‘Little Mermaid Live’ Audience Is Apparently Too Loud, At-Home Viewers Say

The highly-anticipated The Little Mermaid Live! has hit the airwaves. In honor of the 1989 Disney classic, the performance is a mix of live acting and singing and clips from the original film. Being a live show, fans at home were caught off guard and somewhat distracted by the audience volume. Throughout the special, the fans could be heard clapping and cheering, which wound up being a disruption during the musical numbers.

One user on Twitter said, “Not even 10 minutes into the live action Little Mermaid and I am already so annoyed by the screaming audience I’m about to turn it off.”

The noise was apparent during the opening number by Graham Phillips, who plays Eric, and during Auli’i Cravalho’s first performance of the hit song, “Part of Your World.”

“Really enjoying this Little Mermaid but wish the audience would shut up so we could hear the music,” another user tweeted on the issue.

Many others noted that there needed to be some ‘theater etiquette’ involved with the live audience. The overall feel from social media was that the show was treated more like a live sports game rather than a Broadway show.

“I’m gonna watch this Little Mermaid Live thing, but if I have to listen to the audience make an unreasonable amount of noise through every musical number I’m gonna lose it,” another tweet read.

The Little Mermaid Live hit some nostalgia as Jodie Benson, who was the voice of Ariel in the classic, opened the show and gave the instructions on how the night would play out.

Speaking with USA Today, Cravalho shared her excitement about taking on Benson’s character that became a part of pop culture.

“I got to try on the wig for the first time, and it was crazy to see myself in the mirror with red hair,” she said. “Then they put a red kind of dye in my eyebrows. And it made me look like, obviously, a completely different person, but it definitely put me in the headspace of Ariel, and I cannot wait to put on that iconic wig again.”