Obscure and Lost Disney Show: "Little Mermaid's Island"
Some of you have enjoyed "The Little Mermaid Live!" on ABC, which I haven't watched yet, but that's good. But there is this one show before the animated series in the 90's, titled, "Little Mermaid's Island".
Little Mermaid's Island is a mix between live action and puppets (built by Jim Henson; "The Little Mermaid Live!" has puppets in there according to a commercial I saw). And yes, it has singing. Wow, one of the songs is going to get stuck in my head:
1. The puppets
2. The singing.
There was a pilot called "Sebastian's Birthday" and a second episode called "To Tell the Truth" (the above clip is from that. I haven't watched these yet, but here's info about "Sebatian's Birthday" from the Disney Wiki:
" Ariel and her friends are planning a surprise birthday party for Sebastian. While searching for his friends, Sebastian tells Scuttle that it is his birthday, which the seagull misinterprets as "bird day." Sebastian is joined by a chorus of oysters in a song about his birthday, followed by another number by Ariel and Flounder which convinces the crab they are too busy to play with him. On his way to visit Scales, Flotsam and Jetsam try to convince the crustacean that his friends have forgotten his special day, and no longer care about him.
Once Sebastian reaches Scales, the dragon goes into another musical number to try and mask the noise of Sebastian's birthday balloons popping. Heading home with a headache, Sebastian meets the eels once again, who reinforce their message that friends are unnecessary.
Grimsby and Max the sheepdog dock at the pier with the three-layer birthday cake, where they meet up with the confused Scuttle. The seagull and Grimsby sing another song as they head towards the party.
Meanwhile, Ariel has broken Sebastian's present while attempting to wrap it. She sings another number about their friendship, and ponders another gift for the crab.
Convincing Sebastian to come to Scales' cave, a reprise of Sebastian's birthday song is sung, and Ariel presents the crab with his present, a framed poem written by the mermaid. As the show ends, Sebastian blows the candles of his cake out with a mighty gust, covering Scuttle with frosting." (Disney Wiki).
You can watch the episode here:
As for "Telling the Truth", I couldn't find info about it, but here is the episode:
The new characters on the show are named Sandy (Unknown voice actor), Flounder's brother, and Scales the dragon (Jim Cummings; why a dragon though?). There was a book series that included these characters too called The Little Mermaid's Treasure Chest Series (maybe the books was to tie in to the show???)
Not gonna lie, the eels here look cool.
For the actor Ariel, she is played by Marietta DePrima. Sebatian is voiced by his actor from the movie (Samuel E. Wright), as well as Scuttles, who again, is voiced by Buddy Hackett. The eels are voiced by an unknown voice actor, but sound close to the movie's. Also, the Max the sheepdog puppet was re-used from the movie "Labyrinth". We do have characters missing such as Ursula and Prince Eric.
Sadly, when the pilot was shot within two months, Jim Henson died.
In conclusion, I never knew this show existed until I read the animated show version of The Little Mermaid on Wikipedia, and I had to gather details. When ABC announced that they would be making a Little Mermaid Live show, I was excited. On one of the ads, they explained about the puppets and this snapped into my head. If this series was popular enough or ran on TV back in the day, then there would be merchandise of this, but sadly, we have the animated series. Hey, at least the series is good.
Here is a review of the series by a Youtuber:
So what do you think? Spread the word!!!!!!!
Twitter: @Cloudora807