Summary

• Disney Junior's Ariel introduces new characters while still including favorites like King Triton and Ursula.
• Executive producer Lynne Southerland discusses the series' approach to Ariel's character growth and storytelling.
• Ursula is a friend to Ariel in this series to engage a young audience, with attention to detail in animation.

Disney Junior's Ariel premieres on the network on June 27 and will be available to stream the following day on Mykal-Michelle Harris of Raven's Home) and introduces new characters, Lucia and Fernie, while still including old favorites such as King Triton, Ursula, Sebastian, and Flounder. Ariel takes place in the Caribbean-inspired fairytale kingdom of Atlantica and features original music for families of all ages to sing along with.

Lynne Southerland, who serves as executive producer of the Disney Junior animated show, states that the eight-year-old mermaid is a marriage of old and new ideas. Southerland discusses how the series builds off the original character by expanding on notable aspects, such as Ariel's beautiful singing voice. She believes that this latest iteration will provide fans with more of an understanding of how Ariel becomes the teenager fans know and love.

Lynne Southerland chats with Screen Rant about whether Disney Junior's Ariel connects to The Little Mermaid's original story and gives insight into the show's major Ursula change.

Ariel's Disney Junior Journey Is Separate From The Little Mermaid Live-Action Film

Screen Rant: How did Ariel come about? Was this something that was already in the works during the live-action film?

Lynne Southerland: I believe when Disney Junior started developing it, there was probably a parallel time thing going on, but they were not intermixed in any way. It was completely separate journeys, shall I say. But when I came onto the project, I believe the live-action may have already been shot, but there was no intersection.

Can you talk about creating this version of Ariel? Were you trying to capture a younger version of the original mermaid, or is this a completely new character?

Lynne Southerland: It's sort of a marriage of both ideas. I look at it that if you just said, "Okay, we're just throwing out everything everybody thinks they know about Ariel, and we're starting over," that would be like suicide, I think. So it's, "How do we build off of what we all know about Ariel, and then how do we expand our sense of who she is?" As I've thought about this, again, if you stop and think about those two movies, they really are love stories right there. It's almost a rom-com.

That takes a whole different kind of path than something that's very focused on a character and her world. So that's the big opportunity here. There's no love interest. It's about her and her world. And then, of course, she's not 16, she's 8. We're getting to see this character that we think we know. We're getting to step back and learn more about how she became the girl we think of. To me, the core of that is centering around the most iconic aspect of her, which is her beautiful voice, so then how can we expand on, "What does voice mean?" and then how do we explore that in the series?

Ariel's Major Ursula Change Is Due To The Show's Target Audience

One thing that really stood out to me is Ursula because she's known as an iconic "big bad" in Disney, but she is a friend to Ariel in this series. Can you speak about the inspiration behind that?

Lynne Southerland: On a certain level, there's a kind of pragmatism to it, right? This is a show geared to four-year-olds and having a big giant scary character doesn't seem like a way to engage that audience. So it necessitates a change in how we look at her. It's sort of like shifting the balance. This Ursula is not angry at the world. She loves the world, and she loves being an aunt. And then you put Amber Riley in that voice, make her Ursula, and she just becomes this super loving and fun-loving character which you get a taste of in the first episode, but it just keeps growing as the season develops.

The attention to detail in the animation stuck out to me as well. It's incredible from the hair to the scales. How did you work with the art and animation department to create that visualization?

Lynne Southerland: Yeah. I have to say that the success of any movie or TV series is so based on the team that you bring together, and we are so fortunate to have Chrystin Garland as our art director, who was just so excited that she's getting to work on Ariel, because when she was a kid, she watched the movie.

She is just incredibly talented and has brought together a great team that has really done the deep, deep work of, "How do we bring that sense of the Caribbean under the water?" So, very inspired by the diversity of the colors, the African influence, the Latino influence, the East Indian influence, all these elements that exist along the Caribbean islands, but we're underwater. Sow do we then take that and reinterpret it in our world? They've just done an amazing job.

About Disney Junior's Ariel

“Disney Jr.’s Ariel” is an animated musical series inspired by “The Little Mermaid” that follows young mermaid princess Ariel as she embarks on fun-filled, action-packed adventures with her friends throughout their Caribbean-inspired fairytale kingdom of Atlantica. Geared towards preschoolers and their families, each episode features two 11-minute stories that highlight themes of community, self-expression, curiosity and resourcefulness and celebrate the multicultural elements of the Caribbean through music, food, festivals, fashion, language and folklore.

Check out our other interviews with Disney Jr.’s Ariel cast, as well:

• Mykal-Michelle Harris
• Taye Diggs

Ariel premieres on Disney Junior on June 27 and is available to stream next-day on Disney+.

Source: Screen Rant Plus