Making Beauty & the Beast - ABC's 20/20 (1991)

In December 1990, Walt Disney Feature Animation worked out a deal where the TV news magazine 20/20 on the ABC Network would do a segment on the production of their latest film Beauty & the Beast. This footage is cited in the Making Of book that came out at the time but has rarely been seen since it initially aired once in November of 1991. Here is that segment to catch a snapshot of this period in Walt Disney history.

Although some of these specific scenes may have been created for the camera, they capture the flavor of the process very well. In these segments you'll see such modern Disney legends as Glen Keane, Nik Ranieri, Will Finn, Roger Allers, David Pruiksma, Brenda Chapman, and others. You also see the directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale as well as producer Don Hahn. Jeffery Katzenberg dominates this segment and you get the idea of what kind of a producer he was. Many animation figures from this time who were still at Disney in recent years have commented on back then they only had to answer to Jeffery. Now there's dozens of Jefferys micro managing productions.

Beauty and the Beast was the most successful animated feature up to that time. It was the first animated film to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture and is still the only hand drawn animated film to ever be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It lost to Silence of the Lambs. (It's nomination eventually led to the creation of the Best Animated Feature category of the Oscars.) It's still a classic on par with anything produced in the Walt era and it's fantastic to peak behind the curtain in this segment to see how it was made.

Original airdate November 1991

Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.