Little Mermaid Part 3: Honestly Ever After

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin exterior ocean the ship Magic Hour, Ariel grabs onto a portal window. She hoists herself out of the seas scales the side of the ship toward the deck. The final bars of cannon ind float down from above as Ariel ascends.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: Do you, Prince Eric, take Ursula to have and to hold in sickness and in health for as long as you both shall live.

00:00:53
Speaker 1: Ariel throws one leg over the starboard railing. The guests, enraptured by the perfection of the bride and groom, don't even.

00:00:59
Speaker 3: Notice her arrival.

00:01:01
Speaker 1: Eric looks deep into Ursula's eyes, hypnotized.

00:01:05
Speaker 4: I do.

00:01:08
Speaker 5: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is the third and final part of our investigation into the Walt Disney Companies nineteen eighty nine princess blockbuster The Little Mermaid. In parts one and two, we told you what was wrong.

00:01:33
Speaker 6: With the movie.

00:01:35
Speaker 5: In this part three, Revisionist History brings you our production of The Little Mermaid, a version finally fit for your children. Allow me to reintroduce you to the creative force behind our version of the Little Mermaid the actor and screenwriter britt Marling. We met her in the previous episode where I asked her to reimagine a better ending for The Little Mermaid, to identify precisely where Disney went wrong and fix it.

00:02:14
Speaker 7: Look, there's something very true at the center of The Little Mermaid, and that's what makes it sticky, both the Hans' version and the animated version that came from Disney. And the sticky thing at the center is that women do often lose their voices at around that age, and so any myth that doesn't have something true at the center, you just fades away. It doesn't really last the test of time. But a myth that gets something right will stick around.

00:02:43
Speaker 5: In both the original Hans Christian Anderson version of The Little Mermaid and in the Disney version, the Little Mermaid must surrender her voice to the Sea Witch in order to participate in the real world.

00:02:55
Speaker 7: To get to a true, happy ending, you have to acknowledge that the tear in the story is maybe correct right, that it functions as a cautionary tale. Young women sometimes do lose their voices, and that or that point of no return promises an obligatory scene and the obligatory scene is, well, how does she get her voice back? Does she get her voice back? What does she say when she has her voice back? And on those counts, the Disney version really fails to inspire a genuine happy ending about how a young woman might get her voice back and then what she.

00:03:32
Speaker 8: Might do with it.

00:03:34
Speaker 5: Someone just randomly gives her voice back, Like did she go to the loss and found that it happened to be there? I mean, it's it's about as unsatisfying as that.

00:03:42
Speaker 8: I mean I went back and rewatched it, Malcolm because I was like, I can't be as bad as I think it is, but it's worse. She's standing on the dock watching the wedding ship go out into the sunset, knowing that Eric is about to marry this princess and when the sunsets, she'll be turned into this algae creature that's a lost soul in like Ursula's Garden of lost Souls under the sea. So she's crestfallen and she's standing there and then skull the seagull comes flapping and he's like, oh my gosh, I look through the portal window.

00:04:14
Speaker 7: And it's Ursula who's marrying Prince Eric and Jeriel flings herself off the dock, lands in the water and she can't swim.

00:04:23
Speaker 6: So then like, not.

00:04:24
Speaker 7: Only does Flounder have to drag her to the boat on the back of a barrel, but then when she gets up onto the deck, she's standing there and it's Scuttle, the seagull that goes.

00:04:34
Speaker 6: And gets the shell off Ursula's neck, throws it on the floor and it just happens to land where she's standing, and she just happens to reabsorb her her voice through literally no agency of her own.

00:04:52
Speaker 5: Brit believed that the Little Mermaid could only be saved with a completely new kind of aerial But who could play her? I called up Avy Kaufman, one of the top casting directors in Hollywood. I sent her Brit script and I asked her to find as someone to body the spirit of a teenager, a mermaid teenager, but one with a certain amount of moxie edge.

