Speaker 1: Pushkin exterior ocean the ship Magic Hour, Ariel grabs onto
Speaker 1: a portal window. She hoists herself out of the sea,
Speaker 1: scales the side of the ship toward the deck. The
Speaker 1: final bars of cannon Indie float down from above as
Speaker 1: Ariel ascends. Do you, Prince Eric, take Ursula to have
Speaker 1: and to hold in sickness and in health for as
Speaker 1: long as you bow shall live. Ariel throws one leg
Speaker 1: over the starboard, railing. The guests, enraptured by the perfection
Speaker 1: of the bride and groom, don't even notice her arrival.
Speaker 1: Eric looks deep into Ursula's eyes, hypnotized, I do. My
Speaker 1: name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my
Speaker 1: podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is the
Speaker 1: third and final part of our investigation into the Walt
Speaker 1: Disney Company's nineteen eighty nine princess blockbuster The Little Mermaid.
Speaker 1: In parts one and two, we told you what was
Speaker 1: wrong with the movie. In this part three, Revisionist History
Speaker 1: brings you our production of The Little Mermaid, a version
Speaker 1: finally fit for your children. Allow me to reintroduce you
Speaker 1: to the creative force behind our version of the Little
Speaker 1: Mermaid the actor and screenwriter britt Marling. We met her
Speaker 1: in the previous episode where I asked her to reimagine
Speaker 1: a better ending for The Little Mermaid, to identify precisely
Speaker 1: where Disney went wrong and fix it. Look, there's something
Speaker 1: very true at the center of The Little Mermaid, and
Speaker 1: that's what makes it sticky, both the Hans version and
Speaker 1: the animated version that came from Disney. And the sticky
Speaker 1: thing at the center is that women do often lose
Speaker 1: their voices at around that age, and so any myth
Speaker 1: that doesn't have something true at the center, you know,
Speaker 1: just fades away. It doesn't really last the test of time.
Speaker 1: But a mythic gets something right will stick around. In
Speaker 1: both the original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little
Speaker 1: Mermaid and in the Disney version, the Little Mermaid must
Speaker 1: surrender her voice to the Sea Witch in order to
Speaker 1: participate in the real world. To get to a true,
Speaker 1: happy ending, you have to acknowledge that the terror in
Speaker 1: the story is maybe correct right, that it functions as
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale. Young women sometimes do lose their voices,
Speaker 1: and that or that point of no return promises an
Speaker 1: obligatory scene and the obligatory scene as well, how does
Speaker 1: she get her voice back? Does she get her voice back?
Speaker 1: What does she say when she has her voice back?
Speaker 1: And on those counts, the Disney version really fails to
Speaker 1: inspire a genuine, happy ending about how a young woman
Speaker 1: might get her voice back and then what she might
Speaker 1: do with it. Someone just randomly gives her voice back,
Speaker 1: Like did she go to the lost and found that
Speaker 1: it happened to be there? I mean, is it's about
Speaker 1: as unsatisfying as that. I mean, I went back and
Speaker 1: rewatched at Malcolm because I was like, I can't be
Speaker 1: as bad as I think it is, but it's worse.
Speaker 1: She's standing on the dock watching the wedding ship go
Speaker 1: out into the sunset, knowing that Eric is about to
Speaker 1: marry this princess and when the sun sets, she'll be
Speaker 1: turned into this algae creature that's a lost soul in
Speaker 1: like Ursula's Garden of Lost Souls under the sea. So
Speaker 1: she's crestfallen and she's standing there and then Sku the
Speaker 1: seagull comes flat by the way and he's like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I look through the portal window and it's
Speaker 1: Ursula who's marrying Prince Eric and Jerriel flings herself off
Speaker 1: the dock, lands in the water and she can't swim,
Speaker 1: so then like, not only does Flounder have to drag
Speaker 1: her to the boat on the back of a barrel,
Speaker 1: but then when she gets up onto the deck, she's
Speaker 1: standing there and it's Scuttle, the seagull that goes and
Speaker 1: gets the shell off Ursula's neck, throws it on the floor,
Speaker 1: and it just happens to land where she's standing, and
Speaker 1: she just happens to reabsorb her voice through literally no
Speaker 1: agency of her own. Britt believed that the Little Mermaid
Speaker 1: could only be saved with a completely new kind of areal.
