Introduction:

In this book I will discuss the song “be our guest” from the hit Disney movie- “Beauty and the Beast”.

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated musical romantic fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures.
It is based on the 1756 fairy tale of the same name by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont,  while also containing ideas from the 1946 French film also of the same name directed by Jean Cocteau.
The original film from 1991 was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise and produced by Don Hahn, from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton.

Originally, Beauty and the Beast was not intended to be a musical. Then-studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to turn the film into a Broadway-style musical similar to “The Little Mermaid” (1989), Following the Academy Award-winning success of the film. Katzenberg asked The Little Mermaid songwriting duo of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken to write the songs for and score Beauty and the Beast. At first Ashman, who was at the time writing songs with Menken for a recently pitched idea for another Disney film called Aladdin (1992), was reluctant to join the struggling film project, but eventually agreed. (Ashman, who additionally served as the film’s executive producer, died of AIDS-related complications six months before the film’s release, and the film is thus dedicated to his memory).

The Plot:

Beauty and the Beast focuses on the relationship between the Beast, a prince who is magically transformed into a monster and his servants into household objects as punishment for his arrogance and cruelty, and Belle, a young woman whom he imprisons in his castle in exchange for her father’s freedom. To break the curse, the Beast must learn to love Belle and earn her love in return before the last petal from an enchanted rose fall, or else he will remain a monster and his household workers will remain housewares forever.

The film grossed $331 million at the box office worldwide on a $25 million budget and received widespread acclaim for its romantic narrative, animation (particularly the ballroom scene), characters, and musical numbers.
Beauty and the Beast won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, the first animated film to ever win that category.
It also became the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards (ultimately losing to The Silence of the Lambs), where it won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for its title song- “Beauty and the Beast”, and received additional nominations for Best Original Song and Best Sound. In April 1994, it became Disney’s first animated film to be adapted into a Broadway musical, which ran until 2007.

The winner ot the 64 Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original

The song “Be Our Guest”:

“Be Our Guest” was written by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken for the animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991). The song was recorded by American actor Jerry Orbach and English actress Angela Lansbury as Lumière and Mrs. Potts.
“Be Our Guest” is a large-scale Broadway-inspired musical number that takes place during the first half of Beauty and the Beast, performed by the castle’s staff of enchanted objects in an elaborate attempt to welcome Belle.

The song had originally been intended for Belle’s father Maurice. However, “Be Our Guest” had to be entirely re-written as the story evolved in order to return its focus to Belle- According to co-director Gary Trousdale, “The song had already been recorded and the sequence partially animated when we decided that it would be more meaningful if it was directed towards Belle” because “she is one of the two main characters and the story revolves around her coming to the castle.”- the song needs to take us from point A to B- evolve the story. Consequently, the song had to be re-written and the entire scene re-animated.

“Be Our Guest” has garnered universal acclaim from both film and music critics who, in addition to dubbing the song a show-stopper, praised its catchiness and Orbach’s vocal performance while applauding the scene’s unprecedented use of computer-generated imagery.
“Be Our Guest” has since been extolled as one of Disney’s most celebrated and popular songs, establishing itself as one of the studio’s greatest and most iconic.
“Be Our Guest” received nominations for both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Original Song, being performed by Orbach live at the 64th Academy Awards, ultimately losing both to the film’s title song.
“Be Our Guest” has been ranked highly on several “best Disney song” countdown lists, garnering recognition from IGN, M and the American Film Institute

Jerry Orbach performing “Be Our Guest” live at the 1992 Academy Awards

Song Analysis:

Musically, “Be Our Guest” is based on a simple melody that was composed by Menken, who initially had little intention of using it as anything more than just a “dummy.” Upon singing the tune and presenting it to co-writer Ashman, Menken discovered that he was unable to come up with a melody capable of surpassing “that dumb piece of music that I wrote initially because it was just right.” Subsequently, Ashman wrote the song’s lyrics.

“Be Our Guest” is one of the film’s most poignant, large-scale, all-stops-pulled production number- As the film’s heroine, Belle is served a meal in the form of “a Broadway-quality stage show, Commonly regarded as the “show-stopper” of Beauty and the Beast, the sequence both visually and musically.
Similarly to the song “Under the sea” from the “little mermaid” (wich was also written by Menken and Ashman)  the charachters of the workers are Longing to be human- Lumière is under the impression that he is worth nothing unless he serves, singing,”Life is so unnerving/For a servant who’s not serving.” The song is presenting the charachters wishes and target- to brake the curse, and thus also creates empathy from the audience.

