Disney fans the company has produced many animated films over the years and well some of those films were so popular that they eventually got there own TV series. Now how good those shows depends on who you ask but there is one thing that people cannot deney which this trend that Disney started started with The Little Mermaid and so I thought that i'd take a look at the very first episode of the show to see if it still holds up and so here is my review "Whale Of A Tale" enjoy.
The plot of the episode is Ariel and Flounder come across a baby killer whale and name it spot due to the spot on it's tail and the duo along with Sebastian are ordered by King Triton to train the whale before releasing it back into the wild. Plot wise the episode is pretty weak due to the fact that there aren't really any stakes and so there's no real reason as to why we the audience should be invested in the story but with that being said the story is exactly what you think of when you think of a TV show based on Disney's version of The Little Mermaid and it tells the story well enough that you barely notice any of the flaws that I just mentioned.
Reprising their roles from the film are Jodi Benson as Ariel , Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian and Kenneth Mars as King Triton. Joining them in this episode is Edan Gross as Flounder and Frank Welker as Spot. I love the fact that the crew behind the TV show actually reached out to get back as many of the original voice cast as they could since for many myself included these actors simply are these characters and so it makes sense that they would bring them back for the TV show instead of recasting all of the parts.
In terms of what I thought about the acting in the episode it was honestly a lot better then what I remember it being. Which for me is a very good thing but at the same time what makes the acting so good is the returning cast since they know these characters and so they know there character would react and how they would talk and so there performance feels true to the characters which is always a good thing.
Now this episode had animation provided by Walt Disney Animation Japan as well as Shanghai Animation Film Studio and Shanghai Morning Sun Animation. For an early nineties show the animation was alot better then it really had any right to be since alot of shows that came out around this time had animation that just looked cheap but nope here the animation actually good of course it's not on par with the movies but for a TV based of a movie it looks alot better then it really had any right to in my opinion.
This show is a prequel to the movie and so that means that you already know how this show and I guess this episode is going to end. Which I do consider to be a flaw for this episode since it makes the episode feel predictable which is a shame because given how the movie ended there's alot that you could do with a TV series set after the events of the movie but for some reason Disney went with a prequel series rather then a sequel series.
The heart of this episode for me at least is the friendship between Ariel and Spot without any dialog coming from Spot you get to see how much she means it / him which makes there bond a truly standout point of the episode. On the flip side of that you get to see Ariel become somewhat of a mother to Spot something which she even says herself in the episode and I thought that that was honestly a really interesting thing to do.
However the episode due to it's twenty four minuet running time can't really develop that or explore what it truly means to be a mother. As such it comes out of know where and doesn't play a part in the episode's climax Ariel just says it and that's it that's the only mention we get on the subject which is a shame because again there's alot you could do with that idea if the episode was given the proper time to fully develop that idea.
This episode and thus the show aired on CBS from 1992 to 1994 before moving over to the Disney Channel and Toon Disney Disney for reruns. What makes this episode however standout isn't where it aired but where's it didn't air because for some strange reason this episode isn't on Disney+ which is weird because Disney own the rights to the show and so they could have put up all the episodes but for some reason they added every episode barring this one for no reason whatsoever.
Now then boys and girls this is a musical comedy show and so we have to take a look at both of those aspects starting with the comedy. Which I honestly found to be rather hit and miss since for every good joke that the episode had there were two or three that followed it that didn't get a smile out of me which is a shame because they really went all out on the jokes but they just weren't that funny to me but given that all comedy is subjective maybe someone did find all the jokes in the episode to be freaking funny as all hell
Now that we've talked about the jokes in the episode let's now talk about the songs which were written by Jack Feldman. Yeah like the comedy both songs in this episode were very hit and miss for me with the first song "Just A Little Love" being in my opinion a pretty bad song which is full of early nineties cheesy music which dates it right away but on the flip side of that "You Got To Be You" is actually a pretty good song which oddly feels in keeping with the movie.
Overall this was a pretty fun episode but at the same given that it's a prequel and that Spot isn't mentioned in the film you know exactly what's going to happen. I can honestly see little kids or little girls getting more enjoyment out of this then little boys would but that's not to see that little boys will hate it it's just that this is a show aimed at little girls even so this episode gets a 7 out of 10 from this Disney fan.
All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from the official Disney fandom wiki page and for once nowhere else. I wasn't expecting alot of the images from the episode to be as high definition as they are but I was honestly shocked to see how many HD images there are of this episode and as such I have t recommend that you use the Disney fandom wiki page for any HD images from Disney owned shows or movies.
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