Not Even Queen Latifah Could Save “The Little Mermaid Live!” From Drowning

November 6, 2019 / Posted by:

I was already mad that I had to push way too many buttons on my remote control trying to pull up The Wonderful World Of Disney Presents The Little Mermaid Live! on my DVR (I should only have had to type “the lit” before it popped up but that long ass title had it buried unda da mother fucking sea). That pretty much set the tone for my entire viewing experience. We knew from the teaser trailer that we were in for a low-budget cash grab, but whooah boy. Shaggy phoning it in as Sebastian, the alleged crab-looking Eddie Murphy in Delirious meets Edward Scissorhands drag, was not something I was prepared for. Thank The Gods for Queen Latifah because her Ursula the Sea Witch was the only life form in all of Atlantica that didn’t look like it was about to expire from eating too many plastic bags.

As advertised, the show was basically a live screening of the animated movie punctuated by worse productions of the songs. Here’s an example of what passes for Disney “magic”, live!

I know they’re supposed to be underwater and all, but there’s no excuse for being that out of breath. They got blunts down where it’s betta?

Despite being saddled with 80 tons of Hefty bags from The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Queen Latifah as Ursula was the only performance that wasn’t dead in the water. You forget how important it is that performers “look alive” until you’ve nearly drowned in a sea of indifference. Then all of a sudden, here comes Latifah throwing you a line. Climb on up, there’s room for everyone on this door!

I’ll never know why these ding-dongs in the costume department didn’t put her on wheels so she could ooze across the floor. They made a lot of other big choices, none of which were correct. Take dancing crabs in enormous foam crab costumes during John Stamos’ turn as Chef Louie for example.

Here’s John’s performance. As you can see they had the budget for ping pong balls and polyurethane foam, but didn’t have a dime to spare for poor John’s mustache and wholly unnecessary ponytail.

Even after all that huffin and puffin, at the end, John really thought HE should have been cast as Prince “Albert”. Which is alarming to think about in this context because mermaids, and seafood in general, get really nervous when you talk about being canned.

Trust me when I say that about covers all you need to know about The Wonderful World Of Disney Presents The Little Mermaid Live!. The two main protagonists, Ariel (played by Moana’s Auli’i Cravalho) and Prince Eric (played by *insert any male cast member from Riverdale except the one who got into that caper with Courtney Love*), were immaterial. Ultimately, I was left with one burning question, which incidentally, is the exact same question I had before I watched it: Why? I guess at the very least they can sell some of those costumes off to Wood Rocket for their inevitable porn parody of the upcoming live action feature film of The Little Mermaid.

Pic: YouTube

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