The story for the film began development by merging two projects in development at Disney and Pixar at the time, both based around "The Frog Prince" fairy tale.[1][2] One of the projects was based on E. D. Baker's The Frog Princess, in which the story's heroine (Princess Emma) kisses a prince turned frog (Prince Eadric), only to become a frog herself.[18] The Princess and the Frog returns to the musical film format used in many of the previously successful Disney animated films, with a style Musker and Clements declared, like with Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, had inspiration from Golden Age Disney features such as Cinderella.[3]