SarahClare

Some Facts about 'The Little Mermaid'

that you might not know…

1. This was the last Disney animated feature to use hand-painted cels and analog camera and film work. 1,000 different colors were used on 1,100 backgrounds. Over one million drawings were done in total.
2. This film was the most effects-animation heavy Disney animated feature since Fantasia (1940). The two minute storm sequence alone took 10 special effects animators over a year to finish.
3. effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film
4. The character of Ursula was based on Divine. Her personality and some of her actions were also largely inspired by a previous Disney villain, Madame Medusa from Disney’s The Rescuers (1977).
5. Sebastian the Crab’s full name is Horatio Thelonius Ignatius Crustatious Sebastian.
6. This was the first Disney film to receive an Academy Award since Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), though other films had been nominated.
7. A few of the backgrounds used during the “Kiss the Girl” scene are taken from The Rescuers (1977).
8. Originally, Sebastian was to have an English accent. It was lyricist/producer Howard Ashman who suggested he be Jamaican. This opened the door to calypso style numbers like “Under the Sea”, which won the Academy Award.
9. CASTLE THUNDER: Heard a few times during the storm that wrecks Eric’s ship in the beginning. It’s also briefly heard for a second during the middle of the second storm when Ursula becomes gigantic and powerful, and is the last Disney movie to use the sound.
10. When Scuttle is providing “vocal romantic stimulation” to Eric and Ariel while they are rowing in the lagoon, he is actually squawking his own version of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet”.
11. ‘Jodi Benson (I)’ sang ‘Part of Your World’ in the dark to get that ‘under the sea’ feeling.
12. A scene was cut that explained Ursula is Ariel’s Aunt.
13. Schedueling conflicts with Star Trek: The Next Generation forced Patrick Stewart to turn down the role of King Triton.
14. When Eric is waiting for Ariel to arrive one of the portraits is that of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty (1959)

via: www.imdb.com