Sebastian

Name of show that this character is from: The Little Mermaid
Title of Episode:

Original Air date: December 11, 1993 (NETWORK: CBS)
Where can I find this episode now?: Toon Disney

EPISODE TYPE: Magic & Godzilla Situation
(see Common Themes section for more on this category)

WHAT IS SEBASTIAN?: A non anthro, furry, red crab

IS HE MACRO ORIGINALLY?: No

HOW DID HE BECOME MACRO?: Ariel uses a magic wand enduced spell on him

WHAT DOES HE BECOME AFTER HE GREW?: Larger version of himself.

IS GROWTH SHOWN?: Yes

HOW MUCH OF GROWTH IS SHOWN?: Most all of his stages of growth seen

MACRO NAME: Humongous Sebastian

QUOTE:    "Now the king will have to look up to me! And up! And up! And up!!! "

SEX:    Male

LOCATIONS: Under sea market, various locations in Atlatntica

MACRO SIZE (Approx or Average ): Over or about 1200 feet

NATURE: Good Natured

DESTRUCTION LEVEL DONE: Medium - Various stands and objects in the market place

SYNOPSIS OF EPISODE: Ariel, Flounder, and Urchin are all racing to the market place to get in on the sales. While Sebastian stops at a small puppet stage to put on a show for some kids who showed up to see a performance. In the show he is playing the roles of King Neptune and a sea monster fighting each other. He is having trouble standing on the clams he is using to raise his short body height enough to perform causing the puppets to shrink down under the stage. He uses that moment to put on a new puppet that of a crab that he claims to be himself and the Sebastian puppet easily defeats the sea monster while the king puppet is so grateful he makes him the knight of the seven seas. The kids watching the show cheer loudly as Sebastian ends the show. Sebastian grabs onto Ariel's fin as she swims by and finds out that they are all going to the market place. Sebastian is a little nervous about it due to all the taller merpeople that will be there bashing him around. But goes with them anyway.

Sebastian has a hard time keeping out the way of folks as everyone kicks him around until he lands in a cart that the other three were at. Urchin tries to cheer up their small friend by telling them that they are going to try out a new game they just bought named "Canons and Currents". The salesman eel isn't quite ready to let them all walk away . He tells them that he is having a sale and will give them information on a cave that holds magical power. It's bearer will be able to grant anything they want with such a power. And that it would be an adventure to get to the cave. They all decline claiming that he got them all in trouble the last time they bought something from him and quickly head off.

They head back to Urchin's cave and start to play the game he bought. The problem is there is only two tokens play pieces that came with it. Urchin realizes that he can just use Sebastian as the extra game token much to Sebastian disgust at the situation. He finally loses his temper. He is tired of being small and of being stepped on and missing out on the adventures due to not keeping up and holding onto the tails of others. He tells everyone to leave him alone as they all head off.

Later that night Urchin and Flounder show up at the window of sleeping Ariel . They wake her up showing that they now have the map to the cave as they traded the board game they bought earlier for it. They decided that they will get the magic power and use it on Sebastian to make him bigger as that's what he really wanted. They all swim off and arrive at the "Cave of Magic" on the map and it awakens as they approach. He tells them that only one of them can enter to get the power. Urchin at first decide he will do it but chickens out. Ariel goes in instead and as she reaches the middle of the cave a strange glow is seen. She exits the cave with a wand and cape on her as they realize she now is a sea witch with great powers.

They head to Sebastian's room and the crab is busy dreaming about being a great big crab. Ariel uses the wand on Sebastian telling it to make him big. The crab floats in the air as magic seems to be happening but nothing of notice seems to occur as Ariel and her friends wonder if it even worked. Ariel heads back to her room to return to sleep. Flounder wakes first in the morning and swims in the open ocean only to see Sebastian but not the same sized Sebastian. He is now as big as Flounder. Flounder quickly calls for Ariel. Sebastian seems quite happy as he thanks the three of them for this. As they are talking Sebastian grows yet again now as big as Ariel and happy that he can dance with her if he wanted. He then grows again now claiming that he can look eye to eye with the king at his current size. And grows yet again looming up higher and higher laughing loudly at how wonderful a feeling it is as his friends look on nervously.