The first verse of the song is preceded by a spoken introduction. It reads, at first in French, “Ma chere Mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents: your dinner,” immediately succeeded by the sung lyrics “Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test,” continuing with “Go on, unfold your menu / take a glance and then you’ll / be our guest / oui, our guest / be our guest.” A nostalgic Lumiere muses about being human, pining for the “good old days when we were useful.”- he represents through his and the workers wishes the wish of the Beast (one of the two main characters)  to become humen again and moves the plot forward.

“Be our guest” from the film
“Beauty and the Beast” 1991

“Be Our Guest” is, according to the song’s official sheet music, a Broadway musical-inspired song. Another inspiration for the song is a minor theme from Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony, occurring in both the first and third movements, which the Disney song copied nearly note for note as the main theme. An energetic, turbo-charged Broadway chorus number, “Be Our Guest” was written in common time at a “free” tempo of 50 beats per minute, spanning a length of three minutes and forty-four seconds.

In “Be Our Guest,” Orbach’s low tenor or baritone vocal range spans roughly three octaves, from the low note of F₃ to the high note of D♭₆. The song undergoes drastic changes in the tempo, scale, key to provide intrest and focus and to keep the audiance at their seets (you cant dance to a constantly changing song).

Described as a “scintillating,” “jolly,” “lavish and bouncy” song, “Be Our Guest” is, according to TV Guide, a “boisterous” number, comparing it to songs from the Broadway musicals “Hello Dolly” and “Mame”. Musically, the song, according to Film.com, has a total of four key changes and modulations, beginning slowly and “gradually building to a thunderous, bring-the-house-down climax.”

Angela Lansbury records “Be Our Guest” (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 1991)

Cultural impact:

In terms of character development, “Be Our Guest” introduces both Belle and audiences to Lumière’s “musical expertise.” Additionally, the energetic and flamboyant way in which Lumiere, a suave, French-accented candelabra, is personified and portrayed throughout “Be Our Guest” has often been likened to French entertainer Maurice Chevalier. (American actor and singer Jerry Orbach, who provided the voice of Lumiere, himself admitted to “People” that the character was very much him doing a deliberate impersonation of Chevalier).

In addition, in The Simpsons sixth-season episode “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds” (1995), “Be Our Guest” is parodied by the character Mr. Burns when he performs the song “See My Vest”.
An Oscar-themed rendition of the song was performed by Seth MacFarlane at the 85th Academy Awards.
In 2013, English television personalities Ant & Dec appeared in a Christmas television advertisement for the supermarket Morrisons. In the minute-long commercial, a computer-animated gingerbread man named Ginger serenades Ant & Dec to the tune of “Be Our Guest,” inviting them to enjoy the store’s products.

In 2020, the song was parodied under the name “Wear a Mask”, a song that tells people how to defend themselves from the COVID-19 pandemic and lampoons criticisms from politicians and “mask debaters”, all in the style of the 1991 animated film featuring Lumière and his appliances.

The Simpsons- “See My Vest”, 1995

wear a mask, 2020 (in response to the COVID 19 pandemic)

The Live-action film:

“Be Our Guest” is featured in the 2017 live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. The phrase “Be Our Guest” became the tagline in promotional trailers and posters for the film.

Bill Condon directed and Evan Spiliotopoulos was in charge of the screenplay.

In Bill Condon’s opinion, the original score from the 1991 film was the key reason he agreed to direct a live-action version of the film. “That score had more to reveal”, he says, “You look at the songs and there’s not a clunker in the group”. In fact, Frank Rich described it as the best Broadway musical of 1991.
Condon initially prepared on only drawing inspiration from the original film, but he also planned to include most of the songs composed by Menken, Ashman and Tim Rice from the Broadway musical, with the intention of making the film as a “straight-forward, live-action, large-budget movie musical”. Menken returned to score the film’s music, which features songs from the original film by him and Ashman, plus new material written by him and Rice.

The song is performed primarily by Ewan McGregor, with contributions from Emma Thompson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Ian McKellen. This version is very similar to the animated film, except that Lumiere sings “Too long we’ve been rusting” where he sang “Ten years” in the original, as well as when Lumiere sings “We’ll prepare and serve with flair a culinary cabaret,” there is a musical nod to Kander & Ebb’s 1966 musical Cabaret‘s “signature, campy, percussive sound.”

“Be our guest” from the live action film, 2017.

“Be our guest” from the Brodway musical, 1994.

Martin Short and Shania Twain Perform ‘Be Our Guest’ – Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration

Summary:

To conclude, the song “Be our guest” is one of the best Disney songs of all times, it remaind in the public memory for over 30 years and became a fan favorite.

It has been covered by many and used for different purposes (like commercials), and it steel runs on the biggest theatre stages- Brosway, West End in London, Sydney…

The song has a classic Disney structure as i presented and thus it remains popular and relevant even though many years have past since its release.