1990 Oscars Academy Awards "Under the Sea" Performance
Feb 13, 2018 1:04:07 GMT -5
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Post by merprincess on Feb 13, 2018 1:04:07 GMT -5
I noticed that most Disney songs (or most songs in general, really) that won or were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song in the Renaissance era to nowadays usually have a live performance at the Oscars along with the win (or nomination). This is the case for Beauty and the Beast (Belle & Be Our Guest ), Aladdin (A Whole New World), of the Renaissance films and countless examples of more modern films (Frozen: Let it Go, Moana: How Far I'll Go, Tangled: I See The Light, Enchanted: Happy Working Song, etc.).
So I was curious to see when this trend may have started and/or if TLM also had performed.
And indeed they have!
I was super surprised I hadn't come across this videos in my traversing of YouTube, and this particular link was posted fairly recently (for being from 1990).
LOTS to unpack here:
1) obviously not Sam Wright as Sebastian. Anyone know who this is? He seems to be having a little trouble with some of the lyrics, plus they lowered the key for him a little bit.
2) the lack of characters from the film? Where's Ariel? Flounder? Sebastian? (just a man dressed in white singing Sebastian's song, no indication that he's portraying him). and the sea creatures that make up most of the scene in the film, where are the fish??? way too many human characters for it to really come across as being "under the sea" haha
3) pirates?? why??
4) divers???
4a) the divers are seriously hilarious, just watch them float upside down over and over again, it's way too entertaining
4b) the divers also get tap dance solos with their flippers, loooool
5) there's only three mermaids and all they get to do is flip their fins and sit on a moving octopus swing thing that spins around and around ad nauseam throughout the whole performance
6) random tribal bush people dancing about? if they had just made these people into sea creature type characters, it would've worked a lot better in my opinion
7) there's something kinda freaky about that octopus. it's those soulless eyes. *shudders*
ok ok I kid! for all my jokes and mocking, I'm glad a video of this exists that proves that there was indeed a performance (of sorts) of Under the Sea at the Oscars!
If you watch the Belle/Be Our Guest and A Whole New World videos I've linked above, you can tell they're not really going for accuracy to the film, more so getting the look and feel of the films and their general atmosphere while adding in some 1990's flair and style. In the Belle one, the costumes are all over the place, LeFou is played by a silent child, there's a brief moment where the soundtrack sounds a bit disco retro for a second during the Silly Girls section, it's all fun! And the one for A Whole New World is just overkill in all the best sense of the word- fire everywhere, dancers in every shot, an actual flying magic carpet stage effect, the look and feel of an Arabian market, plus the song is slowed down a little bit to give it that 90's slow jam feel. In Under the Sea, the music sounds just about the same, besides being a little bit lower in key, with some room for dance breaks, but it's still very fun and calypso like the song we all know and love. Their goal isn't to recreate the film onstage or give it a Broadway-style adaptation, it's all a big show to highlight the song.
The 90's just felt like an era that was all about being Extra š nothing wrong with that, but it's very interesting to see how times have changed!
Compare the staging in the more modern performances: Let it Go (includes the Adele Dazeem flub, oh John Travolta!), How Far I'll Go, Happy Working Song, and I See The Light. It's hard to find high quality versions of these, but you can still see that's there minimal staging if any! I think nowadays, the producers nixed the flashy show elements so that they could showcase the song first and foremost, which, at the end of the day, is what was actually nominated- not the staging.
What I do appreciate is that, for the most part, they have the original singers reprise their performances from the film onstage at the Oscars...with the exception of this Under the Sea performance (who was that?? just curious! it was only a few months after the film came out, Sam Wright must've been busy?)
Also, another random curiosity- anyone else wonder why Part of Your World wasn't nominated and therefore didn't win this award? It would've been INCREDIBLE for it to be nominated and have Jodi sing it live at the Oscars! This is something I think about ALL the time! We're so lucky that The Little Mermaid had not just one but two Oscar-nominated songs, being the equally wonderful Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl (and a Best Musical Score win for at the time first-time film score composer Alan Menken!), but I can't help but think it's such a snub to Part of Your World. To me it is the single most iconic tune of the film and it's such a shame that it's never been formally recognized or honored.
Jodi Benson weighed in on her opinions as to why this may be in a 2013 interview: www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a511285/the-little-mermaids-jodi-benson-talks-part-of-your-world/
She says: "I think if it had cycled back around now it probably would have [been nominated], but a story song at the time was probably not recognized really as much, a monologue song."
