10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About "Beauty And The Beast"

The name of Gaston's sidekick, Lefou, is pronounced just like the French words meaning the idiot, the fool, or the insane.

1. The sculptures seen in the castle are based on earlier versions of the Beast.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

2. Donny Osmond and Patrick Swayze were both considered for the role of Gaston.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

Osmond would later play Gaston in the stage version of Beauty and The Beast on Broadway.

3. Belle's blue-and-white dress and hairstyle were inspired by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

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4. The famous line "Flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep... " was ad-libbed.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

The actor who voiced Cogsworth, David Ogden Stiers, ad-libbed the famous "Flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep... " line.

5. Every line from the title song has exactly five syllables.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

Songs also take up twenty-five minutes of the film and only five minutes were without any musical score at all.

6. Jackie Chan performed the voice acting and singing for the Beast in the Chinese (Mandarin) dub of the film.

Via hourloop.com

He's an Operatically-trained vocalist. Not something you'd expect from the martial arts extraordinaire.

7. Mickey makes an appearance in the film multiple times.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

You can see one when Beast gives Belle his library of books as a gift. At the very top of the bookshelf in the center is one Hidden Mickey. Also, after Gaston and the men chop down the tree, there are three droplets of water that form an upside-down classic Mickey head.

8. Actor Rupert Everett auditioned for the role of Gaston.

DreamWorks Animation

He didn't get the part because the directors thought he didn't sound arrogant enough. He recalled this when he voiced Prince Charming in Shrek 2.

9. The first stained-glass window seen in the prologue has a message written on it in Latin.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

The Latin phrase says "vincit qui se vincit", which means, in a subtle prefiguring of the arc of the whole story, "He conquers, who conquers himself."

10. Beauty and the Beast was the only animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

(Beauty and the Beast via Walt Disney Pictures)

It held the record until Disney-Pixar's Up was nominated in 2010.

Source: IMDB