In what can only be described as the result of some kind of twisted deal with a cruel sea witch of some sort, ABC has announced that it has been forced to postpone its live Little Mermaid musical. That comes from Variety, and though the report doesn’t specifically say that this delay is because everyone involved in the production accidentally traded their voice for a pair of legs (which are required for jumping, dancing), that seems to be the implication.
Technically, ABC is pinning the delay on the network’s desire to give The Little Mermaid “all the attention it deserves,” which is also sort of the nice way of saying that the project seemed too complicated. The show has now been bumped into next year, but ABC’s comments suggest that it doesn’t have a concrete air date of any sort yet. When ABC originally announced the live musical, it mentioned a plan to “intertwine” the live songs with footage from the animated Disney movie, so perhaps that concept proved a little more difficult to manage than the network thought—assuming a sea witch wasn’t involved.