Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World
Year: 1998
Directed by: Daniel Blaine, Dale Case, Daniel de la Vega, Barbara Dourmashkin, Bob Kline, Burt Medall & Mitch Rochon
Starring: Robby Benson, David Ogden Stiers, Paige O'Hara & Jerry Orbach
Runtime: 70 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 28/02/22
Directed by: Daniel Blaine, Dale Case, Daniel de la Vega, Barbara Dourmashkin, Bob Kline, Burt Medall & Mitch Rochon
Starring: Robby Benson, David Ogden Stiers, Paige O'Hara & Jerry Orbach
Runtime: 70 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 28/02/22
After The Lion King II I certainly had hoped that things would get better for the Disney Animated Sequels but following the success of The Enchanted Christmas yet another return to the world of Beauty and the Beast was of course on the cards, and so here comes Belle’s Magical World, another awkwardly squeezed in midquel to the 1992 Classic that only serves to confuse and bore in equal measure.
Belle’s Magical World consists of three short stories (The Perfect Word, Fifi’s Folly, and The Broken Wing), all of which consist of one of the castle’s inhabitants doing something wrong and Belle (Paige O’Hara) helping them fix it.
The Perfect Word sees Belle & Beast (Robby Benson) argue over dinner, and Webster the dictionary (Jim Cummings) thinks he may be able to repair their relationship by penning an apology letter to Beast. This only causes more problems and Belle must help him make it up to Beast.
Fifi’s Folly sees Lumiere (Jerry Orbach) trying to express his love to Fifi (Kimmy Robertson), but inadvertently leading her to believe that he has fallen for Belle instead.
Finally, The Broken Wing sees Belle nursing an injured bird back to health and Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers) loses control of his staff.
Belle’s Magical World is a marketed step down from The Enchanted Christmas and mostly because of this storybook structure. No story is given any considerable amount of depth and they’re all by the numbers children’s TV shlock. It makes sense when you consider that this is actually a compilation of three episodes of a Beauty and the Beast TV series that never made it to air. But this episodic structure also makes it difficult to pinpoint where in the Beauty and the Beast timeline this exists within. Being a midquel, we know it happens within the confines of the original film, but does it take place before or after Enchanted Christmas? Are the stories told in any particular order?
Not only this, but the stories add no meaningful depth to the characters or story, meaning that similar to Enchanted Christmas this serves to only bloat the Beauty and Beast storyline.
Belle’s Magical World consists of three short stories (The Perfect Word, Fifi’s Folly, and The Broken Wing), all of which consist of one of the castle’s inhabitants doing something wrong and Belle (Paige O’Hara) helping them fix it.
The Perfect Word sees Belle & Beast (Robby Benson) argue over dinner, and Webster the dictionary (Jim Cummings) thinks he may be able to repair their relationship by penning an apology letter to Beast. This only causes more problems and Belle must help him make it up to Beast.
Fifi’s Folly sees Lumiere (Jerry Orbach) trying to express his love to Fifi (Kimmy Robertson), but inadvertently leading her to believe that he has fallen for Belle instead.
Finally, The Broken Wing sees Belle nursing an injured bird back to health and Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers) loses control of his staff.
Belle’s Magical World is a marketed step down from The Enchanted Christmas and mostly because of this storybook structure. No story is given any considerable amount of depth and they’re all by the numbers children’s TV shlock. It makes sense when you consider that this is actually a compilation of three episodes of a Beauty and the Beast TV series that never made it to air. But this episodic structure also makes it difficult to pinpoint where in the Beauty and the Beast timeline this exists within. Being a midquel, we know it happens within the confines of the original film, but does it take place before or after Enchanted Christmas? Are the stories told in any particular order?
Not only this, but the stories add no meaningful depth to the characters or story, meaning that similar to Enchanted Christmas this serves to only bloat the Beauty and Beast storyline.
The animation quality takes a significant hit even in comparison to Enchanted Christmas offering up lower quality environments, rougher looking character models, and juddery animation that moves well below the usual 24 frames per second. It’s kind of appalling actually to see this little care being put into something for the sake of Disney making a quick buck.
Before I close off I watched the version that is available on Disney+ which is the original 1998 version of the film, though an extended version was released in 2003 which included another short story ‘Mrs Potts Party’, which was originally included in the film Belle’s Tales of Friendship (which isn’t available on Disney+). I can’t comment on this segment as I haven’t seen it but based off the quality of the three shorts I did see I’m glad I didn’t have to endure another twenty minutes of it.
Belle’s Magical World is bad, even for something to just stick your kids in front of to keep them busy for an hour. If this was the best that Disney TV Animation could come up with for a Beauty and the Beast TV series than I can see why it never got greenlit, but this honestly would have been better never seeing the light of day.
Whilst I’m sure very young Beauty and the Beast fans will find something to enjoy with Belle’s Magical World, there’s absolutely nothing of interest for anybody else and joins the likes of Return of Jafar as Disney films I would like to forget even exist.
Before I close off I watched the version that is available on Disney+ which is the original 1998 version of the film, though an extended version was released in 2003 which included another short story ‘Mrs Potts Party’, which was originally included in the film Belle’s Tales of Friendship (which isn’t available on Disney+). I can’t comment on this segment as I haven’t seen it but based off the quality of the three shorts I did see I’m glad I didn’t have to endure another twenty minutes of it.
Belle’s Magical World is bad, even for something to just stick your kids in front of to keep them busy for an hour. If this was the best that Disney TV Animation could come up with for a Beauty and the Beast TV series than I can see why it never got greenlit, but this honestly would have been better never seeing the light of day.
Whilst I’m sure very young Beauty and the Beast fans will find something to enjoy with Belle’s Magical World, there’s absolutely nothing of interest for anybody else and joins the likes of Return of Jafar as Disney films I would like to forget even exist.