Speaker 1: But who could play her? I called up Avy Kaufman,
Speaker 1: one of the top casting directors in Hollywood. I sent
Speaker 1: her britt script, and I asked her to find as
Speaker 1: someone to body the spirit of a teenager, a mermaid teenager,
Speaker 1: but one with a certain amount of moxie edge, so
Speaker 1: you know, and thinking about child actors and Jody and
Speaker 1: people we love, I think Jody could have done that.
Speaker 1: Jody being Jodie Foster, Jodie Foster who famously played an
Speaker 1: FBI agent in Silence of the Lambs and long before that,
Speaker 1: a child prostitute in Martin Scossese's taxi driver. How do
Speaker 1: you want me to go back to my parents? I
Speaker 1: mean they hate me. Why do you think I split
Speaker 1: the first place? There ain't nothing there. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: can't live like this. It's all girls. You'll live at home.
Speaker 1: Didn't you ever hear of Women's Live? Yes, that Jodie Foster.
Speaker 1: That's where we're going with this. We're thinking that the
Speaker 1: young Jodie Foster ought to play a Disney princess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jody could have done that, believably, believably, and Jody's kind
Speaker 1: of like that. She's got that toughness inside that's surrounded
Speaker 1: by the big heart and the intelligence you're talking about,
Speaker 1: the intelligence. We would believe that she could make that. Leave.
Speaker 1: Jody could do it. There you go. The young Jodie
Speaker 1: Foster could not have been well Disney's Aerial, not in
Speaker 1: a million years. No, bat her eyelashes and let someone
Speaker 1: else safer? Are you kidding me? Like? Oh, And she
Speaker 1: wouldn't have taken the role because she wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: a clue what to do with that. She would have said,
Speaker 1: are you sure you're not looking for another Jay? Foster No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Did we ask Jodie Foster to play our aerial to
Speaker 1: join the Pushkin players? Did she say yes? Let me
Speaker 1: answer that with another question, have we at Revision's history
Speaker 1: ever let you down? As a out In England? I
Speaker 1: grew up hearing the BBC program Listen with Mother, every
Speaker 1: episode of which opened with are you sitting comfortably? Then
Speaker 1: I'll begin. You've all been patient, all of you. You
Speaker 1: have listened as we have taken swing after swing at
Speaker 1: the bloated Pinada that is the original Little Mermaid. It's
Speaker 1: time to raise the curtain. Are you sitting comfortably? Then
Speaker 1: let's begin. We're in the story's final act. Ariel had
Speaker 1: hoped to win the heart of the handsome Prince Eric.
Speaker 1: Marrying him was the only way she could stay a human,
Speaker 1: But the princes chosen to marry another woman who is
Speaker 1: actually the sea witch Ursula in disguise. The soon to
Speaker 1: be newlyweds are on a boat. There are guests, music, dancing,
Speaker 1: all manner of merriment, and into this spectacle comes our
Speaker 1: badass Ariel. So with that, may I present The Little
Speaker 1: Mermaid two point zero Written and narrated by Britt Marling.
Speaker 1: Ariel grabs onto a portal window. She hoists herself out
Speaker 1: of the sea, scales the side of the ship toward
Speaker 1: the deck. The final bars of cannon Indie float down
Speaker 1: from above as Ariel ascends, Do you, Prince Eric, take
Speaker 1: Ursula to have and to hold in sickness and in
Speaker 1: health for as long as you bow shall live. Ariel
Speaker 1: throws one leg over the starboard, railing The guests, enraptured
Speaker 1: by the perfection of the bride and groom, don't even
Speaker 1: notice her arrival. Eric looks deep into Ursula's eyes, hypnotized,
Speaker 1: I do and do you Ursula take Prince Eric. Ariel,
Speaker 1: soaking wet, breathed in seaweed, right in the face, charges forward,
Speaker 1: leaps onto the stage head's right for the couple to
Speaker 1: be like a charging bull. The guests gasp at this invasion,
Speaker 1: A scorned woman come to sabotage the wedding to throw
Speaker 1: Eric's fiance overboard. Ariel barrels forward, arms outstretched, and just
Speaker 1: when it seems like Ariel might strike Ursula, she collides
Speaker 1: with her in an embrace full of feeling. The guest's
Speaker 1: jaws drop God in heaven. Ursula, shocked disgusted, lets the
Speaker 1: mask of perfect bride slip, her true voice laced with bitterness.
