20 Things You Didn’t Know About Beauty and the Beast

Final dance from Beauty and the Beast (Image via Disney)

4. The final dance with Belle and the Beast reused animation from Sleeping Beauty

Remember that romantic last scene where Belle dances with the newly human Beast? Yeah, of course, you do. Now, remember when you saw the same thing in Sleeping Beauty?

It’s true, really. Go back and watch the final dance scene from the 1959 Disney film Sleeping Beauty. Those dance steps sure look familiar, don’t they?

This actually isn’t the only example of recycled animation in Disney films. The truth is, animating is pretty time consuming. Before the advent of computer systems, much of the work had to be done by hand. Even though Beauty and the Beast used the early CAPS animation system to produce some spectacular set pieces, it didn’t make up the entirety of the film.

One of the most popular techniques is called rotoscoping. Animators would trace or draw their scenes straight from live-action footage of actors moving through a scene. It was especially useful for sequences with a lot of movement, such as dancing or running.

It was also a matter of budget. Why spend a ton of time and money creating a new animation from scratch, when you can fudge it a little and recycle some old footage?

Other examples include Snow White’s dance with the Seven Dwarves in 1937’s Snow White, which was reused in Maid Marian’s dance with the Merry Men in Robin Hood (1973). Little John, from the same film, was also cribbed from Baloo in The Jungle Book (1969).