The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney's Animated Characters: From Mickey মাউস to Hercules by
John Grant

With the exeption of Ariel - and possibly not even with that exception - the তারকা of the whole প্রদর্শনী is Sebastian, অথবা (to be fittingly pedantic) Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian, the little কাঁকড়া who is Triton's Court Composer and then Ariel's reluctantly conscripted Jiminy Cricket. The অ্যানিমেশন of Sebastian is a delight, and that surrounding him during the performace of his two brilliant songs - the calypso/reggae "Under the Sea" and the smoothly crooned "Kiss the Girl" - is devastatingly good, but the foundation of the character and the reason for its overwhelming succes in the film is undoubtedly the outstanding vocal performance turned in দ্বারা the actor Samuel E. Wright. Originally it had been planned that Sebastian be English, but the movie's songwriters, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, were looking for something a bit আরো upbeat, and foot-tapping from the সঙ্গীত and so it was decided to give Sebastian's two numbers West Indian rhythms; from there to the adoption of a West Indian Sebastian was of course a very short step.
Both ourselves and the moviemakers were lucky to find Wright. Ashman and Menken scoured Hollywood for actors who might fit the part, but rather surprisingly found not a single one who would do. They therefore shifted the খুঁজুন to a somewhat unpromising venue in New York, near to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. To an outsider the whole exercise must have seemed a bit half-hearted, and it was in a mood of "why not?" that Wright bothered to go along. It was in a similiar mood that, once there, he decided not just to demonstrate his vocal abilities but also to put on a complete physical performace, as if he were auditioning for a new stage musical rather than for a voice part in an animated movie. His act electrified Ashman and Menken - and soon afterwards had the same effect on the movie's codirector, Ron Clements, who later made a videotape of a repeat performace in order to inspire the animators.
But what can one say about that voice? David Denby, in New York Magazine, described it as "a haughty Jamaican accent whose formal contours and suave modulations caress the words", which is apt enough, although Wright himself says that he derived it not from Jamaicans but from a couple of Trinidadian college-friends. Whatever its origins, the voice bubbles and bumbles much like Sebastian himself - except when it breaks into song, a medium in which the character is totally confident in his own abilities.
The development of Sebastian through the movie is, in an odd sort of way, a parallel to the process of maturation through which we might expect Eric to go. In Eric's case, of course, this would be the traditional story of the progression from adolescence into adulthood via the implicit rite-of-passage of the shouldering of responsibility. With Sebastian that age-realted development doesn't occur - he's already of a respectable vintage when we first encounter him - but something rather like it does. In the early parts of the movie Sebastian seems less like a three-dimensional personality than like someone hiding behind a shield he has constructed out of his own pretensions. This is made clear in the pomposity with which he makes his fanfared entrance to the great cavern where his composition "Daughters of Triton" is to be performed; his bladder of dignity is rapidly punctured, of course, and we breifly see him for the fallible - but infinitely আরো likeable - creature he really is. Similarly, in the early stages he deems it fitting that he should opt for respectability through siding with the voice of convention, which is of course Triton's voice: Sebastian's sycophantic contributions to the browbeating the merking delivers to Ariel are quite repellent. Then, once he has been saddled with the responsibility of অভিনয় as Ariel's conscience and things have almost immediately gone wrong, Sebastian goes through a transitional phase, revealing himself as something of a craven: his chief concern is not to put matters right but to paper them over just enough that Triton won't find out. Later still, once the action has really got under way, Sebastian comes to the final stage in the growth of his personality: for all his huffing and puffing protest, he is firmly in Ariel's camp and supports her staunchly in all her efforts as she fights not just for her life but for her soul.
This serious undercurrent to Sebastian's role in the movie might seem at odds with the brilliance of his creation as a comic character, but in fact it is a major contribution to it. We not only laugh at Sebastian, we প্রণয় him while we're doing so - which makes us laugh that much hader and আরো genuinely. Were he to be just a cute comic cut - a cardboard figure of fun we could never be brought to these wonderful moments of pure, innocent, joyous hilarity which his portrayal inspires.