Cebu City, Philippines–Disney movies will always be a movie staple for all movie watchers.
Disney movies, after all, are filled with magical things and themes that never cease to amaze kids and the kids at heart. Disney films pretty much helped shape our entire childhood and will forever hold a special place in our hearts.
But there are actually interesting facts that we have not noticed about these movies.
While majority of the people probably re-watched countless Disney films and memorized all the songs in every movie, there are many fascinating details about these films that not many of us know about.
Here are some of them CDN Digital complied from different legitimate sources:
Ursula was inspired by a Drag Queen
Harris Glenn Milstead, better known as Divine, was the inspiration for the character of Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
Much like the evil sea witch, Divine had hair that defied gravity, over-arched eyebrows and a glamorous sense of style.
Ursula was modeled after Divine’s looks and personality, but unfortunately, Divine passed away just a year before The Little Mermaid hit the big screen in 1989.
The Muses were supposed to be voiced by the Spice Girls
Spice Girls was approached by Disney to voice the five singing goddesses from the animated film Hercules, mainly due to their popularity at the time.
However, due to scheduling conflicts, the Spice Girls had to decline.
Actresses Lillias White, Cheryl Freeman, LaChanze, Roz Ryan, and Vanéese Y. Thomas were brought on board to voice the muses instead.
They managed to pull it off and the scenes in the film that they were in eventually became iconic.
Jackie Chan voiced the Beast in the Chinese Translation of Beauty and the Beast
Jackie Chan may be known as a legendary actor and a martial artist but actually, he is also a trained opera singer who had a music career.
He released over 20 albums and has done vocals in multiple languages, including Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese, and English.
So when you hear his awesome vocals in the Chinese version of “Beauty and the Beast,” don’t be too surprised.
A hyena researcher sued Disney
Hyena biologists allowed Disney animators to visit their facilities so they could observe and sketch real hyenas.
These biologists requested for the animals to be portrayed positively.
So when the film finally came out and the animals were portrayed as senseless and villainous creatures, they were not happy.
Some went as far as boycotting the film, but one researcher was so upset that he tried to sue Disney for defamation of character.
The Wildebeest Stampede took three years to animate
Remember that very terrifying scene in Lion King where Simba almost got trampled in a stampede?
That was actually one of the first scenes that went into production and one of the last to be completed.
For the sequence, distinct wildebeest characters were created through a 3D computer program, then multiplied to create a herd.
It took five trained animators and nearly three years to finish the two-and-a-half-minute scene. /bmjo