Which I agree with! It's an "I Want" song, which are the songs that nowadays garner the most attention and praise. Look at how popular Let it Go was and still is!
Anyway, sorry for the tangent, just wanted to share this video and the thought-dump it triggered in my mind š
So I was curious to see when this trend may have started and/or if TLM also had performed.
And indeed they have!
I was super surprised I hadn't come across this videos in my traversing of YouTube, and this particular link was posted fairly recently (for being from 1990).
LOTS to unpack here:
1) obviously not Sam Wright as Sebastian. Anyone know who this is? He seems to be having a little trouble with some of the lyrics, plus they lowered the key for him a little bit.
2) the lack of characters from the film? Where's Ariel? Flounder? Sebastian? (just a man dressed in white singing Sebastian's song, no indication that he's portraying him). and the sea creatures that make up most of the scene in the film, where are the fish??? way too many human characters for it to really come across as being "under the sea" haha
3) pirates?? why??
4) divers???
4a) the divers are seriously hilarious, just watch them float upside down over and over again, it's way too entertaining
4b) the divers also get tap dance solos with their flippers, loooool
5) there's only three mermaids and all they get to do is flip their fins and sit on a moving octopus swing thing that spins around and around ad nauseam throughout the whole performance
6) random tribal bush people dancing about? if they had just made these people into sea creature type characters, it would've worked a lot better in my opinion
7) there's something kinda freaky about that octopus. it's those soulless eyes. *shudders*
ok ok I kid! for all my jokes and mocking, I'm glad a video of this exists that proves that there was indeed a performance (of sorts) of Under the Sea at the Oscars!
If you watch the Belle/Be Our Guest and A Whole New World videos I've linked above, you can tell they're not really going for accuracy to the film, more so getting the look and feel of the films and their general atmosphere while adding in some 1990's flair and style. In the Belle one, the costumes are all over the place, LeFou is played by a silent child, there's a brief moment where the soundtrack sounds a bit disco retro for a second during the Silly Girls section, it's all fun! And the one for A Whole New World is just overkill in all the best sense of the word- fire everywhere, dancers in every shot, an actual flying magic carpet stage effect, the look and feel of an Arabian market, plus the song is slowed down a little bit to give it that 90's slow jam feel. In Under the Sea, the music sounds just about the same, besides being a little bit lower in key, with some room for dance breaks, but it's still very fun and calypso like the song we all know and love. Their goal isn't to recreate the film onstage or give it a Broadway-style adaptation, it's all a big show to highlight the song.
The 90's just felt like an era that was all about being Extra š nothing wrong with that, but it's very interesting to see how times have changed!
Compare the staging in the more modern performances: Let it Go (includes the Adele Dazeem flub, oh John Travolta!), How Far I'll Go, Happy Working Song, and I See The Light. It's hard to find high quality versions of these, but you can still see that's there minimal staging if any! I think nowadays, the producers nixed the flashy show elements so that they could showcase the song first and foremost, which, at the end of the day, is what was actually nominated- not the staging.
What I do appreciate is that, for the most part, they have the original singers reprise their performances from the film onstage at the Oscars...with the exception of this Under the Sea performance (who was that?? just curious! it was only a few months after the film came out, Sam Wright must've been busy?)
Also, another random curiosity- anyone else wonder why Part of Your World wasn't nominated and therefore didn't win this award? It would've been INCREDIBLE for it to be nominated and have Jodi sing it live at the Oscars! This is something I think about ALL the time! We're so lucky that The Little Mermaid had not just one but two Oscar-nominated songs, being the equally wonderful Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl (and a Best Musical Score win for at the time first-time film score composer Alan Menken!), but I can't help but think it's such a snub to Part of Your World. To me it is the single most iconic tune of the film and it's such a shame that it's never been formally recognized or honored.
Jodi Benson weighed in on her opinions as to why this may be in a 2013 interview: www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a511285/the-little-mermaids-jodi-benson-talks-part-of-your-world/
She says: "I think if it had cycled back around now it probably would have [been nominated], but a story song at the time was probably not recognized really as much, a monologue song."
Which I agree with! It's an "I Want" song, which are the songs that nowadays garner the most attention and praise. Look at how popular Let it Go was and still is!
Anyway, sorry for the tangent, just wanted to share this video and the thought-dump it triggered in my mind š
