Enchanting Discoveries: Top 9 Fun Facts About Beauty and the Beast You Never Knew

1. Fiercely Fabulous Frankenstein Beast

Did the Beast raid the animal kingdom's wardrobe or what? It seems like he's sporting the latest fashion trend called "Fiercely Fabulous Frankenstein": The Beast in Disney's animated classic, Beauty and the Beast, was designed as a delightful mixture of multiple animals, featuring a lion's mane, a buffalo's head, a bear's body, and cow ears, along with the tusks and nose of a wild boar, and the brow of a gorilla, all orchestrated by animator Glen Keane.
Source => timeout.com

2. Marriage Reflections in the 18th Century

"Marriage material or monstrous matchmaker?" asked no one ever while reading Beauty and the Beast: The original publication by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve in 1740 was far from being an 18th-century Tinder, but rather a reflection of the societal norms of women's limited legal rights and arranged marriages, with the Beast representing young girls' fear of their future husbands.
Source => medium.com

Did you know Rapunzel's hair in Tangled consists of 100,000 individual strands, making it the most expensive animated film ever? Discover more amazing facts!

=> Fun Facts about Tangled

3. Fashionista Mathematician Inspo

Before Newton's laws ruled the runway, a brilliant French fashionista strutted her stuff, sporting wigs that defied gravity and feathered accessories that ruffled more than a few feathers: Enter Émilie du Châtelet, the 18th-century mathematician and translator of Isaac Newton's works, whose style made waves amongst the scientific and fashion-forward circles alike, but remained an unsolved mystery as the possible inspiration for Beauty and the Beast's Belle or the face of a high-fashion campaign.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

4. Animators' Bickering Becomes Character Gold

When Lumière and Cogsworth weren't busy bickering in their enchanted castle, their animators were hard at work recreating their iconic tussles behind the scenes: the contentious relationship between Will Finn and Nik Ranieri actually led to the beloved duo's unique personalities, and ultimately played a role in Beauty and the Beast's huge success, including an Oscar nomination.
Source => vanityfair.com

5. Gaston: Symbol of Gender Role Rejection

Hold onto your baguettes and flex those biceps, because Gaston is more than just an egotistical gym rat with a penchant for singing about himself in a crowd: In fact, he was cleverly constructed as the main antagonist of Beauty and the Beast to contrast Belle's rejection of traditional gender roles, combining the behaviors of multiple suitors from earlier versions of the story into one sexist, narcissistic, and ultimately dangerous character.
Source => disney.fandom.com

6. Almost Missed Musical Magic

Once upon a laugh track, when Beauty and the Beast almost gave "Be Our Guest" the cold shoulder: Walt Disney's animation team initially planned a non-musical period drama adaptation of the fairy tale, but a nudge from Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg turned the film into the tuneful tale we all adore, filling our hearts with melodies like "Tale as Old as Time" and giving the film the magical touch it needed for immense success.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

7. Chip's Small Role Turned Big

When Chip off the old block went from appetizer to main course: The character of Chip in Disney's Beauty and the Beast was originally set to have a much smaller role; it was only thanks to the impressive voice acting chops of Bradley Pierce that the filmmakers decided to turn him into a full-fledged dish of adorableness.
Source => disneywire.com

8. Animated Oscar Nomination Breakthrough

In a tale as old as time that's the Belle of the ball: the 1991 version of "Beauty and the Beast" holds the enchanted rose of being the first animated feature ever to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Source => insidethemagic.net

9. Beastly Party Animal Creation

When Dr. Frankenstein met Dr. Dolittle, they threw a wild party and created the Beast: A ferocious creature with a lion's mane, buffalo's beard, gorilla's brows, wild boar tusks, and the endearing eyes of a lovesick human. To top it off, they threw in a bear's shape and a wolf's bottom half – because why not?
Source => hitechanimation.wordpress.com