If you are a fan of Broadway shows, have a love of Disney, want to introduce your kids to some culture, or just need to get out for a nice evening, pick up tickets for Disney's Beauty and the Beast, now in its 10th season on and off-Broadway.  Just a GREAT show, with all the songs from the film, plus a few added ones from the mind of Alan Mencken.   Along with  'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Rent', this is my favorite musical.

Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney film, and possibly my favorite film of all.  It's the only animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture, and if not for 'Silence of the Lambs', it would have won.  The movie spawned two direct-to-video sequels (in the Disney cheesy tradition), was released in IMAX with new footage, and has been re-released to VHS and to DVD for the first time, Summer 2002.   The new video contains the song 'Human Again' and plenty of extras.

Visit my Disney's Beauty and the Beast Trivia Page!

Here's one of the sillier pictures I came across on the Web...and a nice pencil drawing of Belle....

Movie Tidbits

I'm hoping to add more photos as I find them.  For me, Beauty and the Beast is right up there with The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Fish Called Wanda and Star Wars as one of my 5 favorite films.  Everything about it sparkles with magic, from the songs to the animation to the characters.  It's a masterpiece.

It's the only animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture; hopefully it won't be the last.  

Beauty on the Beast, the Broadway Musical, is playing in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and other cities around the world.  Tom Bosley played Maurice in the original version at the Shubert Theatre in LA.  The musical is equally brilliant, and adds five new songs from composer Alan Mencken.

Paige O'Hara, who voiced Belle, recently spent a season on stage with the Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall fame, at the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas.  She's pretty amazing herself.

Beauty and the Beast, the Enchanted Christmas, is a half-decent direct-to-video sequel to the original.  The original cast of voices is back for this feature. Disney received a number of letters from people very concerned about a "sequel" taking something away from the original feature.  I am glad that Disney at least put a decent effort into this film, and it didn't turn out to be another "Return of Jafar"...

David Ogden Stiers, who voices Cogsworth, also plays the parts of Wiggins and Governor Ratcliffe in Pocahontas, and the priest in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  He is the narrator at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, as well.

The undertaker, who says only a few lines in this movie, ("I don't usually leave the asylum this late at night....etc.") was voiced by Tony Jay.  Jay was later chosen as the voice of another villain, Frollo, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.