The Little Mermaid (TV Series)

The Little Mermaid is an American children's television series. The series aired on CBS from September 11, 1992 to November 26, 1994.

Plot
The Little Mermaid television series is a prequel to the movie of the same name. The story is set before the events in the 1989 film and follows Ariel's adventures as a mermaid still living under the sea with her father, Sebastian the crab and Flounder the fish. Various episodes highlight her relationships with her friends, father and sisters, and usually involve Ariel foiling the attempts of various enemies that intend ill harm to her or her kingdom. A prequel film, The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, was released in 2008 containing events that contradict the television series (such as Ariel's youth and first meeting with Flounder), making the TV series and Ariel's Beginning independent continuities.

From the Film

 * Jodi Benson as Ariel
 * Bradley Pierce and Edan Gross as Flounder
 * Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian
 * Kenneth Mars as King Triton
 * Maurice LaMarche as Scuttle
 * King Triton's Daughters
 * Pat Carroll as Ursula
 * Paddi Edwards as Flotsam and Jetsam
 * Jeff Bennett as Prince Eric

Original Characters

 * Danny Cooksey as Urchin
 * Joe Alaskey as The Lobster Mobster
 * Tim Curry as The Evil Manta
 * Cree Summer as Pearl
 * Frank Welker as Spot
 * Brian Cummings as Simon
 * Whitby Hertford as Gabriella
 * Dave Coulier as Moray
 * The Crabscouts
 * Kath Soucie and Richard Karron as Flo and Ebb
 * Tony Jay as The Magical Wishing Starfish
 * Jim Cummings as Emperor Sharga / The Ancient Seaclops
 * Lawrence Montaigne as Dudley
 * Mark Hamill as Hans Christian Andersen
 * Rod McKuen as Archimedes

Episodes
See Also: List of The Little Mermaid Episodes

Development
After the success of the 1989 movie, The Walt Disney Company planned to produce a children's television series for its Disney Channel cable outlet called The Little Mermaid's Island. The proposed series would feature puppets from Jim Henson's Creature Shop interacting with a "live" Ariel. As the video release of The Little Mermaid soared in sales during 1990 and early 1991, Disney quietly dropped plans for "The Little Mermaid's Island" in favour of a more ambitious plan: an animated weekly series for the CBS network. The new show would concern the adventures of Ariel and her friends before the events in the movie.

Jamie Mitchell, an artist and graphic designer who worked on Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, was named the producer and director of the new series. Patsy Cameron and Tedd Anasti were the story editors and wrote almost all of the episodes for the show's second and third seasons. Their previous joint work included Hanna-Barbera's The Smurfs, the animated Beetlejuice and Disney's DuckTales. Some of the artists and technicians on the feature film also contributed to the TV series. Mark Dindal, chief of special animated effects for the movie, was a consultant for special effects on the TV show. Robby Merkin, who worked with Alan Menken and Howard Ashman on arranging the songs for the movie, worked as the arranger and music producer for the first season of the TV show.

Conscious of the worldwide acclaim for the movie's superior artistry, Walt Disney Television Animation auditioned the best overseas animation studios. In the world of TV animation, farming most of the artwork out to Asian studios is an economic reality due to lower production costs and wages abroad. Studios in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and the Philippines contributed to the series.

Broadcast
The show's broadcast debut in September 1992 was in the form of a half-hour prime-time special, The Little Mermaid: A Whale of a Tale.

Its Saturday morning debut came the very next day. The show's time slot was 8:30 a.m., following another new animated series, Fievel's American Tails, based on the animated movie An American Tail. The Little Mermaid series drew a fair bit of media attention, including more than one spot on Entertainment Tonight, because it was the first series based directly on a Disney animated feature and was a rare television cartoon concerning a strong female character. The show kept its time slot the following year with its second season.

For the series' third season, the show was moved to the 8 a.m. time period and was the lead-in for a new Disney animated series, Aladdin. The third season was the final season to be produced; CBS elected not to buy another batch of episodes. On October 2, 1995, Disney Channel began rerunning the show seven days a week. The show was broadcast on Disney Channel until 2010. It was also shown on Toon Disney until January 25, 2008. The series then aired on Disney Junior from the channel's launch in 2012 until 2014.In 2011 the series ran until 2018 on Disney Junior Africa.