Speaker 1: Get get off me, you fool. Ursula tries to extricate
Speaker 1: herself from Ariel's arms, but Ariel holds on with a
Speaker 1: strength of heart impossible to unravel. La Harriel, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? Everyone looks on in a shock at this
Speaker 1: truly bizarre scene. One woman hugging another woman who wriggles squirms,
Speaker 1: fights to escape this embrace, but cannot break it. Also
Speaker 1: seems to not really want to. The force of Ariela's
Speaker 1: kindness gains the power of actual magic, and the shell
Speaker 1: around Ursula's neck that holds Ariel's voice begins to glow.
Speaker 1: Hum tog away from Ursula as if possessed, and move
Speaker 1: toward Ariel. Stop Stop, stop, I said, But Ariel doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: By the heat of Ariel's love, Ursula begins to transform
Speaker 1: back into her original form. Her slender limbs morph into thick,
Speaker 1: barnacle covered tentacles. Her wedding dress bursts at the seems
Speaker 1: to reveal her sea slick octopus body. A woman in
Speaker 1: the audience screams, shrilly, good, God, disgust. What is she?
Speaker 1: Children cower under their seats. Grown men back away in horror.
Speaker 1: Eric stumbles and nearly falls over. Oh oh, I almost
Speaker 1: married an octopus. But Ariel doesn't stop hugging this creature
Speaker 1: that everyone else is so revolted by the force of
Speaker 1: Ariel's feeling, compels her own voice out of the shell
Speaker 1: around Ursula's neck. The light of that voice slips its
Speaker 1: prison and hovers in mid air a moment the audience gasps,
Speaker 1: the priest faints. The light floats into Ariel's open mouth,
Speaker 1: and then she sings in a voice as radiant as
Speaker 1: a sung that breaks a summer storm. Eric, realizing it
Speaker 1: was in fact Ariel who rescued him, rushes forward to her. Ariel,
Speaker 1: it was you. It was you all along. Dah too little,
Speaker 1: too late, Eric, And honestly, Eric was not really the
Speaker 1: point and never has been. Aril's arms still wrap Ursula,
Speaker 1: who in spite of herself, leans into the embrace. Aril
Speaker 1: turns back to Ursula and says softly into her ear,
Speaker 1: you hurt me, but I understand why you hurt me.
Speaker 1: What do you know? You're idiotic? Do I? Teenager? I
Speaker 1: know that you are kicked out of the kingdom by
Speaker 1: my family. I know you were left in the dark
Speaker 1: part of the ocean to die alone. And I know
Speaker 1: you have suffered greatly. I know you made me and
Speaker 1: many others suffer greatly. All I have is the art
Speaker 1: of cruelty. All I have is your hate, everyone's hate.
Speaker 1: I don't hate you, Ursula. Ursula scoffs at this, but
Speaker 1: her eyes go wide with feeling. No one has said
Speaker 1: a kind word to Ursula in years and in time.
Speaker 1: Understanding you better and why you've done the things you've done,
Speaker 1: I could maybe even love you. Ah, Ursula cries out,
Speaker 1: as if bitten by the words. For a moment in
Speaker 1: Ariel's embrace, we see Ursula as the magic of Ariel's
Speaker 1: empathy allows Ariel to see her. Ursula at Ariel's age sixteen,
Speaker 1: the age before Ursula's heart was broken. She's open, full
Speaker 1: of vigor and young magic, curious and alive like Ariel is.