The now gigantic Sebastian starts to help others out using his size to make things easier on everyone. He harvests a whole sea weed field just using one of his claws to swipe over it. An octopus comes running in scared as a shark is about to eat him. Giant Sebastian pokes on the sharks back with a massive claw and lifts him up and tosses him away easily. The crowd below him cheers happily. Ariel, Urchin and Flounder watch as the giant crab has fun with the folks acting as an amusement park ride while he swings them around. They seem sad that they can't hang around with such a huge Sebastian now but are glad he's at least happy.

Back at Ariel's place Sebastian shows up poking an eye through her window asking for some spare seaweed claiming to have eaten it all. The huge stomach growls shake the whole place about. They decide that maybe it's time to shrink him back down and Ariel goes for her wand. When she tries to shrink him down to a smaller size the wand seems to fizzle out and not work. Sebastian walks off and is now bigger then ever. He crushes a board game below with one of his feet and looms over all the buildings in the market area. He is crushing all the stands under him unable to see or hear what is going on. He asks if someone said something but no one answers so he supposes he is alone not realizing he chased everyone off. Flounder tries to get his attention but Sebastian can't see him and almost crushes him. He is finally alerted to this by someone swimming up high as he comes to a stop feeling apologetic to his friend.

They all head back to the cave to try and fix this mess. The cave tells them that they had enough magic for dozens of spells and realizes that they may have blown it all on making Sebastian that big. He tells them he can't help them as his magic is only of use during the full moon and to wait till then. She has no idea what a moon is but the cave is already sleeping again.

Sebastian decides that he has to run away as he can't stay there at that size. His friends won't let him go though. They will stick by him no matter how big he gets. Just then Sebastian has another growth spurt and out grows the very ocean rising up above it looming over a ship that was anchored above. The sailors decide that they will defeat the giant crab and use it's shell for a house. Ariel rises up along with the others and sees the full moon. She tries to make Sebastian his "old self" again but winds up just making him very old looking. She then wishes no humans were around and the sailors all turn into fish. She gets frustrated and just wishes none of this had ever happened in the first place. They flashback to when they were arriving at the cave the first time and decide not to do it this time. They all head over to Sebastian and wake him to tell them how much they like him using a lot of words with big in it. He realizes that it's not so bad as he has good friends and they all hug him as he tells them not to hug so hard or he will become crab cakes.

REVIEW OF EPISODE: As was mentioned before, Disney always had a token growth episode in all of their cartoon series way back when. That trend no longer holds true unfortunately but in the early 1990's it was alive and well. Out of all the growth episodes Disney has done, this ranks lower rather then higher over all in my list of favorites. It's not even that Sebastian makes for a bad choice, but more like the situation and story just seemed quickly slapped together and was anything but thrilling and a good viewing experience. The story was weak and the situations corny at points. I've never been a big fan of this but it does have one major thing going for it that you won't see in many episodes. That being that this is a true giant aquatic creature episode. Not one of those alligator or fish blink moments. Those true aquatic moments are hard to come by and far and few in between. And it was pretty much for the whole episode. I just wish it was a more enjoyable situation then what it was. That really makes the rating lower in my opinion but that doesn't mean others will feel as I do on it.

The whole situation of how easy it was to become a sea witch is something that truly bothered me and was a bad error that really insults the intelligence of the viewers at home. You can almost imagine the writers having to figure out a way to have a easy to come by reason that Sebastian would grow in size. So they buy a map to a cave (technically trade in a purchased board game for it) and all one has to do is enter it and that's that. Wow that was easy. Makes you wonder why the salesman wouldn't use it himself? And why he was offering it for so cheap? How come it was out there and so easy to get to? They were able to get there and back all in one night time and it seemed right out in the open. There was no obstacles or guards and the cave had no problem giving it freely. It all just seemed rushed and not very story friendly. We could have done without some of helpful Sebastian's antics to get more story out of the whole adventure to get there.

