Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)
The video game series "Kingdom Hearts" features a world based on the film, named "Beast's Castle", along with several of the film's characters. In the first game, the world has been destroyed and Belle kidnapped by the Heartless, led by Maleficent, but the Beast travels to Maleficent's stronghold and works with Sora to defeat Maleficent and rescue Belle and the other captured princesses. In "Kingdom Hearts II", the world has since been restored following Ansem's defeat, but Beast and Belle are having difficulties due to the enigmatic Xaldin of Organization XIII attempting to bring out the Beast's darker side in order to turn him into a Heartless and a Nobody, but the Beast eventually comes to his senses and works with Sora once again to defeat Xaldin once and for all. In the game's ending credits, the Beast turns back into the Prince. In "", the world is featured as a playable level but the story is not essential to the main plot. In "Kingdom Hearts χ", the world is featured again, this time as a hallucination that follows the plot of the movie more closely. The characters featured in the series are Beast, Belle, Lumiere, Gaston, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Chip, Maurice, and the Wardrobe. After Gaston is defeated, the Beast transforms back into the Prince. Gaston does not appear in "Kingdom Hearts II", the world's primary antagonist being Xaldin, an original character created for the series, but who shares several traits with Forte, the main antagonist of "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas".
Jerry Orbach
In the 1980s, Orbach shifted to film and TV work full-time. Prominent roles included a superb performance as tough, effective, but "allegedly corrupt" NYPD narcotics detective Gus Levy in Sidney Lumet's "Prince of the City"; he was the 1981 runner-up for the NSFC Best Supporting Actor award. He also portrayed gangsters in both the action-thriller "F/X" and the Woody Allen drama "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (the latter of which also featured his future "Law & Order" co-star Sam Waterston). In 1985, Orbach became a regular guest star on "Murder, She Wrote" as private detective Harry McGraw, which led to him starring in the short-lived spin-off series "The Law & Harry McGraw". In 1987, he was featured in the hit film "Dirty Dancing" as Dr. Jake Houseman, the father of Jennifer Grey's character "Baby". He made further TV appearances on popular shows such as "The Golden Girls" (for which he received his first Emmy nomination), "Who's the Boss?", and "Frasier" (as a guest caller).
In 1991, Orbach starred in Disney's Academy Award-winning animated musical "Beauty and the Beast", as the voice (both singing and speaking) of the French-accented candelabrum Lumière, which according to Orbach, he played "halfway between Maurice Chevalier and Pepé Le Pew". At the 64th Academy Awards, Orbach performed a live-action stage rendition of the Oscar-nominated song, "Be Our Guest", that he sang in "Beauty and the Beast". He later reprised his voice role of Lumière for the film's direct-to-video sequels, multiple episodes of "Disney's House of Mouse", and the previously-deleted song ("Human Again") that was added to the "Beauty and the Beast" 2002 IMAX re-release. In 1992, Orbach joined the main ensemble cast of "Law & Order" as the world-weary, wisecracking, streetwise NYPD homicide detective Lennie Briscoe. He had previously guest-starred as a defense attorney on the series, and was subsequently cast as the new "senior detective" following Paul Sorvino's departure. Orbach's portrayal of Detective Briscoe was based on his similar role from "Prince of the City" years before, which "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf had personally suggested to him at the time of his casting.