00:05:16
Speaker 4: So, you know, in thinking about child actors and Jody and people we love, I think Jody could have done that.

00:05:28
Speaker 5: Jody being Jody Foster. Jody Foster, who famously played an FBI agent in Silence of the Lambs, and long before that, a child prostitute in Martin Scossese's taxi driver. Why do you want me to go back to my parents?

00:05:46
Speaker 4: I mean they hate me.

00:05:48
Speaker 9: Why do you think I split in the first place?

00:05:50
Speaker 5: There ain't nothing there.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can't live like this.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: It's a hell the girls.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: You'll live at home.

00:05:58
Speaker 6: Did you ever hear of Women's Live?

00:06:00
Speaker 1: Yes?

00:06:01
Speaker 5: That Jody Foster. That's where we're going with this. We're thinking that the young Jody Foster ought to play a Disney princess.

00:06:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jody could have done that believably, believably, and Jody's kind of like that. She's got that toughness inside that's surrounded by the big heart.

00:06:24
Speaker 5: And the intelligence you're talking about. We would believe that she could make that leap.

00:06:30
Speaker 4: Jody could do it.

00:06:31
Speaker 8: There you go.

00:06:32
Speaker 5: The young Jody Foster could not have been well Disney's aerial, not in a million years. No, back her eyelashes and let someone else save her. Are you kidding me?

00:06:40
Speaker 4: Like, she wouldn't have taken the role because she wouldn't have had a clue what to do with that.

00:06:46
Speaker 5: She would have said, are you sure you're not looking for another Jay Foster?

00:06:51
Speaker 1: No?

00:06:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:06:53
Speaker 5: Did we ask Jody Foster to play our aerial to join the Pushkin players? Did she say yes? Let me answer that with another question, have we hit Revision's history ever? Let you down? While in England, I grew up hearing the BBC program Listen with Mother, every episode of which opened.

00:07:15
Speaker 2: With are you sitting comfortably?

00:07:19
Speaker 7: Then I'll begin.

00:07:22
Speaker 5: You've all been patient, all of you. You have listened as we have taken swing after swing at the bloated pinata that is the original Little Mermaid. It's time to raise the curtain. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin. We're in the story's final act. Ariel had hoped to win the heart of the handsome Prince Eric. Marrying him was the only way she could stay a human. But the prince is chosen to marry another woman who is actually the sea witch Ursula in disguise. The soon to be newlyweds are on a boat. There are guests, music, dancing all manner of merriment, and into this spectacle comes our badass, Ariel. So with that, may I present The Little Mermaid two point zero, Written and narrated by Britt Marling.

00:08:17
Speaker 3: Ariel grabs onto a portal window.

00:08:20
Speaker 1: She hoists herself out of the sea, scales the side of the ship toward the deck. The final bars of cannon ind float down from above as Ariel ascends.

00:08:31
Speaker 2: Do you, Prince Eric, take ursela to have and to hold in sickness and in health for as long as you both shall live.

00:08:43
Speaker 1: Ariel throws one leg over the starboard, railing The guests, enraptured by the perfection of the bride and groom, don't even notice her arrival. Eric looks deep into Ursula's eyes, hypnotized.

00:08:56
Speaker 2: I do and do you Ursula? Take Prince Eric.

00:09:03
Speaker 1: Ariel, soaking wet, wreathed, and seaweed red in the face, charges forward, leaps onto the stage head's right for the couple to be like a charging bull. The guests gasp at this invasion, A scorned woman come to sabotage the wedding to throw Eric's fiance overboard. Ariel barrels forward, arms outstretched, and just when it seems like Aeryl might strike Ursula, who she collides with her in an embrace full of feeling.

00:09:30
Speaker 3: The guest's jaws drop God in heaven.

00:09:35
Speaker 1: Ursula, shocked, disgusted, lets the mask of perfect bride slip, her true voice laced with bitterness.