Speaker 1: Had they met at this age, that it might have
Speaker 1: been best friends. They might even have been lovers. The
Speaker 1: two young women regard each other a moment, You've taught
Speaker 1: me the power of my voice. I could actually even
Speaker 1: thank you for that. Ursula weeps. Now like a teenager,
Speaker 1: she is in Ariel's eyes unbidden, unstoppable tears. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, Ariel looks to Ursula. Now I'm still
Speaker 1: holding Ursula's hands. It's okay. Someone hurt you, just like
Speaker 1: you hurt me, and I think I know who it was.
Speaker 1: The sky has darkened and the sea froths now in anger.
Speaker 1: Waves rock the craft. The guests pulled onto their hats
Speaker 1: in a sudden fierce wind, Eric grabs a sword off
Speaker 1: a nearby garden fear. Ariel let's go of Ursula's hands
Speaker 1: in surprise, and Ursula becomes her true age again. Just
Speaker 1: as King Triton emerges from the ocean, huge bearing his
Speaker 1: trident and riding an enormous wave towards the ship, an
Speaker 1: army of spear wheeled in murmin behind him. His voice
Speaker 1: booms like thunder, Stay away from Lightning cracks the guy
Speaker 1: from the force of his rage. Triton looms over the
Speaker 1: ship now like a giant. I was too kind when
Speaker 1: I banished you from the kingdom. I shook up destroyed
Speaker 1: him and lifts his tried and high. It sparks with
Speaker 1: electricity drawn from the sky. He aims that laser beam
Speaker 1: of death towards Ursula, who suffused with love, has no
Speaker 1: ready counter attack. No, Ariel shouts powerfully. She throws herself
Speaker 1: in harm's way to protect Ursula. You kept me and
Speaker 1: my sister's prisoner in the castle. You exiled Ursula from family,
Speaker 1: friends safety because she dared to practice magic, and you
Speaker 1: wanted to be the only one with such power. But
Speaker 1: I have magic too, father, We all have magic. And
Speaker 1: then Aril begins to use the power of her voice,
Speaker 1: which is real magic, to sing. It's so hypnotic and
Speaker 1: so true that the sea begins to calm under her spell,
Speaker 1: and the anger surging in the bodies of the Merman
Speaker 1: soldiers begins to dissipate. Ursula looks to Ariel in wonder
Speaker 1: and joins her song a lower note in perfect harmony.
Speaker 1: As Ursula sings, the lossuls of her gardens shake free
Speaker 1: from the terrible purgatory of her old spells. They swim
Speaker 1: to the surface as mr People once again, and sing
Speaker 1: with the passion of the newly freed citizen. Murr People,
Speaker 1: drawn to the sound of real freedom, break the surface
Speaker 1: of the sea and sing. Two Sebastian and flounders sing.
Speaker 1: Even Scuttle sings a little off keep, but committed. Altogether,
Speaker 1: they make the most beautiful music human ears have ever heard.
Speaker 1: Eric weeps from the sound beautiful. So do many of
Speaker 1: his wedding guests, who have not allowed their hearts to
Speaker 1: become too hardened to life. Some of them, the brave ones,
Speaker 1: begin to sing. Two. The music travels so far and
Speaker 1: so wide that even townspeople on land begin unconsciously humming
Speaker 1: this melody they've never heard before, but feel they have always.
Speaker 1: The clouds part, the setting sun is round, and pink
Speaker 1: birds land happily on the shoulder of Triton. And this big, proud,
Speaker 1: vain old king cannot help but be moved by his
Speaker 1: young daughter and her magic to unite across genders, across generations,
Speaker 1: across species. Triton looks at Ariel with tears of humiliation
Speaker 1: mixed with tears of all Aril stands on the edge
Speaker 1: of the balcony level with him. Dad, you don't need
Speaker 1: to be the most powerful to be the most loved.
Speaker 1: Triton's eyes widened at the wisdom of her youth. The
Speaker 1: tear too, falls from his eyes. I'm sorry, Aria, I've
Speaker 1: not been a very good listener. Cat'n we begin again.