Bad story elements aside, was Sebastian as a giant a worthwhile situation? Well sorta-kinda. They used the common theme of good guy at first liking the idea and being big only for it to be too much to handle and being a menace later on. So we see him helping to rake in whole fields of sea weed and him fighting off a now tiny shark in comparison to him but then we have him rampaging through the market place destroying all in his path unknowingly to the giant that he is causing trouble for everyone below. So the story just never seemed to know what it wanted here. While it was fun to see a very huge Sebastian crush all in his path, the situation was totally unbelievable and strange. He suddenly has no idea where he is and that he is destroying all in his path. He seems oblivious to everything suddenly when it seemed illogical for him to act this way when he knows how big he is and where he was. I also found it strange when they throw in an old King Kong reference of peeking into some window to see a female faint as Sebastian just shrugs commenting on how hungry he is. So he can see people fine through windows but not screaming and running below him as he crushes all? Just wasn't buying it as they wanted us to in the situation.

The ending which should have been great to any macro fan really was just as strange in execution. He suddenly has a huge growth moment that causes him to out grow the very ocean rising up above the surface of it. But then instead of the same Sebastian we had previously now he is just a silent statue standing there and reacting to the humans on the ship near by who want to kill him. Also the fact that he just had grown so big that his head pushes through the very surface (A raise the surface moment?) was cool notion but he wasn't nearly big enough for that to have happened. They are supposed to be on the bottom of the ocean with all their towns and buildings and areas. He should have been thousands of feet tall if his standing there with his head pushing out of the surface was to be accurate. As it was he was only about 1000 feet or so in size and the humans had no problem interacting or attacking him, even if their attacks were futile at best. But again the worst was Sebastian just standing there and looking like a statue not speaking a word while everyone else reacts to what is going on. Even when he is changed to his older aged self by Ariel's magic you would think he would have said something to comment on the situation he is but he just stood there like he was no longer a furry. I don't know it was just a bad wrap up to a poorly done situation all around. I was and have always been disappointed in this episode as it really has the potential to be great but really isn't that great if you are watching it from a story and macro based perspective. Sure fans of just pure growth of aquatic creatures may get what they want out of it but I try to look more into things then just is there something big in it.

You got to take it for what it is here folks. Its the only macro episode of this series that had growing situations and due to its target audience was probably dumbed down to be very kid friendly with how helpful giant Sebastian was shown to be. But other Disney macro episodes show that you can have a PG situation and still keep it entertaining and fun. This episode even lacked a lot of humor filled moments that naturally should be formed from this. It wasn't sure if it wanted to be a Paul Bunion episode or a Godzilla homage or something else. Just a lot of random things thrown together and with the absence of the King as well it just seems like they had to come up with something quick for a last episode of a season so slapped this gem together. Just check your high expectations at the door when you watch this. It sounds great on paper (or monitor as the case may be) but it won't be something you will run to watch often when compared to some of the great treasures already out there.

RATING: C-

MEMORABLE QUOTES AND MOMENTS IN EPISODE:

****************

Ariel: "Ok here goes. I guess I should say something like.. uh.. magic.. make Sebastian big!"
(Ariel taps the wand at Sebastian. Sebastian floats in the air and popping sounds are heard only for him to return to his pillow still small)
Flounder: "Does he seem bigger to you?"
Urchin: "His snoring seems bigger."
Ariel: "Nothing happened!"
Flounder: "Murry did it to us again!"
Urchin: "That cave was just a bunch of frog wash."

*****************

(Sebastian rises up in size bigger then Urchin and to the size of Ariel)
Sebastian: "Look! Now I'm as big as you. Now we can go out dancing together!"
(The bigger Sebastian starts to dance happily with Ariel)
Sebastian: "Mon, I really can't wait to go to the palace. Now I can really see eye-to-eye with the king!"
Ariel: "Unfortunately daddy is away so it will have to wait."
(Sebastian snaps his claws in disappointment only to grow again)
Sebastian: "Too late. Now the king will have to look up to me!"
(He grows again)
Sebastian: "And up.." (grows again) "And up..." (grows again) "And up..."

