Be Our Guest

Song from Disney's Beauty and the Beast

"Be Our Guest" is a song written by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken for Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991). Recorded by American actor Jerry Orbach and English actress Angela Lansbury as Lumière and Mrs. Potts, respectively, "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. Menken initially intended for the melody of "Be Our Guest" to be temporary but was ultimately unable to compose a satisfying one with which to replace it. 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. "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. Disney has further used the song in the Broadway musical adaptation and the 2017 live action remake of Beauty and the Beast. The song's title was used for the Be Our Guest Restaurant at the Magic Kingdom, and as a tagline for promoting the 2017 film. The song has been parodied in an episode of The Simpsons and the film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

Originally, Beauty and the Beast, under the direction of Richard Purdum, 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), Disney's previous animated film, after he, displeased with the film's initial story reel, ordered the film scrapped and restarted from scratch. As a result, Purdum resigned, and first time feature film directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale replaced him. Following the Academy Award winning success of The Little Mermaid, 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. 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. Originally, the filmmakers had initially intended for "Be Our Guest" to be performed by Lumière to Belle's disoriented father Maurice when the character first discovers the Beast's castle. 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." Consequently, the song had to be re written and the entire scene re animated. Trousdale explained, "We had to bring Jerry Orbach and all the other vocal talents back into the studio to change all references to gender that appeared in the original recording." A "food chorus line," As one of the film's most poignant, the scene features "dancing plates and other fanciful dinner guests" as they "perform for Belle, hoping to make her stay a little more comfortable." Commonly regarded as the "show stopper" The Washington Post observed that "'Be Our Guest'" involves "the household gadgets enjoin[ing] Belle to live with them," comparing it heavily to the song "Under the Sea" from Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989), which was also written by Menken and Ashman. Lumière is also of the impression that he is worth nothing unless he serves, singing,"Life is so unnerving/For a servant who's not serving." "Cogsworth nor Mrs. Potts can really hold a candle to Lumière, who makes out with a pretty feather duster and later sings the show stopper 'Be Our Guest' in his entertainingly thick Gallic accent. The number which is staged like a Busby Berkeley production, complete with rows of dancing table settings is the closest thing in Beauty and the Beast to the bubbly 'Under the Sea' extravaganza in The Little Mermaid. "— Jay Boyar, the Orlando Sentinel. 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. The Washington Post commented, "The model for Lumiere seems to have been Maurice Chevalier, and the idea is so choice, and so deftly executed, that it places him immediately among the top rank of Disney characters." 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. Described as both a "musical montage" and the "magical set piece" of Beauty and the Beast, "Be Our Guest" is "a big production number featuring dancing cutlery." deeming its lively "Busby Berkeley style choreography" both "joyous and charming" while commenting, "Without the confines of camera range, there are virtually no limits to how spectacular an animated Berkeley scene can be  most notably  'Be Our Guest'." David Kronke of Amazon. com hailed the song itself as "an inspired Busby Berkeley homage." Similarly, the Dance Films Association wrote, "the 'Be Our Guest' number features practically all of the techniques employed by Berkeley in his musical comedies," while The New York Times called "Be Our Guest" a "Busby Berkeley style number in which Belle is serenaded by furniture and dishes." Film critic Roger Ebert joked that the "Be Our Guest" choreography resembles "Busby Berkeley running amok." Additionally, Jerry Griswold, author of The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast": A Handbook, observed several similarities between "Be Our Guest" and a scene from Maurice Sendak and Carole King's musical Really Rosie. Significantly, Beauty and the Beast was one of Disney's earliest feature length animated films to fully employ computer generated imagery and technology, utilizing it to a significant extent, as depicted throughout its signature musical numbers "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast." Significantly, "Be Our Guest" "marks the debut of the [Pixar Image Computer] system that is featured in the ballroom dance sequence and 'Be Our Guest'." Due to its elaborateness, the sequence has been noted for "tak[ing] full advantage of the advantages of animation."