Another behind the scenes look at The Little Mermaid Live! is here and it confirms what many fans have been wondering since the casting of Graham Phillips was announced — Prince Eric will sing in the hybrid take on the Disney classic. Little Mermaid Live is different than the other live musical events that have come before it because ABC will play the original Little Mermaid animated film from 1989, but when it comes time for a musical number will cut to the live cast performing the number on a soundstage.
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Of course, Disney aficionados will recall that Prince Eric doesn’t have any songs within the animated feature, but the new featurette shows Philips singing and doing group choreography, so he’s at least in a group number if not getting a song of his own. If it’s the latter option, the question remains whether it’s an original musical number written for this performance or if the producers are stealing one Eric’s songs from the Broadway musical. By the looks of the featurette, it’s early on the film when Ariel first sees Eric on his ship with the crew.
As the cast says, this type of performance hasn’t been done on television before. It looks like Disney is going all out to give everyone a memorable experience for ABC’s first musical event.
Get your fins on because we go under the sea on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 8/7c on ABC.