Speaker 1: Ariel nods and embraces her dad over the railing, and
Speaker 1: now the sun finally sets. Ursula's old spell wears off.
Speaker 1: Ariel transforms into a mermaid once more. The guests have
Speaker 1: no reaction at this point, they've really seen it all.
Speaker 1: Ariel laughs as her legs morphed into a powerful fit.
Speaker 1: Eric drops down to her side. Hey, I mean thank you.
Speaker 1: You look saved my life. Ariel smiles at him. Don't
Speaker 1: mention it. All she really wanted was a thank you. Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe all any of us ever really want. Ariel turns
Speaker 1: to Ursula, Hey, shall we go home? Ursula nods, Yes,
Speaker 1: let's go. They take each other's hands and jump. Let's
Speaker 1: take a moment to discuss our revised and greatly improved
Speaker 1: ending to The Little Mermaid. First of all, to any
Speaker 1: executives of the Walt Disney Company who happened to be listening,
Speaker 1: please feel free to use our ending in the remake
Speaker 1: of The Little Mermaid that I understand you're working on.
Speaker 1: Go write ahead. Ariel and Ursula deserve a better fate
Speaker 1: than you have given them for the past thirty years.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Ursula, did you recognize that voice? Did you
Speaker 1: figure out who we got to play this most critical
Speaker 1: of roles. Get off, Are you fool? We couldn't use
Speaker 1: just anyone in the role, because Ursula is not a
Speaker 1: two dimensional villain anymore. We're not murdering her off, we're
Speaker 1: redeeming her. Britt's point was, why is she even the
Speaker 1: villain in the first place. It's just that who do
Speaker 1: young women lose their voices to? Not really wise old
Speaker 1: women living on the edge of town, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: not the culprit who takes women's voices from them. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's the problem you're contending with at
Speaker 1: the end, which is like the idea of a witch
Speaker 1: is a kind of smoke screen that prevents us from
Speaker 1: thinking about where the forces of antagonism against women actually lie.
Speaker 1: So Ursula has to be played by someone who can
Speaker 1: do more than a garden variety witch. So how old
Speaker 1: is Ursula? Why? You know, get off me? No, I
Speaker 1: think you get off me. But I think you could
Speaker 1: play her older for sure, because that's sort of the trope,
Speaker 1: the older witch on the edge of town kind of thing. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: that's Britt directing Glenn Close. We got Glenn close, of
Speaker 1: course we did. It was only right to have Disney's
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six Cruella de Ville returning as revisionist Histories
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Ursula, Now, what about Prince Eric? Brit
Speaker 1: and I had a long planning session on the Eric problem.
Speaker 1: He is a completely cardboard figure who only is allowed
Speaker 1: to have any kind of meaningful role when he kills somebody. Oh, oh, Malcolm,
Speaker 1: I love that. Yes, I love that. We're doing a
Speaker 1: lot of talking right now about the ways in which
Speaker 1: we need to liberate women through stories, but we should
Speaker 1: also do a lot of talking about the ways in
Speaker 1: which we need to liberate men. We didn't need a
Speaker 1: murderous vigilante anymore. We needed a liberated man. I almost
Speaker 1: married an octopus. Did you recognize that voice? The embodiment
Speaker 1: of male liberation? The actor, comedian podcaster extraordinaire Dak Shepherd.
Speaker 1: Here he is during our taping, taking direction from our
Speaker 1: producer Leeming Gistu. Oh, I kind of wanted you to
Speaker 1: do it, kind of like a clueless himbo. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Tell me what a himbo is? And
Speaker 1: himbo is the male version of exactly exactly male version
Speaker 1: of a what bimbo? Oh, Bimbo. Okay, Ariel, what what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Oh? Ariel, what are you doing? Oh?