00:09:42
Speaker 6: Get get off me, you fool.

00:09:45
Speaker 1: Ursula tries to extricate herself from Ariel's arms, but Ariel holds on with a strength of heart, impossible to unravel.

00:09:53
Speaker 2: Ursula strong, Oh, Ariel, what are you doing?

00:09:58
Speaker 1: Everyone looks on in a shock at this truly bizarre scene. One woman cugging another woman who wriggles, squirms.

00:10:05
Speaker 3: Fights to escape this embrace, but cannot break it. Seems to not really want to. The force of.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: Ariela's kindness gains the power of actual magic, and the shell around Ursula's neck that holds Ariel's voice begins to glow.

00:10:20
Speaker 3: Hum tog away from.

00:10:22
Speaker 1: Ursula as if possessed, and move toward Ariel.

00:10:28
Speaker 9: Stop stop, stop, I say, but.

00:10:31
Speaker 3: Ariel doesn't stop. By the heat of Ariel's love.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: Ursula begins to transform back into her original form. Her slender limbs morphed into thick, barnacled covered tentacles, her wedding dress verse that that seems to reveal her sea slick octopus body.

00:10:47
Speaker 3: A woman in the audience screams, shrilly, good, God, disgust.

00:10:53
Speaker 1: What is she? Children cower under their seats grown men back away in horror. Eric stumbles and nearly falls over.

00:11:01
Speaker 3: Oh oh, I almost married an octopus.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: But Ariel doesn't stop hugging this creature that everyone else is so revolted by the force of Ariel's feeling, compels her own voice out of the shell around Ursula's neck. The light of that voice slips its prism and hovers in mid air a moment the audience gasps, the priest faints, The light floats into Ariel's open mouth, and then she sings, in a voice as radiant as a song that breaks a summer storm. Eric, realizing it was in fact Ariel who rescued him, rushes forward to her.

00:11:48
Speaker 2: Ariel, it was you.

00:11:51
Speaker 8: It was you all along.

00:11:54
Speaker 9: Duh.

00:11:56
Speaker 3: Too little, too late, Eric, And honestly, Eric was not really the point and never has been.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: Aril's arms still rap Ursula, who, in spite of herself, leans into the embrace. Aril turns back to her Ursula and says softly into her ear.

00:12:11
Speaker 9: You hurt me, but I understand why you hurt me. What do you know, you idiotic?

00:12:20
Speaker 2: Do I teenager?

00:12:22
Speaker 9: I know that you are kicked out of the kingdom by my family. I know you were left in the dark part of the ocean to die alone. And I know you have suffered greatly. I know you made me and many others suffer greatly. All I have is the art of cruelty.

00:12:40
Speaker 5: All I have is.

00:12:41
Speaker 9: Your hate, everyone's hate. I don't hate you, Ursula.

00:12:48
Speaker 1: Ursula scoffs at this, but her eyes go wide with feeling. No one has said a kind word to Ursula in years.

00:12:57
Speaker 9: And in time. Understanding you better and why you've done the things you've done, I could maybe even love you.

00:13:06
Speaker 1: Ah, Ursula cries out, as if bitten by the words. For a moment in Ariel's embrace, we see Ursula as the magic of Ariel's empathy allows Ariel to see her. Ursula at Ariel's age sixteen, the age before Ursula's heart was broken. She's open, full of vigor and young magic, curious and alive like Ariel is. Had they met at this age, they they might have been best friends.

00:13:33
Speaker 3: They might even have been lovers. The two young women regard each other a moment.

00:13:39
Speaker 9: You've taught me the power of my voice. I could actually even thank you for that.

00:13:47
Speaker 1: Ursula weeps now like the teenager she is in Ariel's eyes unbidden, unstoppable tears. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Ariel looks to Ursula, now still holding Ursula's hands.

00:14:04
Speaker 9: It's okay. Someone hurt you, just like you hurt me, and I think I know who it was.

