Disney's Sing Me A Story with Belle is an American live-action series created by Patrick Davidson and Melissa Gould. The series features Belle from the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast, who now owns and manages the bookshop in the village. She is usually greeted by children who would like to hear a story. Belle interacts with the children and narrates classic vintage Disney stories while doing activities around the bookstore. The series premiered on September 8, 1995, on Disney Channel.
Development
According to Ken Weiner, vice president at Buena Vista Television, using classic vintage Disney animated shorts allows the show to present a higher quality of animation than would normally be feasible in an educational show that would meet the Federal Communications Commission's E/I standards. By early 1995, it was said that the show would present two short films per episode, which Belle and the children would sometimes interrupt for discussion purposes or to "test cognitive abilities".
Plot
Belle lives in France and owns her own music and bookshop. Helping her at the bookstore are Lewis and Carroll, two magical bookworms, Harmony the Cat and Big Book, a large talking book on a book stand. The bookstore is visited by local children to whom Belle will sing songs and tell stories, usually with a moral relating to something that's happened that day. Clips from vintage Disney cartoons would often be used to illustrate the stories, including:
This show premiered in First-run syndication in select markets as a sneak preview on September 8, 1995. In 1996, two videos featuring two episodes each were released as part of the Disney Princess Collection: Chapters of Enchantment and Beauty and the World of Music. In 1999, two episodes from the first season were released with an episode of an abandoned Beauty and the Beastcartoon series featured in the 1998 video Belle's Magical World, and were released direct-to-video as Belle's Tales of Friendship. Two episodes were also featured separately as an extra in both the 2011 and 2016 re-releases of , and the 2011 re-release of Belle's Magical World. In the United Kingdom, the series aired on both Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney until August 2005. The series then came back in September 2007 as regular programming until it was axed in November.
