1985
: Disney animation director Ron Clements, having finished
co-direction duties on "The Great Mouse Detective," is among a
number of Disney employees asked by the studio's new management - CEO Michael
Eisner and Walt Disney Pictures studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg - to come
to a meeting and bring three ideas for new animated films each.
During a visit to a bookstore, Clements comes across a collected edition
of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. He sees cinematic and artistic
possibilities in "The Little Mermaid" and prepares a rough two-page
sketch of a possible movie treatment.
At the meeting, two of the possible movie ideas are "green-lighted"
by Eisner and Katzenberg: "Oliver & Company," Katzenberg's own
pet project, and "The Little Mermaid," which is regarded as a
possible showcase for Disney's younger generation of artists, thanks to
the promise of underwater vistas and the use of much more "human"
appearing characters than the cartoonish animals in use for several years.
Clements and fellow "Great Mouse Detective" co-director John Musker
expand the two-page idea into a 20-page rough guide, disposing of the mermaid's
grandmother from the original story and expanding the roles of the Merman
King and the sea witch. Among the additions is the mermaid's music teacher
- a turtle named Clarance.
1986
: Preproduction work on "The Little Mermaid" is put
on the back-burner while the studio pours its animation resources into two
projects scheduled for release ahead of "Mermaid:" "Oliver
& Company" and, to a lesser degree, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
(Most of the "Roger Rabbit" animation was done at a studio in
London using contracted artists; only a few Disney artists, including Andreas
Deja, are assigned to work full-time on that film.)
1987
: Story work continues apace this year, with the significant
addition of Howard Ashman to the project. Ashman, a Broadway lyricist best
known for his work in "Little Shop of Horrors," had been approached
by Katzenberg to write a song for "Oliver & Company" ("Once
Upon A Time In New York City.") While working on "Oliver,"
Ashman - a lover of Hans Christian Andersen's works - gets wind of the "Mermaid"
project and asks to be allowed to work on that movie as well.
By this time, Clarance the turtle has evolved through script rewrites into
a crab, a creature better able to function both in the water and on land
for storytelling purposes. After reading the unfinished script for the first
time, Ashman suggests making the crab a Jamaican Rastafarian crab, which
would be a way of getting some fun reggae-style songs into the movie.
With Ashman involved, the bosses of the project - Katzenberg, Clements,
Musker and Ashman - make a major decision: The movie is changed from a straightforward
dramatic story to a Broadway-style animated musical, making full use of
the talents of Ashman and his longtime composer and friend Alan Menken,
who is brought aboard to provide the melodies for the songs at Ashman's
request. Unlike "Oliver & Company," in which the songs were written
by a myriad of lyricists and composers, all the songs in "Mermaid"
would come from Ashman and Menken, providing a much better unity of styles.
Later, Ashman convinces Clements and Musker to give Menken a shot at composing
the entire soundtrack for the movie - something Menken has never done before.
1988
: With "Oliver" out of the way, work gears up for "Mermaid."
More money and more resources are dedicated to this film than any Disney
animated film in decades. The script is finished, the songs are written
and arranged, principal voice actors and actresses are hired, and studio
recording begins. Broadway actress Jodi Benson is chosen after lengthy auditions
and after Ashman and Menken pour through hundreds of demo tapes of New York
City-area actresses they have accumulated over the years during their stage
production work.
Principal artists begin work on the animation - Glen Keane and Mark Henn
on Ariel, Duncan Marjoribanks on Sebastian, Andreas Deja on King Triton
and Ruben Aquino on Ursula. Originally, Keane had been asked to work on
Ursula, as he had established a reputation for drawing large, powerful figures
(the bear in "The Fox and the Hound," Professor Ratigan in "The
Great Mouse Detective.") Keane, however, wants a change of pace to
stretch his artistic muscles, and is assigned as one of the two lead artists
on the petite, charming Ariel and is given special responsibility for overseeing
the "Part of Your World" musical number.
The manpower needed for "Mermaid" is greater than for any other
animated film in recent history. Aside from its main animation facility
in Glendale, Calif., Disney opens a satellite feature animation facility
near Orlando, Fla., within the still-unfinished Disney-MGM Studios Theme
Park at Walt Disney World. The facility is designed to let tourists walk
through the studio and watch animators at work without bothering them, separated
from the artists by plexiglass walls, and throws in how-to films on animation
and displays of animation art.
Though the park itself is a year away from opening to the public, work at
the animation studio begins in May 1988. The Disney-MGM facility's first
projects: Producing an entire "Roger Rabbit" cartoon short on
its own, and contributing ink and paint support to "The Little Mermaid."
More special animation effects are required for "Mermaid" than
for any animated film since "Fantasia," and the directors insist
that every one of the millions of bubbles be hand-drawn, not Xeroxed. The
sheer manpower for such an effort requires Disney to farm out most of the
bubble-drawing to Pacific Rim Productions, a China-based firm with production
facilities in Beijing.
An attempt to use Disney's famed multiplane camera for the first time in
years for quality "depth" shots fails because the machine, always
a monster to use because of its sheer size, is in delapidated condition.
The multiplane shots are farmed out to another studio.
Another first for recent years: Live actors and actresses are filmed for
reference material for the animators. Sherri Lynn Stoner, a former member
of Los Angeles' Groundlings improv comedy group, acts out Ariel's key scenes.
Not all of Disney's animators approve of the use of live-action reference;
Glen Keane says in an interview with the Orange County Register that one
artist quit the project rather than work with live-action reference.