00:14:16
Speaker 1: The sky has darkened and the sea froths now in anger.

00:14:21
Speaker 9: Waves rock the craft.

00:14:23
Speaker 7: The guests pulled onto their hats in a sudden fierce wind.

00:14:27
Speaker 1: Eric grabs a sword off a nearby guard in fear. Ariel let's go of Ursula's hands in surprise, and Ursula becomes her true age again. Just as King Triton emerges from the ocean, huge bearing his trident and riding an enormous wave toward the ship, an army of spear wielding merman behind him. His voice booms like thunder, Stay away from my daughter. Lightning cracks the skuy from the force of his rage. Triton wounds over the ship now like a giant.

00:15:02
Speaker 5: I was too kind when I banished you from the kingdom.

00:15:06
Speaker 8: I shook have destroyed.

00:15:09
Speaker 9: And lifts his tried and high.

00:15:11
Speaker 1: It sparks with electricity drawn from the sky. He aims that laser beam of death toward Ursula, who suffused with love, has no ready counterattack.

00:15:21
Speaker 7: No, Ariel shouts powerfully.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: She throws herself in harm's way to protect Ursula.

00:15:27
Speaker 9: You kept me and my sister's prisoner in the castle. You exiled Ursula from family, friends safety because she dared to practice in magic, and you want it to be the only one with such power. That I have magic too, father, we all have magic.

00:15:48
Speaker 1: And then Ariol begins to use the power of her voice, which is real magic, to sing. It's so hypnotic and so true that the sea begins to calm under her spell, and the anger surging in the bodies of the Merman soldiers begins to dissipate. Ursula looks to Ariel in wonder and joins her song a lower note in perfect harmony. As Ursula sings, the lost souls of her garden shake free from the terrible purgatory of her old spells. They swim to the surface as Murr people once again, and sing with the passion of the newly freed.

00:16:25
Speaker 5: Citizen.

00:16:26
Speaker 1: Mr People, drawn to the sound of real freedom, break the surface of the sea and sing too, sebastian and floundering. Even Scuttle sings a little off key, but committed altogether, they make the most beautiful music humaneers have ever heard.

00:16:43
Speaker 3: Eric weeps from the sound.

00:16:47
Speaker 1: Beautiful. So do many of his wedding guests, who have not allowed their hearts to become too hardened to life.

00:16:54
Speaker 3: Some of them, the brave ones, begin to sing too.

00:17:00
Speaker 1: The music travels so far and so wide that even townspeople on land begin unconsciously humming this melody they've never heard before, but.

00:17:08
Speaker 3: Feel they have no always.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: The cloud's part, the setting sun is round, and pink birds land happily on the shoulder of Triton, And this big, proud, vain old king cannot help but be moved by his young daughter and her magic to unite.

00:17:25
Speaker 3: Across genders, across.

00:17:26
Speaker 1: Generations, across species. Triton looks at Ariel with tears of humiliation mixed with tears of all Aril stands on the edge of the balcony level within.

00:17:39
Speaker 9: Dad, you don't need to be the most powerful to be the most loved.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: Triton's eyes widened at the wisdom of her youth.

00:17:50
Speaker 3: The tear, too, falls from his eyes.

00:17:53
Speaker 9: I'm sorry, Area, I've not been a very good listener.

00:17:59
Speaker 8: Cat'n we begin again.

00:18:04
Speaker 1: Ariel nods and embraces her dad over the railing and now the sun. Finally, sex Ursula's old spell wears off. Ariel transforms into a mermaid once more. The guests have no reaction at this point, they've really seen it all. Ariel laughs as her legs morphed into a powerful bit.

00:18:24
Speaker 3: Eric drops down to her side.

00:18:26
Speaker 1: Hey, I mean thank you.

00:18:29
Speaker 5: Your look saved my life.

00:18:31
Speaker 3: Ariel smiles at him.

