Right around the time of Disney's adaptation of The Little Mermaid, Disney Channel was in talks with Jim Henson about a puppet-centric spin-off series. Or, maybe I should make that Muppet-centric.
Anyway, two pilot episodes were shot for Little Mermaid's Island around 1990. Samuel E. Wright (ex-Enos) and Buddy Hackett (ex-You Bet Your Life) reprised their voice roles from the movie. However, Ariel was one of two characters portrayed by live actors in the pilot, and, for reasons known only to Disney, Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in the movie and subsequent animated series, wasn't asked to audition to play a live-action Ariel. Go figure.
Let's take a look at the first pilot, "Sebastian's Birthday":
I think you can see why this didn't fly or even float.
As noted, an animated Little Mermaid series landed at CBS in 1992, and ran for 3 seasons.
No rating.
2 comments:
How did this get cancelled?
It was an unsold pilot. Disney saw something they didn't like, and decided not to go forward with the series.
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