The Little Mermaid Live!

Embarrassing and hideous, a shrieking disaster. I've seen better high-school productions. And everyone was TOO OLD.

It's an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney. It's been 30 years since the release of the original movie. It's the animated movie cut with live performances of some of the scenes. Relative unknown Auli'i Cravalho is playing Ariel. At first, I thought she might be too old but she's actually a teen. One has to be aware of how she looks. On the other hand, Graham Phillips looks the part of the prince. Then there is Shaggy. It's been a decade since I've thought about Shaggy and here he is. He needs a more elaborate outfit to play Sebastian. He looks like Eddie Murphy's red outfit. He does not look like a crab. For inspiration, look towards Queen Latifah. She goes all out and her outfits are amazing. As for the performances, they are fair. It may be asking too much especially for the younger performers. I would suggest having only little girls in the audience. It's a little strange to see a middle aged dude whopping it up in a Little Mermaid show. Overall, it's fine.

I am a fan of the live performances of stage and screen classics that have come to TV in the last few years. But this show offered something different---an animated film/live performance hybrid. It's a clever solution to the underwater action challenge that "The Little Mermaid" presents. But I think the concept is flawed.

We might enjoy intercutting the animated sequences to the live onstage performances if the performers were superstars (think Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand) of if the performers were the actual voices behind the animated characters (think Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel performing their songs from "Frozen"). But this presentation was like switching between two channels.

The production values were good. And the simulation of swimming using wires was the best part of the show. But they were not enough to save this live performance from mediocrity. I also found the applause and cheering of the live audience to be distracting.

I love live theatre. I love musical theatre. But, I'm still struggling to be excited by this new wave of Live TV productions of classic musical theatre, classic TV shows and now animated classics. This one set itself a gigantic task to perform live a story that was about mythical worlds is both on land and under the sea where the primary character is confined to sitting. What, in fact, they did was project the original animated movie for the story and interposed live performances of the songs. I can only image it was a spectacular feast for those in the live theatre: puppets, aerials (cum Cirque du Soleil), characters in costumes, dancers and stars belting out award winning songs. However, even on my big screen TV, it failed to capture the excitement that must have been in the studio. I also didn't find all the stars up to the task. Queen Latifah was absolutely perfect. Graham Phillips was a revelation, his voice and bearing befitting a prince (who knew Zack had such hidden talents?). Auli'l Cravalho's beautiful voice was compromised by aerial harnesses and by being forced to sing sitting because of her fish tail (she was breathless and pitchy). Shaggy and John Stamos were just plain bad casting giving cringe worthy performers. This production just didn't translate to its medium despite some genius elements. I give this production a 6 (fair) out of 10. {Live Rebrand of Animated Classic}

For as much money and effects were put into this production, the audio technology used made many numbers a garbled mess.