00:18:33
Speaker 9: Don't mention it.

00:18:35
Speaker 1: All she really wanted was a thank you. It may be all any of us ever really want.

00:18:39
Speaker 3: Ariel turns to.

00:18:40
Speaker 9: Ursula, Hey, shall we go home?

00:18:44
Speaker 1: Ursula nods, Yes, let's go. They take each other's hands and jump.

00:19:08
Speaker 5: Let's take a moment to discuss our revised and greatly improved ending to The Little Mermaid. First of all, to any executives of the Walt Disney Company who happened to be listening, please feel free to use our ending in the remake of The Little Mermaid that I understand you're working on. Go right ahead. Ariel and Ursula deserve a better fate than you have given them for the past thirty years. Speaking of Ursula, did you recognize that voice? Did you figure out who we got to play this most critical of roles.

00:19:43
Speaker 9: Get get off me, you fool.

00:19:47
Speaker 5: We couldn't use just anyone in the role, because Ursula is not a two dimensional villain anymore. We're not murdering her off, we're redeeming her. BRIT's point was, why is she even the villain in the first place.

00:19:59
Speaker 7: It's just that who do young women lose their voices to? Not really wise old women living on the edge of right, Like, that's not the culprit of who takes women's voices from them. And so I think that's the problem you're contending with at the end, which is like the idea of a witch is a kind of smoke screen that prevents us from thinking about where the forces of antagonism against women actually lie.

00:20:32
Speaker 5: So Ursula has to be played by someone who can do more than a garden variety witch.

00:20:37
Speaker 9: So how old is Ursula? Right, you'll get off me.

00:20:44
Speaker 3: No, I think you get off me.

00:20:46
Speaker 6: What I think you could play her older for sure, because that's sort of the trope, the older witch on the edge of town kind of thing.

00:20:53
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, that's Brit directing Glenn close. We got Glenn close, of course we did. It was only right to have Disney's nineteen ninety six Cruella Deville returning as revisionist Histories twenty twenty one. Ursula, Now, what about Prince Eric? Britt and I had a long planning session on the Eric problem.

00:21:18
Speaker 7: He is a.

00:21:18
Speaker 5: Completely cardboard figure who only is allowed to have any kind of meaningful role when he kills somebody.

00:21:27
Speaker 7: Oh, oh, Malcolm, I love that. Yes, I love that. We're doing a lot of talking right now about the ways in which we need to liberate women through stories, but we should also do a lot of talking about the ways in which we need to liberate men.

00:21:42
Speaker 5: We didn't need a murderous vigilante anymore. We needed a liberated man.

00:21:48
Speaker 2: Hi, I almost married an octopus.

00:21:51
Speaker 5: Did you recognize that voice? The embodiment of male liberation? The actor, comedian podcaster extraordinaire Dak Shepherd. Here he is during our taping, taking direction from our producer mim and Gistu.

00:22:06
Speaker 3: Oh, I kind of wanted you to do it, kind of like a clueless himbo.

00:22:10
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?

00:22:12
Speaker 2: Tell me what a himbo is?

00:22:13
Speaker 8: And himbo was the male version of exactly exactly.

00:22:19
Speaker 9: Male version of a what bimba?

00:22:21
Speaker 1: Oh, Bimbo.

00:22:22
Speaker 2: Okay, Ariel, what what are you doing?

00:22:30
Speaker 6: Oh?

00:22:32
Speaker 2: Ariel, what are you doing?

00:22:36
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:22:36
Speaker 9: That was great?

00:22:36
Speaker 7: Thank you.

00:22:38
Speaker 5: As for King Triton, the King is played by Ethan Herschenfeld, stand up comic actor and former opera singer, which was a delight for our in house musical genius Louis Kara.

00:22:50
Speaker 9: It's a little more urban feeling, you know what I mean.

