Saturday Evening Cartoons: The Little Mermaid (1989)

     The Little Mermaid was released on November 17th, 1989. Written and directed by Ron Clements and John Musker it is the 28th Disney animated feature. An adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale it tells the story of a mermaid princess named Ariel (Jodi Benson) who falls in love with a human prince.

     From the start of the picture it is established that Ariel is dissatisfied with her life in Atlantica and she dreams of a life in the human world. Encountering Prince Eric (voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes) on a voyage to celebrate his birthday results, predictably, in love at first site but Ariel's obsession with the surface world makes this more believable then it might be otherwise. Eric, in return, falls in love when Ariel when she saves him from perishing in a shipwreck. Ariel's father King Triton (Kenneth Mars) is furious to learn that she has fallen for a human and forbids her to pursue the matter further. This compels the lovesick princess to turn to the sea witch, Ursula (Pat Carroll), and, in her desperation, she agrees to give up her voice in exchange for being changed into a human, an agreement which will result in her enslavement to the sea-witch if she is unable to win Eric's love. 

      Because of this, much of the second act is focused on her budding relationship with the Prince which, truth be told, is a delightful change of pace from the earlier Disney films with their often perfunctory treatment of the central romance. Eric is unaware that Ariel is the mermaid who saved his life and Ariel, left without her voice, is unable to communicate this to him. Nonetheless she perseveres and almost succeeds in obtaining true love's kiss, but Ursula sends her minions Flotsam and Jetsam to thwart her. She then takes on a human form herself and uses her magic, and Ariel's stolen voice, to place an enchantment on Eric and make him agree to marry her. 

      The third act is a little rushed as Ariel exposes Ursula's scheme too late, resulting in her enslavement and Triton agrees to take his daughter's place, leading the sea witch to declare herself the new ruler and grow to a monstrous size. Eric is able to defeat her by impaling her with the bowsprit of a wrecked ship. The real issue here is that Ariel never seems to learn a lesson from her rash choices early on, rather Triton, as the stereotypical overbearing patriarchal figure, apologizes for not supporting her choices. This would be ok if Ariel recognized her own faults, but no such admission is forthcoming. 

      The film certainly has less focus on the comedic shenanigans then earlier Disney fairy tales, which is fine. The comedy supplied by Ariel's aquatic friends is more then adequate. Samuel E. Wright is great as King Triton's uptight advisor Sebastian the crab and his consternation over Ariel's indiscretion's supplies a lot of laughs. Buddy Hackett's dimwitted sea-gull Scuttle provides a contrast to Sebastian both in his clumsy, clueless behavior and his support of Ariel's curiosity about the human world. The film also takes a little time for some hilarious slapstick complements of René Auberjonois's Chef Louis and his crazed pursuit of Sebastien, who he finds hiding out in his kitchen. 

     The Little Mermaid is the film that kicked off the Disney Renaissance, the roughly ten year period where the studio returned to producing animated features that were both a critical and commercial success. The studio had put the story in development as far back as the 1930's as part of a proposed package film that would feature various vignettes of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. These plans had been all but forgotten when Ron Clements presented a two-page treatment of The Little Mermaid to Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1986. 

     The studio had been struggling financially since Walt Disney's death in 1966, hitting rock bottom with the release of The Black Cauldron in 1986, a film that cost the studio $44 million (the most expensive film they had produced up to that point) and grossing a mere $21 million. Walt's nephew Roy Disney had been able to oust Ron Miller (Disney's son-in-law) as the company executive, and brought in Michael Eisner as Disney's new CEO and Katzenberg as the head of the film division. This put an end to the corporate squabbles that had plagued the studio for the better part of a decade and allowed them to maintain a much more steady group of filmmakers and animators to oversee their animation department. Wanting to increase the studio's animated output from one film every four years to one film every two years, Katzenberg gave Clements to go-ahead, and the film was set to be developed alongside Oliver & Company. 

     The animation was a real return to form for the studio. They once again used live actors and actresses for reference, a practice they had abandoned in the years since Walt had died. The movement is animated in a really natural way and the underwater scenes are particularly impressive in this respect, with Ariel's flowing hair and the graceful swimming of the various undersea creatures. This film used more special effects animation then any of the studio's films since Fantasia in 1940. One of the animators estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for the underwater sequences in this film. The play of light and shadow in these scenes and the sense of depth perception is really breathtaking and the animators utilized a wide variety of techniques including as airbrushing, back-lighting, and computer animation to achieve this.

      In many way The Little Mermaid is a transitional film as it was the last Disney feature to utilize traditional, hand-painted cel animation. A new method called called CAPS/ink & paint (Computer Animation Production System), developed by Pixar, would instead be used in Disney's films after this. The Little Mermaid itself used this method for one shot near the end of the picture Ariel and Eric's wedding ship sailing away. It also set the precedent for the Renaissance era of structuring the films like a Broadway musical. Songwriter Howard Ashman who became involved with the film in 1987, worked with Katzenberg, Clements, and Jon Musker to revise the story along these lines, structuring the story around the film's musical numbers. 

      Composer Alan Menken, who had worked with Ashman on Off-Broadway musical, Little Shop of Horrors, was hired alongside him to write the movie's music. The two would go on to write the songs for Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, and their work here anticipates those later masterworks. "Part of Your World" establishes Ariel's driving motivation for the rest of the film and Jodi Benson's vocal have an expressiveness and sense of longing one would tend to expect from a Broadway show rather then a animated film (perhaps this is less true now but, if so, Menken and Ashman are largely to thank for it). "Under the Sea" is certainly the most memorable song from the film, or from any Disney film for that matter, and Ashman's idea to make Sebastian a Jamaican crab instead of the English-butler archetype the writers had in mind really paid off with the Reggea/calypso style of the song helping to set the film's tone. Samuel E. Wright's expressive, driving vocals are just pitch perfect and the layered orchestration and exotic timbre give the song the unique tone I alluded to previously. "Poor Unfortunate Souls" helps to establish Ursula's villainy and is maybe the first great Disney villain song. Pat Carroll renders it wonderfully and her asides to Flotsam and Jetsam are particularly clever. "Kiss the Girl" hearkens back to the calypso style of "Under the Sea" but with a softer tone and smooth, flowing tempo, compared to the rambunctious feel of the earlier song. This befits the more romantic nature of this number in which Ariel's companions assist her in winning her prince.

     The Little Mermaid may not be as tightly plotted or as dazzlingly animated as the films which followed it but it remains a minor classic in the Disney canon thanks to it's superb soundtrack and it's seamless blend of zany comedy and heartfelt drama.