, featuring Sebastian and Scuttle from the 1997 US promotion, as well as new toys of Ariel and Glut.
  • In 2006, McDonald's released a set of eight accessories as a tie-in with the film's Platinum Edition DVD release.
• Method Acting: Jodi Benson had the lights in the studio dimmed while recording "Part of Your World" in order to help imagine she was underwater.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor:
  • Sissel Kyrkjebø, better known for her classical crossover songs as well as Titanic, voiced Ariel in the Norwegian and Swedish dubs. She also provided the character's singing voice in the Danish dub.
  • Miguel Ángel Jenner voices Chef Louis in the European Spanish and European French dubs.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Flounder has been replaced various times during the franchise, due to being (most of the time) voiced by a real kid. Jason Marin played him in the first film. Edan Gross played him for the first half of the television series, and was replaced with Bradley Pierce (Chip, from Beauty and the Beast). Courtland Mead voiced him for merchandise released in the '90s (including the Animated Storybook CD-ROM, as well as a few toys), Cam Clarke voiced him in the sequel (due to him being an adult), and Parker Goris played him in the prequel and the Kingdom Hearts series.
  • The VTech V.Smile game The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Majestic Journey is the only time in the franchise that this trope applied to Ariel herself, as she was voiced by Kathryn Haywood instead of Jodi Benson, for unknown reasons.
  • After Buddy Hackett died in 2003, Chris Edgerly took over for all of Scuttle's subsequent appearances in the Disney theme parks.
  • In the Norwegian dub, Sissel Kyrkjebø received wide acclaim for her performance as Ariel, but she was replaced by Guri Schanke both in the sequels and the TV series.
• Posthumous Credit: Ben Wright, Grimsby's voice actor, is given a credit in this film since he completed all of his scenes before dying of complications of heart surgery in July 1989.
• Promoted Fanboy: Pat Carroll had longed to voice a Disney character and being chosen as Ursula was a "dream come true" for her.
• Role Reprise: Queen Latifah modeled as Ursula in the "Disney Dream Portrait Series" in 2011 and fully performed as her in the 2019 ABC live show.
• Those Two Actors: Scuttle and Grimsby's respective Japanese voice actors, Kaneta Kimotsuki and Joji Yanami, have worked together on the Time Bokan meta-series.
• Throw It In!:
  • Ursula's "Pathetic." from her Villain Song lyrics aside to Flotsam and Jetsam was actually ad-libbed by Howard Ashman while he was coaching Pat Carroll.
  • According to this interview, Samuel E. Wright attempted to do this in the initial recording for Sebastian, only to be chided for doing so and told "You're not Robin Williams." Soon after, Disney had a change of heart and invited Wright back to perform a special recording session where he was told to go wild with Sebastian however he pleased. As a result, much of his unscripted material made it into the final film. Most notably, "Teenagers. Dey t'ink dey know everyt'ink. You give dem an inch and dey swim all over yah."
  • Ariel's gestures◊ when she meets Eric and tries to communicate with him were improvised by actress Sherri Lynn Stoner during the shooting of the live-action reference material. Some of Ariel's reactions, such as her blowing her hair in frustration◊ during the same scene, were also unscripted and inspired by Sherri's own mannerisms in real life.
• Troubled Production: Because of how labor intensive it would have been. Disney sent the animation of the bubbles to a Chinese-based facility, which just so happened to be located near Tiananmen Square just as the Beijing student uprising occurred. Everything ultimately went according to plan, but the labor was what convinced the studio to make the full transition to Pixar's CAPS digital ink-and-paint for future films.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Earlier in the film’s development cycle, Andrew Lloyd Webber was approached about writing the score. Though this ultimately didn’t come to pass, allegedly because Lloyd Webber’s vision was too dark for Disney, Lloyd Webber did draft a melody for the titular character which would eventually become “With One Look” from Sunset Boulevard.
  • Melissa Fahn auditioned for Ariel, but her voice was considered "too young" for the character.
  • Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick read for the part of Prince Eric before Christopher Daniel Barnes.
  • Bea Arthur was the first choice for Ursula, but her agents were reluctant to have her voice the main antagonist. Divine, the inspiration for Ursula's design, was also tapped to voice the character, but died before any lines could be recorded.
    • Jennifer Saunders, Roseanne Barr, Charlotte Rae, Nancy Marchand, Sylvia Sidney, Nancy Wilson, Coral Browne, and Elaine Stritch also auditioned for Ursula. Though Stritch was eventually cast, she was replaced by Pat Carroll due to Stritch's then-ongoing alcoholism and Creative Differences with Howard Ashman over "Poor Unfortunate Souls".
  • Bill Maher and Michael Richards were considered to voice Scuttle.
