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The first song in the movie is the first one Menken and Ashman wrote.
Its length and multitude of singing characters was unusual for a cartoon musical, which made Ashman nervous.
Disney
“Howard was very reluctant to have us send it on to Disney,” Menken says.
“Basically he was saying, ‘Who asked us for a seven-minute opening number?
What are we thinking?'”
Disney
“Be Our Guest”
Beauty and the Beast’s biggest number started as a placeholder.
“‘Okay, I’ll give you a dumb piece of music that we’ll throw out.’
got a number that’s part drinking song, part Sigmund Romberg waltz.
Disney
“It was so funny I could not get through it.”
Apparently no one makes Oscar-winning composers laugh like Gaston.
“And she got it,” Menken says.
Disney
“‘New and a bit a-LAR-ming.’
It’s a grim theatrical sequence that Menken describes as “pure operetta.”
“What occurred to me was, ‘That doesn’t make sense.
Gaston and Belle in 1991’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’.Disney
We literally wrote it for her,'” Menken recalls.
“And I said, ‘Well, which demo did you play for her?’
‘Well, we sent her yours.’
Disney
I said, ‘Oh, no no no no no.
c’mon, quick, send her Howard’s!’
I remember the sense of urgency!”
