The Little Mermaid - a look into off-model Ariel

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

You're right to notice it and learn from it, though. Disney demonstrated with Roger Rabbit (1988) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990) that they were certainly capable of better than what we saw in Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and even Aladdin. They rushed those films to mee the release date. In fact, Disney animation didn't return to a uniform level of quality until The Lion King and Pocahontas. As weak as some of the later features were in terms of narrative, they were all gorgeous. Treasure Planet and Brother Bear in particular has backgrounds that rivaled the best of the 1st Golden Age features.

Well, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was animated by Richard Williams's studio in England. Some of the Toontown sequence was animated in L.A. by Baer Animation Studios. I read somewhere that Zemekis didn't like the animation coming from Disney at the time, and Williams was recommended to him by Chuck Jones. The later Roger Rabbit shorts were animated at Disney, I believe.