Sorry To Make You Feel Ancient But ‘The Little Mermaid’ Flick Is Officially 30 Years Old

The Little Mermaid 30th anniversary

In news that’s not so great for those of us clinging on to our youth (me), it turns out that The Little Mermaid classic cracks the big 3-0 this year.

Now, there’s a fair share of movies floating about that have not stood the test of time whatsoever. My family home movies, for instance, have poor camerawork, they’re grainy as all buggery and whoever they hired to play three-year-old me should be fired.

He was always looking at the camera, could barely remember his lines let alone string a sentence together, and his body language was just unnatural. What’s the first rule of acting? Pretend like the camera’s not there.

The Little Mermaid happens to be heads and shoulders above my home movies though, as it has truly held its own over the years.

Genuinely, this movie has been around for three decades and it still gets more airtime than most blockbusters that came out four years ago.

I did a shallow-dive into exactly why the ’90s classic has achieved this rare level of success, and I dare you to rebut any of it.

The bangers

There hasn’t been a time since The Little Mermaid (except perhaps Aqua’s debut album in 1997) when I heard so many consistent bangers in one body of work.

If you’re rusty, here are some of the certified hits that came out of it:

  • Part Of Your World
  • Under The Sea
  • Poor Unfortunate Souls
  • Kiss The Girl

When does a movie ever produce four songs that I still regularly hear either remixed, being hummed by a rando on the train or being covered by everyone from Ashley Tisdale to Homer Simpson?

The thottie prince

So as everyone’s well aware, Disney is no stranger to churning out god-like specimens.

In fact, I can’t recall a Disney movie where I didn’t lust over at least one of the characters. But, Prince Eric is next-level, even by Disney standards.

The only downside is that he has set the standard so high, regular humans look like budget knockoffs.

Ursula in general

Hands down the best villain to ever exist – Disney or otherwise.

That flippant statement is bound to ruffle some feathers but I have exactly three strong, powerful points that will ease the tension.

  1. Octo-gurl has pipes.
  2. Despite her despicable ways, I’d sign up to work for her evil business in a heartbeat – which says a lot about her people skills.
  3. I’ll forever be in debt to Ursula for teaching me the importance of ~body language~.

Case. Closed.

The progressive relationship

Okay, interspecies relationships in the real world tend to be frowned upon (illegal), but that’s not the point of the movie – it was to give everyone hope.

The love between Ariel and Prince Eric is so unlikely, to this day I believe that anything’s possible. Sure, a lot of humans are bargain knockoffs but, as The Little Mermaid taught me, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

I just didn’t realise it was supposed to be taken literally.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV