Little Mermaid's Island 1990

Jim Henson's Little Mermaid's Island 1990



Little Mermaid's Island was a show proposed by Jim Henson in 1990, during talks with The Walt Disney Company. Two episodes were shot, but never aired -- "Sebastian's Birthday" and "Tell The Truth" -- intended as a daily series to air on Disney Channel, with puppets against blue screen and human characters interacting. Filming took place in a very old studio (once owned by Mary Pickford) in the Silverlake district of Los Angeles.

According to Karen Falk, "the Henson Workshop created the puppets and Ed Christie went out to the shoot to wrangle them, but that was the extent of our involvement. Jim did not work on it himself (did not direct, produce, perform) and was pretty disappointed by the pilot. It was one of the few projects done while our company was in transition to Disney right before Jim died.

The show was a spin-off of Disney's animated film The Little Mermaid, with Marietta Deprima playing the role of Ariel, and puppet versions of Sebastian the crab, Scuttle the seagull, Flotsam and Jetsam and Flounder the fish and new character, Flounder's twin sister, Sandy The other live cast member was character actor Clive Revill as a variation of Grimsby from the original film, here re-conceived as a jovial sea captain who lived on an island nearby to Ariel. The puppet used for Ambrosius in Labyrinth was recycled as Max the sheepdog. There was also a full body puppet called Scales the Dragon, a musical dragon who lived in a cave and created songs with his rock piano and pots and pans.

Each episode was planned to have four musical numbers, with ten songwriters assigned to the project. The project went into pre-production before the release of the film, with many of the original vocal cast set to reprise their roles (including Samuel E. Wright and Buddy Hackett).

For scenes of Ariel swimming, a rod puppet was used to simulate her movements underwater.

Jim Henson died within two months after the pilot was shot. The two episodes filmed lack the end credits and the final opening titles.