The Little Mermaid (TV series)

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The Little Mermaid
From left to right: Ariel, Sebastian, and Flounder.
Genre	Animated series
Running time	22 minutes
Creator(s)	Walt Disney Television
Starring	Jodi Benson Edan Gross Samuel E. Wright Maurice LaMarche Kenneth Mars Danny Cooksey Jim Cummings Bradley Pierce Pat Carroll
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	CBS
Original run	September 11, 1992–November 26, 1994
No. of episodes	31
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Little Mermaid is an animated television series based on the 1989 film of the same name, produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It featured the adventures of Ariel and her friends Flounder, Sebastian, Scuttle, and other characters from the movie The Little Mermaid along with characters that are original to the series. This series originally appeared on CBS and it was on from 1992 to 1995. Jodi Benson reprised her role as Ariel for this show, and Kenneth Mars reprised his role as King Triton. This is the first Disney Television series to have spun-off from a major film. The first non-Disney Afternoon cartoon series to premiere for some time, this series is actually a prequel to the movie of the same name, the story is set when Ariel was 15, a year before the events in the movie. The Little Mermaid premiered in the Fall of 1992 with the animated short called "A Whale of a Tale," then moved to Saturday mornings. The Little Mermaid currently airs every weekend morning on Toon Disney as part of the Princess Party Palace Block, and starting September 5th at 12:30/11:30c on Disney Channel.

Contents 1 List of Episodes 1.1 Season 1: 1992 1.2 Season 2: 1993 1.3 Season 3: 1994 2 Characters from the film 3 Original characters 4 Voices 5 Trivia 6 External links

[edit] List of Episodes

[edit] Season 1: 1992

14 episodes

#	Originally Aired	Production Code	Title	Description
1	September 11, 1992	4313-007	Whale of a Tale	Ariel befriends an abandoned killer whale. (Note: the title is also that of a song from Disney's 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.)
2	September 12, 1992	4313-001	The Great Sebastian
3	September 19, 1992	4313-002	Stormy	Ariel rides a wild seahorse.
4	September 26, 1992	4313-003	Urchin	Ariel befriends an orphaned merboy. (Note: this is the first appearance of Urchin.)
5	October 03, 1992	4313-004	Double Bubble	Ariel babysits two mischievous mertwins; Lobster Mobster attemps to steal the mother's pearl necklace
6	October 10, 1992	4313-005	Message in a Bottle	Ariel befriends a lonely sea dragon after she, Sebastian and Flounder discover his message he sent in a bottle
7	October 17, 1992	4313-008	Charmed	Ariel puts on a human bracelet and then can't take it off. She is also trapped by a giant whirlpool when she runs away from home.
8	October 24, 1992	4313-009	Marriage of Inconvenience
9	October 31, 1992	4313-011	The Evil Manta	Ariel unwittingly frees a dark figure known as the Evil Manta, who tries to take over Atlantica.
10	November 07, 1992	4313-006	Thingamajigger	When a pirate's boot falls into the sea, Ariel, Sebastian and Flounder try to figure out what it is. Some mistake it as a weapon. (Note: In this episode, Prince Eric, along with Max, his sheepdog, makes his first appearance)
11	November 14, 1992	4313-012	Red	A magic spell turns King Triton into a merboy, and Ariel has to play mother to him.
12	November 21, 1992	4313-013	Beached
13	November 28, 1992	4313-014	Trident True
14	December 05, 1992	4313-010	Eel-Ectric City

[edit] Season 2: 1993

9 episodes

#	Originally Aired	Production Code	Title	Description
15	September 18, 1993	4313-015	Resigned to It
16	September 25, 1993	4313-016	Calliope Dreams
17	October 02, 1993	4313-019	Save the Whale	Spot, the killer whale from the pilot episode, returns.
18	October 09, 1993	4313-018	Against the Tide
19	October 16, 1993	4313-017	Giggles	A blowfish's magic spell causes Ariel to create seaquakes whenever she laughs.
20	October 23, 1993	4313-020	Wish upon a Starfish	Ariel befriends a deaf mermaid. (Note: this is the first appearance of Gabriella. Also, the title is a play on a song from the animated film Pinocchio).
21	October 30, 1993	4313-021	Tail of Two Crabs	Sebastian feels threatened by an old arch-rival who is better than him at everything, while Ursula works on a plan to turn Triton, Ariel, and others into sea worms.
22	November 06, 1993	4313-022	Metal Fish	Inside a primitive submarine an unlikely character - Hans Christian Andersen!
23	December 11, 1993	4313-023	T'ank You for Dat, Ariel

