FOF #2893 – Howard Ashman: the Man Who Gave a Mermaid a Voice and a Beast a Soul

Summary: After several box office bombs in the 80s, Disney considered never making animated musicals again. <br> <br> Thankfully, after playwright and lyricist Howard Ashman’s successful musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors, Disney asked him to work with them and launched the Disney Renaissance.<br> <br> Today musical theater enthusiast Jake Bellisimo from the YouTube channel Dreamsounds joins us to take a look at the amazing musical legacy of Howard Ashman, queer coding in Disney films and Beauty and the Beast as an allegory for society’s betrayal of people with AIDS.