From: rcook@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Robert Cook)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Re: Observations regarding TLM
Date: 5 Jan 1993 17:14:24 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego
NNTP-Posting-Host: sdcc13.ucsd.edu

In article <1993Jan5.012910.23048@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> quetzal@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Quetzal) writes:
>
>1.  The seafood question above.  Decide for yourself.

They are all vegetarians, perhaps.  Or maybe they eat sharks, who
seem to be more than willing to eat other fish and even mermaids.

>2.  Watch the thimble on Sebastian's foot when he is threatening to tell
>Triton about the grotto.  Where does it *go?*

Wasn't he trying to kick it off just before?

>3.  Just how many feathers does Scuttle lose in the entire film?  And
>howcome he can still fly even minus these feathers?  Or is this somthing
>like the bumblebee which isn't supposed to be able to fly either?

Yes, and Flounder doesn't look like a very efficient swimmer,
either.  Scuttle didn't appear to lose very many major flight
feathers; birds have lots of little feathers to lose (they don't go
quite bald even while molting).

>4.  If Ariel *did* manage to get Eric to kiss her and she stayed human
>forever, would Ursula get to keep the voice?  I thought so.  Kinda makes
>the contract seem a whole lot less friendly, I'd say.

I don't think that it was "friendly" in the least.  Ariel made a great
sacrifice for a chance at Eric, but she never really had to pay up.
But that wouldn't have made a HAPPY ending.  Ursula picked up the
tab in the end, and that seemed to work well enough.

>5.  In "Les Poissons" there are a few frames where you see a silhouette
>of Louis doing nasty things to fish.  This seems to be a send-up of some
>famous thriller/horror.  Which one?

I think I remember a TV commercial a while back where this woman
holds up a can of bug killer or something. :-)

>6.  What *is* it that Grismby says to Eric just before Eric says "A girl
>rescued me"?

No clue--it sounds like he said "blah...blah...didn't you?"  I haven't
watched it for a while--better get cracking before the homework
starts to pile in.

>7.  For that matter, what is it that Sebastian says between "He'd say
>he's gonna kill himself a crab, that's what her father'd say!  I'm gonna
>march myself straight . . . . . "  and " . . . . and don't you shake
>your head at me, young lady . . ."?  

That one's easier, I think--I'll check.

>11. On that same note, the first few names in the "Additional Voices"
>are listed out of alphabetical order.  Presumably, they are the voices
>of characters not quite important enough to be listed in the starring
>credits.  Which characters' voices do they do?

I've no idea, but look at the main voice credits for Beauty and the
Beast.  It looks slightly alphabetic...sort of....

>16. Why does everyone persist in this idea that mermaids are *fish?*
>There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that they are mammals:
>firstly, the word "mammal" - it's derived from a word that has quite a
>lot to do with a certain pair of seashells that appear to be a
>particularly popular topic in another discussion currently on the group.
>In short, only mammals have, or *need*, breasts.  Secondly, the tail.
>*All* species of mermaid I have seen, including the TLM variety, the
>Peter Pan variety, the Splash variety, etc., have *horizontal* tails.
>Now, dolphins and whales (mammals, note) have horizontal tails; fish
>have vertical tails.  Thirdly, the belly button.  Mermaids certainly
>have navels, which suggests to me that not only are they mammals, but
>*placental* mammals (i.e., that rules out marsupials and monotremes).
>That'll do for the moment.  Questions about mermaid anatomy that extend
>to the presence or location of other major body parts that are not
>covered under a "G" rating will cheerfully be ignored.

Mermaids are supposed to be HALF-fish, right?  The tail, while
horizontal, has fins and scales.  Whales don't have fins (not like a
fish's, anyway) and scales.  A real flounder does not only have a
horizontal tale--its whole body is horizontal!  Mermaids (pretending
that they actually exist for the moment) are a class all their own.
They seem to be primarily mammal, though, because they are
apparently placental, but that'd be sort of like calling monotremes
birds because they lay eggs or mammals because they suckle young or
reptiles because their legs are hinged horizontally (watch the
little spiny creature near the beginning of The Rescuers Down Under--
the one with the long snout who comes out of an old log or
something).

>18. When Ursula sings "It's she who holds her tongue who gets her man",
>watch what she is holding herself at that instant.  Look vaguely
>tongue-shaped to you?  So her "man" I take it, is Triton.  This is as
>far as I go with "double meaning" discussions.

That could be true, but I've never thought of it that way because
it seems to be a reference to the original story, where the sea-witch
actually cuts out the little mermaid's tongue.  She also had pet
eels, which she used to clean out her cauldron.

>22. Did Vanessa/Ursula really need to "hypnotise" Eric after he threw
>the recorder into the sea?  Or was this just a little bit of insurance?
>After all, Vanessa was just what he had been looking for. . . .

No, but then Disney would have had to deal with Eric + Ariel.  I think
they should've gone for it--whadda struggle it might have been for Eric.
Ah well, can't have everything.  Besides, Ariel's voice may possess
a certain power over humans not unlike that of a "Siren Song."

>24. Where did that dress Ariel wears as she walks out of the shallows
>into Eric's arms at the end come from?

The same place her legs came from.

>25. Does anyone else find it strange that it took Ariel not only less
>than a day to learn how to walk, but only one additional day to learn
>how to dance?

She was probably just shaky--in the original story (not that Disney
seems to care too much about following it) the little mermaid could
walk more gracefully than any human from the moment she got her
legs.

>I think that'll do for the moment, but I'm sure there were other
>questions that I meant to ask.  (When you watch it every day for a week,
>these things tend to pop up . . .)

And I thought that I was crazy for merely responding to this post. ;-)


- Robert Cook
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney