cudge: deadshot: srsly: sarahclare:
- 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.
- 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.
- effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film
- 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).
- Sebastian the Crab’s full name is Horatio Thelonius Ignatius Crustatious Sebastian.
- This was the first Disney film to receive an Academy Award since Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), though other films had been nominated.
- A few of the backgrounds used during the “Kiss the Girl” scene are taken from The Rescuers (1977).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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”.
- ‘Jodi Benson (I)’ sang ‘Part of Your World’ in the dark to get that ‘under the sea’ feeling.
- A scene was cut that explained Ursula is Ariel’s Aunt.
- Schedueling conflicts with Star Trek: The Next Generation forced Patrick Stewart to turn down the role of King Triton.
- 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