Disney made another direct to video midquel to Beauty and the Beast in 1998. Set after
Christmas but before the fight against Gaston, Angela Lansbury and Haley Joel
Osment were replaced by Anne Rogers and Gregory Grudt. As with The Enchanted Christmas, it also was received
poorly.
The film consists of four episodes to an unreleased
television show loosely woven together in a feature length story.
In the first, Belle (Paige O’Hara) and Beast (Robby Benson) stop
speaking to each other after a fight. But the dictionary Webster (Jim Cummings)
forges a letter of apology with a pile of papers named Crane (Jeff Bennett) and
a quill named LePlume (Rob Paulsen).
The second has Fifi (Kimmy Robertson) believe Lumiere (Jerry
Orbach) is cheating on her with Belle.
The third features Belle throwing a surprise party for Mrs.
Potts (Rogers).
The fourth consists of Beast learning to overcome his hatred
of birds.
Every criticism I had with The Enchanted Christmas rears its head again here. The old
characters continue to be derailed and the new characters aren’t enjoyable. Plus,
any semblance of an actual consistent story is thrown out the window in favor
of telling it in the form of episodes.
If Disney couldn’t get a Beauty
and the Beast animated television series up and running, why did they think
it would do well as a film? This would have been one of the better times where
Disney should have left well enough alone.
But there’d be another sequel in 1999.
#53
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