How ‘The Little Mermaid’ Saved Walt Disney Studios

The Little Mermaid swam into theatres in November, 1989. At the time, Walt Disney Studios wasn’t the powerhouse it is today, especially after a string of box office flops like The Black Cauldron (1985). But the mermaid film was exactly what the studios needed to re-energise its cartoon division.

Ariel’s Beginnings

As I’m sure you know, The Little Mermaid was an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale about a mermaid who falls in love with a human prince and dreams of becoming human herself. The studio had actually looked at developing this cartoon as far back as the 1930s but for various reasons, it fell by the wayside. 50 years later, director Ron Clements came across the story in a bookshop and realised its potential. He shared this with another director called John Musker, who gave the go-ahead!

The Music of The Little Mermaid

Disney brought composer Alan Menken and lyricist and writer Howard Ashman onboard to create an animated musical that could sit on the shelf alongside the classics. “They really wanted a return to the golden era of animated musicals,” said Menken in an interview with yahoo! movies. “Our job was to give a more contemporary musical theatre spin and yet still keep that same sense of timelessness and innocence,” he continued.

Sebastian’s Beginnings

Did you know Sebastian originally started out as a stuffy, old English crab? Turning Sebastian into a Caribbean crab was actually the idea of lyricist and writer Howard Ashman.

Despite liking what they were seeing in early screen tests, Disney Studios thought that The Little Mermaid was going to be a movie for girls that would only appeal to a narrow demographic. Of course, they were wrong…

The Little Mermaid Release

The cartoon was released on 17th November, 1989, and became an immediate hit. It even became a movie people went on dates to see and was shown in the evenings, rather than throughout the day like animated features usually do.

As a result of its success, the film kickstarted the Disney Renaissance era, where Disney returned to making more musical animated films that were mostly based on well-known stories. It’s these films that helped Disney become a powerhouse success at the domestic and foreign box office, much more so than previous films they had released.