The film was released about 115 years after Charles Kingsley's source novel of the same name, first published in 1863.
Charles Kingsley wrote "The Water Babies" book for his son, it being a children's fairytale novel, in the vein of Charles Dickens and a part satire supporting Charles Darwin's "The Origin of the Species".
Filmed in 1976 but not released until 1978.
The full title of the movie's source book was "The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby".
Though many of the source children's' novel's story elements were incorporated into this feature film version, the picture somewhat deviated from the original book by adding the sub-plot with the shark and kraken.