It's weird how you perceive things when you're little. When I was young, I thought Bella was AN ADULT (because I was a toddler), but obviously looking back it's so strange to realize that she's just a kid hahahaha
saaame except the fashion I realised it was pretty out there and reminded me of the 2000s Queens Nose reboots with Harmony and Melody her older sister who was a pop star and The Misti Show before they removed the interview and gaming segments. She gave sitcom big sister vibes
Oh my gosh. Thank you for making this Sarah. The only thing I remember from the ballet VHS is that during the fruit and veggies segment, all of the young girls got to choose which vegetable costume they wanted to wear, EXCEPT for the girl with brown skin - Bella just assigned her a fruit. As a young brown girl, that made me so mad lol. I think she was also excluded from some dance segments. *sigh* early 2000s media.
Yes! When they demonstrate the ballet positions, the two other girls go demonstrate with Bella but that girl did it by herself by the couch. I felt weird speculating about little girls from 20 years ago, but the vibe I was getting was that she was shy/ nervous/ not as experienced. When they cut to her doing the positions you can tell she’s having trouble matching her feet to the mat. I don’t think that (quite low budget) production had the resources to find and cast amazing child performers, so they were maybe like “this one girl we cast is struggling but we can write around it” I’m hoping that’s the reason she was less present, but it still felt like they were excluding the only black girl. And the casting in the subsequent installments wasn’t very diverse so that makes me raise an eyebrow too.
I USED TO WATCH THESE EVERY YEAR ON A FAMILY ROAD TRIP AND A COUPLE YEARS AGO I REALIZED THIS AND WAS LIKE WAIT WHY IS THE DARKER SKINNED GIRL BEING SHOWN LESS THIS ACTUALLY BAFFLED AND UPSET ME I'M SO GLAD I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO REALIZED
Fun fact: The song “I’m in the Middle of a Muddle” from the Cinderella dvd was actually a deleted song from the original 1950 Disney film that was replaced by both “Sing, Sweet Nightingale” and the song the mice sing while Cinderella is doing chores before the ball. There is a volume from Disney’s Lost Chords albums series that has the original demo, as well as a modernized cover of that song, as well as a couple other songs that were originally planned to be in Cinderella, but were cut for various reasons or written for earlier drafts and versions of the film.
i definitely had that ballet bar thing as a kid but i don't remember the videos at ALL, i certainly don't remember her being a little 13 year old with braces
Oh I have a DOOZY of a story for you. I'm from Melbourne, and in watching this video I remembered that Mary scouted me and one of my friends at dancing to be a part of advertising Bella Dancerella (formerly Ballerina)!! That picture of the family I'm fairly certain is in her house WHICH I'VE BEEN IN. We still have the screen test on tape somewhere at home. My friend was the one who made it to advertising, but I was involved in promoting it at a toy fair that year! Bringing back a lot of memories for me. 1:56 that's my friend sitting down on the right!!!! She's also in the first video! THIS IS CRAZY!!!!! Also your Aussie accent wasn't too bad, actually!
48:55 12 dancing princess did use motion capture for the dancing, same with all the barbie dancing movies. It was also the first movie not based on a per existing ballet, so it was choreographed by the NYC ballet company with their dancer. I’ve seen the behind the scenes dvd extra too many times.
omg…… this awakened a core memory deep in the recesses of my brain. i’ve been doing ballet since i was 3 and my mom bought the swan lake vhs tape at a consignment sale to try and get me to enjoy it more as a toddler 😅 also i’m glad that other people in the comments remembered bella as being an adult and not a teenager lol
the way i SCREAMED when i saw the thumbnail! I had absolutely and completly forgotten about it, aside from remembering the bar and the mat (it had a very particular smell of plastic, kinda nice, and i've never really forgotten hahaha) - i'm in the process of watching the video and the further you go the more i remember, I must have watched the dvd as a kid at least a million times. The 80-2000s crossover outfits, the girls braces (Which i clearly couldn't tell as a kid lmao), the mat getting flipped - you're bringing me on an insane nostalgia trip here!!!! Thank you so much for making this video
Same! I remember it from the ads and in the UK it was Bella Ballerina so I also don't think we had the other versions. Means it took me ages to find that version existed and I wasn't losing my mind 😂
I honestly thought Bella Dancerella was like a fever dream - I was obsessed and had the ballet barre set (I did ballet when I was very young, had many surgeries and had to quit at the age of 6 so this was how I got my ballet love out for a few years and I vividly remember trying to do everything the video said, without pausing which was basically impossible to have a snack in the time in the video for a 7 year old me (I guess as a kid the fruit and veggies dance was snack time because it was food related?). I had a friend who had the Bella Dancerella hip hop set. I also mentioned that I was watching this to my mother and she mentioned that I had the High School Musical one? I have zero memory of it though.
