32 Years Under the Sea With "The Little Mermaid": Live From E! Rewind
Can you judge it's been 35 years since Disney took america all nether the sea?
Yes, the original The Little Mermaid was released connected Nov. 13, 1989, making the animated instrumentality connected the 1837 Hans Christian Andersen story the studio's first movie based connected a fairy communicative to travel retired since 1959's Sleeping Beauty.
Directed by Ron Clement and John Musker with euphony by the legendary Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, the communicative of Ariel (voiced by Jodi Benson) revitalized Disney, earning implicit $230 million, winning 2 Oscars and kicking disconnected a agelong drawstring of animated hits for the studio. (See: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King.)
And though we got much whozits and whatzits galore erstwhile the live-action version—starring Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Daveed Diggs, Jonah Hauer-King, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina and more—splashed into theaters past spring, there's thing rather similar your archetypal time.
"They don't comparison and vie with each different due to the fact that they're wholly antithetic films," Benson, who made a cameo successful the 2023 iteration, explained to Today of wanting to beryllium portion of some worlds. "An animated and a unrecorded action, they're wholly different. And that's benignant of however I explicate it to people—you tin emotion some films."
And portion you mightiness deliberation her collection's complete, Benson continues to dependable Ariel for a slew of Disney products— including projects for the parks, commercialized promotions and video games—estimating that she belts retired "Part of Your World" astatine slightest erstwhile a week.
"My occupation is to marque definite I tin make that trigger representation for people," she explained of singing it "exactly the aforesaid way" she did portion signaling the OG film. "And I ne'er change."
To people the animated flick's 35th anniversary, we're diving heavy into the past to uncover gadgets and gizmos a-plenty astir what went connected down the scenes.
This communicative was archetypal published connected Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019 astatine 3 a.m. PT.