Speaker 1: That was great? Thank you. As for King Triton, the
Speaker 1: king is played by Ethan Herschenfeld, stand up comic actor
Speaker 1: and former opera singer, which was a delight for our
Speaker 1: in house musical genius Louis Cara. It's a little more
Speaker 1: urban feeling, you know what I mean urban I can
Speaker 1: kind of do because I grew up in the Bronx,
Speaker 1: but it was Riverdale, so you're hearing the Riverdale. It
Speaker 1: sounds awesome, So Dak Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Glenn Close, Ethan Herschenfeld,
Speaker 1: I mean all star asked. Triton lifts his trident high.
Speaker 1: It sparks with electricity drawn from the sky. He aims
Speaker 1: that laser beam of death towards Ursula, who suffused with love,
Speaker 1: has no ready counter attack. Ariel shouts powerfully to me.
Speaker 1: The most beautiful moment in your new ending is when
Speaker 1: Ariel throws her body in the line of her father's
Speaker 1: trident to save Ursula. Right, she will sacrifice herself on
Speaker 1: the behalf of someone who was hitherto in the plot,
Speaker 1: being seen as irredeemable that somebody would sacrifice, someone in
Speaker 1: good standing, would sacrifice themselves for someone who was conceived
Speaker 1: of as irredeemable, the princess, the heir to the throne,
Speaker 1: that beautiful whatever, would sacrifice everything for the sake of
Speaker 1: a witch, of an outcast, which feels so right because
Speaker 1: the witch has been miscast from the beginning, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think cruelty was done to Ursula, and it made
Speaker 1: her cruel and I believe that Ursula could actually be redeemed,
Speaker 1: and that all it really takes is one person in
Speaker 1: an act of tremendous bravery and kindness. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the thing that I keep thinking about these days, is
Speaker 1: how can you dramatize the strength of kindness? Like we
Speaker 1: just don't really believe in kindness as a culture anymore.
Speaker 1: We think it's soft, we think it's weak, we think
Speaker 1: it's not serious. But that just doesn't feel right to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like there has to be a
Speaker 1: way to dramatize it as actually this incredibly sharp, pointed,
Speaker 1: powerful thing. Disney's Little Mermaid instructs little girls to think
Speaker 1: about themselves. Brit Marling wants little girls to think about
Speaker 1: someone other than themselves, the outcast living at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the sea, who also deserves a chance of happiness.
Speaker 1: One last thing, the most amazing gift of all. Britt
Speaker 1: Marling wrote a final scene. She said we didn't have
Speaker 1: to use it. I disagree. Here it is Ariel's coda
Speaker 1: exter Shipwreck, Kingdom under the Sea. Ariel swims through a shipwreck,
Speaker 1: joined by flounder and other mertines. They dart in and
Speaker 1: out of the wreckage, digging into old trunks, rooting out
Speaker 1: human treasure. So that's the story of the only wedding
Speaker 1: I ever crashed. I still go on land, but not
Speaker 1: for eric exterior countryside day, Aril gallops across an open
Speaker 1: field on the back of a horse. They leap a
Speaker 1: fence together. By day I explore distant lambs, far off kingdoms,
Speaker 1: ancient forests. I learn so much from the people I meet,
Speaker 1: and the gazelles, the trees, the sunflowers, the rain storms.
Speaker 1: Ariel scales of five hundred year old tree with two
Speaker 1: other teenagers. They laugh as they race to the top.
Speaker 1: By night, by my own magic, I return to the sea.
Speaker 1: Aril walks into the ocean under the light of a
Speaker 1: fool yellow moon. Her legs morph into a fin As
Speaker 1: she reaches the first big wave, she dives under fish.
Speaker 1: Mer people, crabs, occupy all manner of sea life, gather
Speaker 1: around a warm, bubbling sea vent. Ariel sings to them
Speaker 1: of her travels, while Sebastian conducts a small orchestra in accompaniment.