"I'm In a Middle of a Muddle" is actually a deleted song from the 1950 movie! The BD video was a tie-in to the Cinderella Platinum Edition DVD that cane out that fall, and on the second disc, it features the storyboards and a song demo for it. Also, yes, Mattel DID use MoCap for the 12 Dancing Princesses. I vividly remember seeing a behind-the-scenes video on the Barbie website, and that's how I learned about the technique.
The moment I heard it I thought wow this sounds like it came straight out of the 1950s! Makes sense now! Wish they kept it, my no1 gripe with Cinderella is too much mice, not enough ella.
I'm south african and had zero interaction with this franchise but the 2000s ballet content for little girls was still so nostalgic! I was born in 2008 but because I don't live in a first world country I actually grew up on a lot of the older kids content from America which I always find super interesting.
when i was really little i used to climb up and sit on top of the bella dancerella barre. one day i was sitting on it and it fell backwards and i knocked the wind out of myself for the first time. i ran to my mom freaking out because i couldnt breathe and my parents didnt know what was going on so they freaked out and called an ambulance. so all these firetrucks and ambulances arrive at my house but by the time they get there i can breathe again. then everyone saw the knocked over pink and purple barre and knew everything.
This whole time I didn't know the Barbie ones were not Bella. I had the 12 dancing princesses one because I was Barbie obsessed. I also have memories of the ballet double feature DVD, it got passed around my dance class. I was in awe of the idea of a boarding school let alone one that was ballet based. My poor dance instructor had to let our class down gently, we all had this idea we could apply and get in despite being fairly new at ballet and living in the Midwest USA.
I was obsessed with the bella ballerina VHS set as a kid omg it made me want to join real ballet so bad. I "learned ballet" exclusively through that video and imitating Barbie ballet movie adaptations enough to where I confidently and probably poorly freestyled a routine for a cruise talent show when I was 6. bella ballerina raised me to be the diva I am today thank you bella ballerina o7
I had the Disney princess dvd! It’s been ingrained in my memory and I actually rewatched it recently for fun. I can’t believe someone else remembers these!
You forgot to mention the Bella Ballerina shoes that Skechers made! I don’t remember Bella Dancerella, but I do remember seeing the Bella Ballerina shoes in the commercials, and how they had a disc at the bottom of them that allowed you to spin easily
I thank you very much for this video. It's about time someone covered this. I learned a lot! We used the Swan Lake DVD for ballet when my younger sister was into ballet, but the DVD was second-hand, and we didn't have the bar. I don't know where it is now. Our Mum put so much pressure on us to suck in our guts when that song came on, she took it pretty seriously.
watching this as a former dancer is so funny. I remember my sister had the first bella dancerella but you just conjured for me so many lost memories of mattel's 12 dancing princesses one, and I think my cousin had the cheerleading one.I had no idea there were so many. I don't think I ever saw the video for the first one but honestly I feel like the memories of those other two videos were unknowingly occupying so much of my brain. I just cleared years of memory storage space
Wow, I remember watching How To Be A Ballet Dancer as a kid! The segment that sticks out in my memory is that section where all the kids are sat in a circle and the teacher instructs them on pointing toes
I swear a got flashback when I saw that Pop Star dance mat in your thumbnail. I spent hours with Bella. Me and my friend would dance at his house the whole day when I visited him (ToT)
I used to own how to be a ballet dancer! I remember my mum getting it from a charity shop for me and being absolutely obsessed with it! I had completely forgotten the name of it until now so thank you for reminding me! (I've also noticed Tap and Ballet seem to be paired together quite often for some reason. The ballet studio I went to as a kid was also a tap studio so you could do one dance class after the other which was quite interesting.) Edit: Adding onto my comment, I actually think it might not have been from a charity shop because I remember getting it with another DVD called "Dance Like The FLOWER FAIRIES" which I was even more obsessed with and used to watch so much it's practically ingrained in my memory.