[edit] Season 3: 1994

8 episodes

#	Originally Aired	Production Code	Title	Description
24	September 17, 1994	4313-024	Scuttle	Ariel meets Scuttle for the first time.
25	September 24, 1994	4313-025	King Crab
26	October 01, 1994	4313-026	Island of Fear	A mad scientist tries to use Sebastian for sinister experiments.
27	October 08, 1994	4313-027	Land of the Dinosaurs	during a trip to the north pole Ariel finds frozen dinasours and thaws them. Somehow they are aquatic and cause chaos before king Triton makes a refuge for them on land.
28	October 15, 1994	4313-028	Heroes
29	October 22, 1994	4313-029	The Beast Within	Flounder is bitten by a howling hairfish - and turns into one!
30	October 29, 1994	4313-030	Ariel's Treasures
31	November 26, 1994	4313-031	A Little Evil

[edit] Characters from the film

• Princess Ariel: Ariel is the seventh daughter of the sea king who loves to go on adventures. Although she is interested in the human world, her facination with it has not fully developed.

• Sebastian: Sebastian is a crab who acts as the king's advisor, court musician, and a baby-sitter-like figure for Ariel.

• Flounder: Flounder, Ariel's best friend, is a fish who follows along on her adventures, even if he is a guppy.

• King Triton: King Triton is Ariel's father who is also ruler of Alantica.

• Scuttle: Scuttle is a seagull who is friends with Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian. He is Ariel's only connection to the human world.

• Aquata, Arista, Andrina, Attina, Adella, and Alana: Ariel's six older sisters.

• Ursula: Ursula is a squid and a powerful sea witch. She constantly plots to steal the throne from King Triton that she believes is rightfully her's.

• Prince Eric: Eric is a young human prince.

• Grimsby: Grimsby is Eric's right hand man/servant.

• Carlotta: She is Eric's maid.

• Flotsam and Jetsam: Flotsam and Jetsam are Ursula's pet eels who do her evil bidding for her.

[edit] Original characters

• Urchin: Ariel's new friend is Urchin, a merboy (for lack of a better term). He shares her love for adventure and is supposively her adopted brother.

• The Lobster Mobster: The Lobster Monster is a 1940's-like ganster.

• The Shrimp: The shrimp is the Lobster Mobster's sidekick.

• The Evil Manta: As his name would suggest, he is an evil manta ray. He tries to take over Atlantica. While his magic is not as dramatic as Ursula's, The manta can turn friends against each other by talking to one of them, and his tail delivers brutal possibly fatal lightning strikes. He has a son who became an artist and friend of Ariel's.

• Pearl: This wealthy mermaid is constantly trying to get Ariel in trouble.

• Gabriella: Gabriella is a deaf Hispanic mermaid who dreams of becoming a singer. Because she is deaf, Gabriella has a translator for her, in her octopus friend Olie.

[edit] Voices

• Ariel: Jodi Benson
• Sebastian: Samuel E. Wright and Joachim Kemmer
• King Triton: Kenneth Mars
• Flounder: Edan Gross and Bradley Pierce
• Ursula: Pat Carroll

[edit] Trivia

• This series takes place before the movie but was made in between the original movie and its sequel The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.
• The character Gabriella is based off a real person. She was a fan of the show who died during its first season.
• Some groups of creatures in the show use the time measure of tides as an alternative for years. One year is equal to 200 tides, and one tide is equal to about 3 days (which is coincidently the limit of time Ariel is given to kiss Prince Eric in the original film.)
• This show does not always stay consistant to the movie, as Ariel has too much human contact in it. Also, in one episode, Sebastian is present when Ariel begins her collection of human objects in the cave, though in the movie, which takes place later, he was clearly surprised to discover it -"Ariel...what is all this?"
• Some fans argue that the voices are different from the movie. This is due to the fact that some characters have new actors voicing them and the original actors were asked to make their voices seem younger since the series takes place one year earlier.
• In some episodes, one of Ariel's sister's appears overweight (it is believed to be Adella), but in other episodes, she seems fine. This may be due to the fact that the show wanted to allow some diversity.
• In the episode Metal Fish, Ariel saves a character named Hans Christian Anderson who is based on the real life author of the originalThe Little Mermaid, and the encounter inspired the character to "write" the story of [[The Little Mermaid. A voice-over at the end of the episode talks about the real Hans Christian Andersen, while the image on the screen shows Ariel sitting on a rock in the style of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbor.
• The upcoming sequel to The Little Mermaid, currently known as [[The Little Mermaid III]], is supposed to feature the character of Urchin, from the series.
• The opening theme to the show is a combination of the songs "Part of Your Wolrd", "Under the Sea", and "Kiss the Girl". The overture for the upcoming stage musical of The Little Mermaid will be similar to this.
• Ariel's sisters have a much bigger role in the series than they did in the movie, as they appear in many episodes and sometimes serve notable purpose. However, her sisters are never properly credited.

[edit] External links

• Official Website
• The Little Mermaid (TV series) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Little Mermaid (TV series) at TV.com