Disney is a huge brand that started by making shorts and movies. Now, Disney has about 750 movies under its belt. Of course, you think of the actors as the masterminds of many movies, but what is often forgotten are the other details like the animators or musicians who made many Disney classics come to life. These characters and songs are often taken for granted when it comes to entertainment but in reality, they require a lot of hard work.
Aladdin Broadway Cast Recording CD
Recently, Disney showed their appreciation for one of their musicians and lyricist: Howard Ashman. Yup, this is the guy who wrote the lyrics for “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and more. The documentary “Howard” was released earlier this month on Disney+ showing his life, successions, and hardships with this movie. I watched it recently and wanted to give you all my honest review.
Brief Overview
The documentary starts with Howard’s childhood: his creativity, his love for acting and directing, and his overall draw to music. He ends up going to Boston University for college, majoring in playwriting, and falling in love with a man named Stuart. They both moved on to graduate school and eventually opened the WPA theater together with some friends in New York City after they finished school.
But, Howard and Stuart wanted different things and could not make their relationship last. Stuart left and Howard started working on many plays to perform at his theater including “God Bless You Mr. Rosewater”, “Little Shop of Horrors”, and “Smile”. “God Bless You…” was the first time Howard worked with composer Alan Menken, who would become a long time coworker, to write songs. That show was a little bit of a flop, “Little Shop” (which Ashman worked with Menken again for) was a huge hit, and “Smile” was a disaster. At this point, Disney had heard of Howard and stepped in inviting him to come work for their studios.
Walt Disney Studios
Now, I should mention that while working on “Little Shop of Horrors” Howard fell in love with a partner named Bill Launch who he would spend the rest of his life with. Howard went to Los Angeles to work for Disney where he wrote iconic lyrics for the movie “The Little Mermaid” again with composer Alan Menken. They won many awards for it too. They started working on music for “Aladdin” but that got put on hold so the started working on music for “Beauty and the Beast”.
The Little Mermaid Movie
At this point, Howard was diagnosed with AIDS. He was able to continue living relatively normally for a while where he didn’t have to tell anyone. But it kept getting worse to where he couldn’t leave his house in N.Y. to go to work for a few weeks in L.A. He was working on “Beauty and the Beast” at the time and the team valued him and his talent so much they packed up the production to move it to New York. He was able to work on it a lot more there.
Beauty & The Beast Movie
Sadly, he didn’t live to see the release of this final film. He went into the hospital in March and he passed away on March 14th, 1991 due to AIDS. Despite him being gone from this life, his legacy lives on today through his amazing music is still being heard all over the world.
Documentary Review
You already know I’m a huge Disney fan, but you may not know I’m a huge musical theater fan too. So, I was so excited to see this documentary and it did not disappoint. I liked the simplicity of the whole show. There were very few video recordings. Most of the time, it was people who knew Howard from his sister to his coworkers to his spouse using an audio recording while the audience sees pictures of Howard himself. To me, this has a very powerful message while being so simple.
Little Shop of Horrors CD
The story itself was nice going through his whole life but focusing more on his career. They packed a lot of information about him into one hour and thirty-four minutes. I loved seeing and hearing about the creative process and how are beloved Disney songs were formed. There was a lot of behind the scenes footage and audio you wouldn’t morally get to hear which I loved.
Overall, I’d give this documentary a ten out of ten. It was very informative while still being entertaining and engaging. Not to mention it helped remember an important man in Disney and theater history. This show really helped me appreciate all the talent and hard work that goes into creating a show or movie, especially when it comes to creating songs. If you love Disney movies or theater, I recommend watching this documentary to help gain a greater understanding of how it all happens and to learn about his incredible man, Howard Ashman.
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