A significant "last:" "The Little Mermaid" is the last
Disney feature film to use the traditional hand-painted cel technology that
reaches back to the beginnings of the industry. Starting with the next film,
"The Rescuers Down Under," a new system called CAPS (Computer
Animation Production System) will eliminate cels; artists' drawings are
scanned into a computer, digitally colored and combined with scans of the
background painting on a computer screen - a process Glen Keane helped pioneer
in 1983 when he drew the animation for an experimental computer-digitized
short subject based on Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things Are."
A prototype of CAPS is used experimentally on a few scenes in "Mermaid,"
including the final wedding scene. Other computer-generated imagery includes
some of the wrecked ships in the climactic battle, a staircase behind Ariel
in Eric's castle and the carriage Eric and Ariel are riding in when she
bounces it over a ravine. (Notice that the wheels aren't moving when it
comes down for a landing.)
1989
: The student uprising in Beijing, China, threatens to delay
production of "The Little Mermaid." Because the millions of bubbles
are all being hand-drawn, much of the bubble-work is contracted out to Pacific
Rim Productions, an Asian animation production firm with facilities in Beijing.
Roughly one-third of the finished cel artwork for "Mermaid," used
by the Chinese artists as underlays for drawing the bubbles, are in a vault
only a few blocks away from the demonstration at Tienamin Square and the
violence that follows.
November 1989
: "The Little Mermaid" plays first at two
theaters - one in Los Angeles, one in New York - to allow influential film
critics in those cities to get their reviews published or aired before the
movie opens to the general public - a common practice in the movie business.
Nov. 17, 1989
- "The Little Mermaid" officially opens its
nationwide run with a world premiere near Orlando, Fla., on all ten screens
at the AMC Pleasure Island 10 at Walt Disney World's newly-built Pleasure
Island nightclub facility.
1990
: "The Little Mermaid" astounds the movie industry
with its popularity. In the 1980s, Hollywood regarded animation as box-office
poison and relegated it to the kiddie toy promotion gutter ("Transformers:
The Movie"). "Mermaid" becomes the first animated motion
picture since "Dumbo" in 1941 to win Oscars (Best Score for Alan
Menken and Best Original Song for Menken and Ashman's song "Under the
Sea," plus a Best Song nomination for "Kiss the Girl.") "Mermaid"
rakes in $84 million at the box office, a record for an animated film. (The
previous record was $54 million the year before for Disney's "Oliver
& Company.")
May 1990
: Breaking with its usual practice of waiting for years to
release its movies onto home video, Walt Disney Home Video releases "The
Little Mermaid" on tape before the movie has even been pulled off the
theater screens in some markets. "Mermaid" becomes the best selling
home video movie title of the year, selling 10 million copies. Meanwhile,
the laserdisc release of "Mermaid" later in the year is slightly
marred by production defects on the more expensive CAV laserdisc version,
which are corrected for a second production run later in the year.
Disney's merchandising division, initially caught off-guard by the movie's
popularity, goes into overdrive, licensing hundreds of items ranging from
dolls to soaps to clothing. Eventually, Ariel would become the second most-licensed
cartoon character in history; only Mickey Mouse wound up on more products.
Ariel is voted the number one licensed merchandise character in America
by a national manufacturer's association.
The soundtrack album of "The Little Mermaid" climbs first to gold,
then to platinum sales status (more than 1 million CDs and cassettes sold),
a first for an animated film's soundtrack.
Howard Ashman, the movie's lyricist and co-producer, dies of AIDS. He spends
his final days bedridden, working on songs for the upcoming movie "Beauty
and the Beast."
Disney plans to play off the movie's popularity by starting a children's
puppet series, "The Little Mermaid's Island," on the Disney Channel.
Sporting a "live" Ariel, the show's puppets are to be created
by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
1991
: While the "Mermaid" marketing blitz continues, and
as Disney puts the home video into moratorium, plans for "The Little
Mermaid's Island" are quietly shelved while a more ambitious animated
television series based on the movie is put into pre-production.
Disney Comics, a division of The Walt Disney Company, publishes the official
comic book adaption of "The Little Mermaid," with art produced
by Europe's Gutenberghus Publishing Service.
September 1992
: "Disney's The Little Mermaid" debuts on
CBS on Saturday mornings, featuring Jodi Benson as Ariel, Sam Wright as
Sebastian, Kenneth Mars as King Triton and Edan Gross as Flounder. The series
runs for three years and 32 episodes. In its third and final season it's
nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Children's Program, and Walt Disney
Records releases a CD of the songs from the series.
1992
: Disney Comics publishes a four-issue "Little Mermaid"
comic book series written by popular comic book author and "Star Trek"
novelist Peter David. The art is provided by several popular comics artists,
including Steve Rude and Chuck Austen, plus "Mermaid" art director
Michael Peraza and Ariel's co-designer Philo Barnhardt. The series is followed
by a two-issue "Sebastian" miniseries by the same staff.
1993
: "The Voyage of The Little Mermaid," an indoor theatrical
show, opens at the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World in central Florida.
The show combines live actors and actresses, puppets, audio-animatronic
figures, animation, laser effects and water sprays in a 15-minute retelling
of the movie. According to the Birnbaum's Walt Disney World (the resort's
official travel guide), ""Voyage" is one of the most popular
attractions at the Disney/MGM Studios.
1995
: The Walt Disney Company closes Disney Comics and grants the
rights to the Disney comics franchise to Marvel Comics. "The Little
Mermaid" runs as a monthly comic magazine for 12 months before Marvel
reorganizes the Disney line by cancelling all Disney titles, then folding
them all into one monthly comic, "Disney's Comic Hits," which
features different Disney characters each month. Ariel first re-surfaces
in issue 12.