*****************

(Sebastian picks up a shark that was chasing an octopus and holds the shark to his massive face)
Sebastian: "This ocean is not big enough for the both of us mon. It's barely big enough for me. "
(he laughs and sends the shark flying through the very top surface of the ocean past a ship above)

******************

(Flounder yells up at a towering Sebastian who has stopped for a moment)
Flounder: "Hi Sebastian. How's the water up there!!?"

******************
(Sebastian is upset he almost stepped on Flounder and tells a whale and octopus near him)
Sebastian: "I guess I'm just too big to hang around with you little guys!"
(Sebastian stomps off)
Octopus: "When a whale is a little guy, then you have a big problem!"
(The whale nods in agreement)

FINAL NOTES:

*This episode was the last one of the second season. There were three seasons in total all shown on CBS's saturday morning cartoon block. Each season would have less and less episodes and would eventually all be re run on the Disney Channel and Toon Disney. This was the only true macro growth based episode of the series. There were other giant creatures that did show up and a transformation episode. But as far as basic growth moments go, this episode was the only time it occurred in this series.

* The sea monster seen in the puppet show Sebastian is doing at the beginning of the episode is a puppet of the same creature that was seen in an earlier episode.

*The magic cave they come to seems to be a spoof or homage of the "Cave of Wonders" from the Aladdin movie. Has a similar look and feel to it except not as deep a voice and looked more human then bestial. This cave in this episode was called the "Cave of Magic".

*One of the few episodes that the king of Atlantis did not have any appearance in. They even mention that he was away at the time of this episode and don't make any other mention of his where abouts.

Errors--

Factual -- If all anyone has to do is enter the cave to get this power, you would think others would have done it many times over. It seemed like they all got there very quickly and easily and the powers really had no catch to being given let alone the fact that only one could enter. Just didn't seem very logical at all that it would be this easy and quick to get magical powers that can do anything like in the situation showed here.

Factual -- Urchin claims to have traded the game for the map to the cave. But before hand the salesman told them it would cost $59.95. It sounds very illogical that a board game would have been exchanged for that much money especially from a shifty salesman who sold them a defective board game in the first place.

Continuity -- While he was very big, the whole notion that Sebastian had no idea that he was crushing market area stands and couldn't hear anyone seems a bit far fetched. He was only about 100 feet in size and was able to see other creatures fine after his rampage had ended.

Continuity -- At first when they return to the cave in the episode, the cave claims that he gave Ariel enough magic for dozens of spells before realizing that they used it all on a huge Sebastian. Then he claims that his magic only works during the full moon. So which is it? Does the wand have stored energy no matter when it's used or can it be used any time during the light of a full moon?

Continuity -- When the wand was first used on Sebastian there was a delayed reaction and nothing happened until morning. When she uses it to make Sebastian old its effects are instantaneous.

Continuity -- Size fluctuation moments throughout. Especially towards the end. When interacting with his friends his size didn't seem so extreme. He really should have been much bigger then he was shown to be if he truly did out grow the ocean big enough to rise through the surface.

+ One of the few episodes surrounding a aquatic giant creature of mass proportions. Various growth moments through out. Pretty good animation. Sebastian was macro and growing throughout most of the episode.

- :Poor story and execution make this hard to watch at times. Lame moments fill a huge portion of the giant Sebastian moments. Could have been done so much better. Script seemed quickly thrown together using ideas that had been many times before in other Disney series.

PICTURES OF SEBASTIAN

My how things have changed fast around here

Good thing she has a high ledge to stand on

Outta the way.. huge crap stomping through

Sebastian learns the fun of crushing buildings

Where did he get a pole and sack that big?

Careful where you are reaching with those

This ocean just isn't big enough to hold him

AVI:

3 Minutes 14 Seconds
Tired of being small, Ariel finds a magic source and uses it to make Sebastian big. Too bad she never said how big he should get. Now the once small crab is growing up and up and up with no end in sight.