00:22:53
Speaker 2: Urban I can kind of do because I grew up in the Bronx, but it was Riverdale, so you're hearing the Riverdale the Bronx.

00:23:00
Speaker 5: It sounds awesome, So Dak Shepherd, Jody Foster, Glenn Close, Ethan Herschenfeld, I mean all star asked.

00:23:11
Speaker 1: Triton lifts his tried and tie. It sparks with electricity drawn from the sky. He aims that laser beam of death towards Ursula, who suffused with love, has no ready counterattack.

00:23:25
Speaker 7: Ariel shouts powerfully.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: To me.

00:23:29
Speaker 5: The most beautiful moment in your new ending is when Ariel throws her body in the line of her father's trident to save Ursula. Right, she will sacrifice herself on the behalf of someone who has hitherto in the plot being seen as irredeemable, that somebody would sacrifice, someone in good standing.

00:23:51
Speaker 7: Would sacrifice themselves.

00:23:54
Speaker 5: For someone who is conceived of is irredeemable. The princess, the heir to the throne, the beautiful whatever, would sacrifice everything for the sake of a witch, of an outcast.

00:24:09
Speaker 7: Which feels so right because the witch has been miscast from the beginning, right. I mean, I think cruelty was done to Ursula, and it made her cruel and I believe that Ursula could actually be redeemed, and that all it really takes is one person in an act of tremendous bravery and kindness. I mean, that's the thing that I keep thinking about these days, is how can you dramatize the strength of kindness? Like we just don't really believe in kindness as a culture anymore. We think it's soft, we think it's weak, we think it's not serious. But that just doesn't feel right to me. I mean, it feels like there has to be a way to dramatize it as actually this incredibly sharp, pointed, powerful thing.

00:25:01
Speaker 5: Disney's Little Mermaid instructs little girls to think about themselves. Brit Marlin wants little girls to think about someone other than themselves, the outcast living at the bottom of the sea, who also deserves a chance at happiness. One last thing, the most amazing gift of all. Britt Marlin wrote a final scene. She said we didn't have to use it. I disagree. Here it is Ariel's coda.

00:25:45
Speaker 1: X Dear Shipwreck, Kingdom under the Sea. Ariel swims through a shipwreck, joined by flounder and other Martines. They dart in and out of the wreckage, digging into old trunks, rooting out human treasure.

00:25:59
Speaker 9: So that's the story of the only wedding I ever crashed. I still go on land, but not for eric exterior.

00:26:07
Speaker 1: Countryside day, Ariel gallops across an open field on the back.

00:26:12
Speaker 3: Of a horse. They leap a fence together.

00:26:16
Speaker 9: By day, I explore distant lands, far off kingdoms, ancient forests. I learn so much from the people I meet and the gazelle's, the trees, the sunflowers, the rainstorms.

00:26:32
Speaker 1: Ariel scales a five hundred year old tree with two other teenagers.

00:26:36
Speaker 3: They laugh as they race to the top.

00:26:39
Speaker 9: By night, by my own magic, I return to the sea.

00:26:44
Speaker 1: Ariel walks into the ocean under the light of a full yellow moon, Her legs morph into a fin. As she reaches the first big wave, she dives under fish. Her people, crabs occupy all manner of sea life, gather around a warm, bubbling sea vent. Ariel sings to them of her travels, while Sebastian conducts a small orchestra in accompaniment.

00:27:09
Speaker 9: I sing stories of the places I've been, the kindness I've encountered, the danger I've defied, the times I've had to apologize, the times I've been apologized too. And there was finally a wedding that went off without a hitch. It just wasn't my wedding.

00:27:31
Speaker 1: Into your great hall, palace, kingdom under the sea, all the miror people decked out in their finest pearls and corals for a lavish wedding.

00:27:40
Speaker 3: But it's Triton standing before the pulpit.

00:27:43
Speaker 1: He lifts the veil of his bride to be it's Ursula. There's still a sharp look in Ursula's eye, but the sharp.