Speaker 1: I see stories of the places I've been, the kindness
Speaker 1: I've encountered, the danger I've defied, the times I've had
Speaker 1: to apologize, the times I've been apologized too. And there
Speaker 1: was finally a wedding that went off without a hitch.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't my wedding. Interior, Great Hall, Palace, Kingdom
Speaker 1: under the sea, all the mur people decked out in
Speaker 1: their finest pearls and quarrels for a lavish wedding. But
Speaker 1: it's Triton standing before the pulpit. He lifts the veil
Speaker 1: of his bride to be it's Ursula. There's still a
Speaker 1: sharp look in Ursula's eye, but the sharp of wisdom,
Speaker 1: not of cunning. She smiles, shocked to be met late
Speaker 1: in life by such happiness. Ariel, a bridesmaid amongst her sisters, beams.
Speaker 1: It turns out that most of Ursula's bitter potions had
Speaker 1: come from an early heartbreak. My father, do you Ursula
Speaker 1: take King Triton to heaven toll? I do. King Triton
Speaker 1: and Queen Ursula kiss and Eric. Eric's married too, and happily.
Speaker 1: Eric walks down the palace steps, arms slung around his husband. Tom,
Speaker 1: the town veterinarian, twelve enormous fluffy sheep dogs a race
Speaker 1: around at their feet. I go, they're not like us.
Speaker 1: They don't get it. Eric says it's too weird to
Speaker 1: eat fish after a fishwoman saved his life and he
Speaker 1: almost married a giant octopus. So the kingdom has gone vegetarian.
Speaker 1: I don't care if they fake it, steam it, or
Speaker 1: fry it. I'd rather die. Eric and Tom are encouraging
Speaker 1: other kingdoms to do the same in the face of
Speaker 1: the climate emergency. It will make you die and the planet.
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna make a fine king. One day,
Speaker 1: Ariel sits at a round table with Eric Tom, at
Speaker 1: a bunch of other townspeople. It is not a posh,
Speaker 1: silent meal at a ridiculously long table for almost no one.
Speaker 1: It's a feast for many. They pass bowls of food
Speaker 1: and break off chunks of bread. They eat with their
Speaker 1: hands and sometimes talk with their mouthsful. The hall is
Speaker 1: filled with rowdy laughter and sometimes tears, as people tell
Speaker 1: each other what's on their minds and in their hearts,
Speaker 1: and what they hope for the future. And so we lived,
Speaker 1: not always happily, but certainly more honestly than we ever
Speaker 1: had before the end. The vision's history is produced by
Speaker 1: Mia LaBelle, Lee Mengistu, Jacob Smith, with Eloise Linton and Annie.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Julia Barton, mastering by Flawn Williams and
Speaker 1: engineering by Martin Gonzalez. Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to all those who lent their voice to The
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid. Two point out our actors Zalbatmanglich, Glenn Close,
Speaker 1: Jodie Foster, Ethan Herschenfeld, Britt Marling, Kate Parkinson, Morgan Dak
Speaker 1: Shephard and Malcolm Gladbow. And our singers Devin Guthrie, Luis Gera, Nataliaguera,
Speaker 1: Ethan Herschenfeld, Khalil Sabah, Samia Sabah and Ginger Smith. And
Speaker 1: and especially warm thanks to two people. First, our composer
Speaker 1: extraordinariy Luis Gera, who all by himself matched and actually
Speaker 1: exceeded the armies of sound people in multi million dollar
Speaker 1: orchestral halls out Walt Disney headquarters. And second, my old
Speaker 1: friend Britt Marlin, who stormed the walls of a Disney
Speaker 1: fortress and liberated Ariel and Ursula from thirty years of
Speaker 1: wrongful imprisonment. Special thanks also to the Pushkin crew had
Speaker 1: a fan Carlie Migliore, Maya Kanig, Danielle Lakhan, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Erksander Nikol Morano, Jason Gambrel and of course Al Halfade,
Speaker 1: our very young King Triton, Jacob Westbury. I'm marcol Bartol.
Speaker 1: Don't forget my latest book, The Bomber Mafia, which is
Speaker 1: an expansion of several episodes from the last season of
Speaker 1: Revisionist History. You can find it wherever books are sold,
Speaker 1: but by the audiobook at Bombermafia dot com and you'll
Speaker 1: get a bonus listeners guide and you can listen in
Speaker 1: the podcast app you're using now