  • The original version of "Part of Your World" had Ariel specifically naming several objects, but co-director John Musker pointed out that this wouldn't make sense alongside the gag of Scuttle's ridiculous explanations of them, so Howard Ashman replaced the words with the likes of "gadgets and gizmos".
  • "Part Of Your World (Reprise)" was originally conceived as a more morose and bittersweet song, where Ariel acknowledged that she was already starting to develop feelings for Eric and lamented that they would seemingly never get to be together, compared to the Triumphant Reprise it wound up becoming in the final film, where Eric gave Ariel new hope and convinced her to try harder than ever before to make her dreams a reality.
  • Ursula's design was going to be based off a lion fish or rockfish in the original stages of development. Another idea was for her to have a snake-like appearance. When the artists saw a documentary on octopi, they realised the tentacled appearance worked much better for the character they were trying to create. Saleen, a villain from the Aladdin: The Series, is based off Ursula's old concept art. In fact, they went through◊ several designs◊ before deciding on the octopus.
  • 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 (reminiscent of how the shark dies in Jaws ^note  directed by Katzenberg's future business partner Steven Spielberg ).
  • In concept art, Glut is shown to be one of Ursula's minions, alongside Flotsam and Jetsam, leading to believe that Glut was sent by Ursula to attack Ariel and Flounder at the beginning of the film. In other Disney media, in fact, Glut is depicted as an Ursula's pet or guardian, like in Disney Parks, Disney Villains merchandise and Disney video games, in Disney books and comics based on the film but with different stories, various sharks are controlled by Ursula.
  • Ariel was imagined as a blonde early on, but the animators didn't want to be seen as ripping off Splash too closely.
  • During the production of Ariel's Beginning: a storyboard◊ from the film was presented. It appears that someone has Eric, Ariel, and Sebastian hunting for a white whale and Sebastian isn't happy about it. There's also a woman in the storyboard who gets seasick like Grimsby in the beginning of the first film. It's implied that some talking parrot character will not get along with Sebastian and it's also stated that Ariel and Sebastian are "still angry with Eric". This was intended for another idea called "Ariel's Undersea Adventures".
  • Ariel was originally going to lose her Seashell Bra after first being transformed into human, and sport Godiva Hair for the rest of the sequence. For whatever reason^note  Potential Fanservice issues, difficulty animating, budgetary constraints (Katzenberg was doing some severe editing with everything, including schools of fish, to keep the movie underbudget), this idea was abandoned. This was retained for the 2023 live action remake in which her bra does come off.
  • Ariel's mother had a different backstory. One concept created by Peter David had her called Atlanta, and while she would've had some resemblance to Ariel, she was going to have brown hair (young Triton had red hair, just like in the show). She befriends a human artist named Duncan, and once he starts painting her, he becomes famous. His rival Kole, jealous of his fame and discovering the mermaid, tries to kill him by pushing a boulder above him. However, Atlanta performs a Heroic Sacrifice and pushes him out of the way. Triton kills Kole and spares Duncan, but takes his painting. After a week of solitude (that a 6-year-old Ariel convinces him to get out of) his hair has turned gray, and he now has a hatred of humans.
  • Vanessa's role went through a few radical changes. She would originally only lightly hypnotize Eric and merely persuade him to choose her over Ariel - as opposed to her outright mind control in the final film. Eric would introduce her to Ariel, and would actually try to comfort her as she runs away crying, but Vanessa would kiss him to distract him (she would also wear a scarf to hide her necklace from Ariel). At the wedding, she would be more wary of fighting back - afraid of blowing her "sweet little girl" cover. And in this case she would be busted by her true reflection being shown in sea water that some of the creatures had brought on board. For some reason, in this version, Ariel doesn't get her voice back until the end of the film.
  • Vanessa and Eric's wedding was originally scripted to happen in the castle, with Ariel watching from upstairs. Presumably they changed it to the boat to add a sense of urgency.
  • Ursula's death was supposed to have her getting impaled by the trident itself - essentially what happens to her in Kingdom Hearts II (which is based on the original storyboard). This was apparently changed because Jeffrey Katzenberg saw Die Hard and got inspired. She was also not originally supposed to have remorse for accidentally killing Flotsam and Jetsam. Ariel would also die during this ending, and Triton would use the trident to resurrect her.
  • Sebastian was written to have an English accent at first. However, they decided to make it more Caribbean, so as to have a calypso-themed song in "Under the Sea". Howard Ashman wanted a Jamaican accent at first. He liked the Trinidadian accent Samuel E. Wright auditioned with so much that he decided to keep it.
  • The work tape demo version of "Les Poissons", found in the Legacy Edition of the movie's soundtrack, reveals that the scene at one point took place during a cooking class Chef Louis was teaching, as opposed to him cooking alone like in the final version.

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