00:27:52
Speaker 3: Of wisdom, not of cunning.

00:27:54
Speaker 1: She smiles, shocked to be met late in life by such happiness. Ariel, a bridesmaid amongst her sisters, beams.

00:28:02
Speaker 9: It turns out that most of Ursula's bitter potions had come from an early heartbreak.

00:28:09
Speaker 2: Father, do you Ursula take King Triton to have and to hold?

00:28:16
Speaker 7: I do, I do?

00:28:17
Speaker 9: I do?

00:28:17
Speaker 5: I do.

00:28:18
Speaker 3: King Triton and Queen Ursula kiss.

00:28:23
Speaker 1: And Eric.

00:28:25
Speaker 9: Eric's married too, and happily.

00:28:28
Speaker 1: Eric walks down the palace steps, arms slung around his husband Tom, the town veterinarian. Twelve enormous fluffy sheep dogs e race around at their feet. I know they're not like us. They don't get it.

00:28:42
Speaker 9: Eric says it's too weird to eat fish after a fish woman saved his life and he almost married a giant octopus. So the kingdom has gone vegetarian.

00:28:52
Speaker 2: I don't care if they bake it, steam it, or fry it.

00:28:54
Speaker 8: I'd rather die.

00:28:57
Speaker 9: Eric and Tom are encouraging other kingdoms to do the same in the face of the climate emergency.

00:29:02
Speaker 2: It will make you die and the planet.

00:29:05
Speaker 9: I think he's gonna make a fine king. One day.

00:29:09
Speaker 1: Aerol sits at a round table with Eric, Tom, and a bunch.

00:29:12
Speaker 3: Of other townspeople.

00:29:14
Speaker 1: It is not a posh, silent meal at a ridiculously long table for almost no one.

00:29:19
Speaker 3: It's a feast for many.

00:29:21
Speaker 1: They pass bowls of food and break off chunks of bread. They eat with their hands and sometimes talk with their mouths full. The hall is filled with rowdy laughter and sometimes tears, as people tell each other what's on their minds and in their hearts, and what they hope for the future.

00:29:38
Speaker 9: And so we lived, not always happily, but certainly more honestly than we ever had before.

00:29:49
Speaker 3: The end.

00:30:13
Speaker 5: The Vision's history is produced by Mei La Belle, Lee Mengistu and Jacob Smith, with Eloise Linton and Annayim. Our editor is Julia Bardon, mastering by Flon Williams and engineering by Martin Gonzalez. Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Special thanks to all those who lent their voice to The Little Mermaid two point zero. Our actors Zolbatmanglitch, Glenn Close, Jody Foster, Ethan Hershenfeld, Britt Marlin, Kate Parkinson, Morgan Dak Shephard and Malcolm Gladwow and our singers Devin Guthrie, Luis Gerra, Littalia Gera, Ethan Herschhenfeld, Khalil Sabah, Samayah Sabah and Ginger Smith. And an especially warm thanks to two people. First, our composer extraordinaire Luis Gerra, who are by himself matched and actually exceeded the armies of sound people in multimillion dollar orchestral halls at Walt Disney Headquarters. And second, my old friend Britt Marlin, who stormed the walls of the Disney Fortress and liberated Ariel and Ursula from thirty years of wrongful imprisonment. Special thanks also to the Pushkin crew had a fame. Carli Miglioroi, Maya Knig, Danielle Lakhan, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sander, Nicol Morano, Jason Gambrel, and of course Al Hafe our.

00:31:41
Speaker 2: Very young King Triton.

00:31:43
Speaker 5: Jacob Westberg. I'm Martin Bako. Don't forget my latest book, The Bomber Mafia, which is an expansion of several episodes from the last season of Revisionist History. You can find it wherever books are sold, but by the audiobook at Bombermafia dot com and you'll get a bonus listener's guide and you can listen in the podcast app you're using now.