Disney's Beauty and the Beast merchandise covers a wide variety of products, among them storybook versions of the film's story, a comic book based on the film published by Disney Comics, toys, children's costumes, and other items. In addition, the character of Belle has been integrated into the Disney Princess line of Disney's Consumer Products division, and appears on merchandise related to that franchise. In 1995, a live-action children's series entitled Sing Me a Story with Belle began airing in syndication, remaining on the air through 1999 (though the last episode of the series originally aired in 1996). Three direct-to-video followups (which take place during the timeline depicted in the original film) were also released, such as Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas on November 11, 1997, Belle's Magical World on February 17, 1998 and Belle's Tales of Friendship on August 17, 1999. In contrast to the universal acclaim of the original film, reception to the sequels was extremely negative.
Fun Facts
- The animated segments contained in the direct-to-video titles, Belle's Magical World and Belle's Tales of Friendship were originally planned as episodes for a TV series in the franchise, supposedly called Beauty and the Beast: The Animated Series. Due to the mostly poor animation in the segments (after all, most direct-to-video films by the company were made on a television budget), the series itself was eventually cancelled when production of the segments was completed by the fall of 1997, so three of the segments were combined into the former film, with one combined with an episode of the television series, Sing Me a Story with Belle into the latter. All four animated segments are combined into the 2003 re-release of the former film. A modified version of the original 1998 film, where the song, A Little Thought has been completely removed, is available on Disney+.
- During the early stages of production of the original 1991 film, the song, Be Our Guest was originally meant to be sung to Belle's father, Maurice. One day, after a viewing of the scene, Bruce Woodside asked, "Shouldn't this be sung to Belle?". So, on January 29, 1991, the lyrics were altered, the song was re-recorded and the scene was re-animated. The early version can be seen in full on the 2002 Special Edition DVD release of the film and in portions during the theatrical sneak-peek preview on the 1991 and 1992 VHS releases of The Jungle Book and on the 2019 documentary film, "Howard," a documentary about lyricist Howard Ashman, who collaborated with Alan Menken on several projects and passed away on March 14, 1991, just months before "Beauty and the Beast" was released theatrically. He passed away due to a heart failure caused by HIV/AIDS.