sarah. i love you. there’s a ad playing i haven’t even watched the video. I CANT BELIEVE OTHER PPL KNOW ABOUT BELLAAAA i’m actually freaking out rn i still have my dvd and mat and everything from this omggggg
I didn't even realize the Dora dance dvd was a part of the Bella Dancerella franchise and I remember getting that set as a kid, brand new with the outfit and all. I also remember getting the Disney princess set which ended up including both the Disney princess AND the Cinderella Bella Mat? I don't know if they all came like that, but I didn't realize until later that the Cinderella Bella movie was longer then the cut up version that they put in the bonus features of the Disney princess one. I also remember the Swan Lake and the original Bella Dancerella. The way that I've never been more shocked learning Bella was 13 when they started making these, but I do also remember always thinking that it was weird how they used a completely different girl then the first one they started with. I guess they didn't, she just grew up and stopped speaking Australian.
You are doing Gods work girllll yess 😭🫶🏻 Angelina ballerina, Kipper, Charlie and Lola and now Bella Dancerella my nostalgia can’t take it 😫 i thought i was one of few who still had these properties ingrained into their lil girlhood but i’ve finally found my people 🥺😭 thank youuuuu 🩷
Hi, dance teacher here! Your video was in my recommended, and I totally watched the whole thing. I think the only "Bella" that I vaguely remember, were the very early ones. But regarding the tap edition Bella, a lot of the basic steps, at least the ones you showed in the clips, are actually dance steps that I do teach my preschoolers at least, in their tap classes. It's the same for most any type of dance, but those tap steps, although super basic, are really steps that build on to others. So, the tap dvd wasn't going to help you be a world famous tap dancer, but it could have definitely helped someone learn very very basic things. Thanks for the vid :)
I took a tap and ballet hybrid class when I was 7 and all I remember is being told “wrong foot” 😆 my sister got the ballet bella dancerella for Christmas one year and I don’t remember her using it after New Years
I literally had no memory of this until your video! I had to call myself sister to see if she remembered having the floor mat just to make sure I wasn’t making up a memory lol! I love how your channel always brings back memories I’ve forgotten about
The Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses film used motion capture for the dances! Its depiction of ballet was innovative at the time. The extra features on the DVD includes a lot of behind-the-scenes information about how they got the dancing in that movie to look so good.
I had the original ballet dvd as well as the Barbie as the Island Princess knock off version, and loved both lol. A couple years ago I went down the Bella Dancerella rabbit hole and rewatched the videos to find that, to my surprise, Bella was not the adult I thought she was as a kid but a young teen, wild how our child minds perceive things lol
this just brought up a memory I didn't think anyone else knew about, it's so interesting and i remember wanting bellas purple and pink Y2K fit like soo badly and i remember that i broke the bar trying to do gymnastics because i was in dance and gymnastics and my parents bought this for me as a christmas gift.
I was so confused by yhe ballet one (called Bella Ballerina in the UK) that it was like a TV show I hadn't ever seen before like the random monkey and teddies really didn't add to anything. It was very much talking down to kids in that it didn't think ballet would be enough alone, or that they'd understand how an episode of TV works, but those songs are super catchy and following along with the mat was pretty easy
I had no idea Bella (Gabby) was Australian. I guess l have a later version of the ballet set. She has no braces or Australian accent in the version I own.
you dont know the shock that overtook me when i saw this in my feed, bc literally this whole week this thought's been stuck in my head like "what was that trippy ballet tutorial vhs from my childhood called??" i had the bella ballerina and pop star sets as a kid, and my sister had the dora one. i remember the headphones that came with the popstar one straight up didn't work at all, and the plastic bars from the ballerina one eventually became a burden because 1: i was growing taller too fast to use them anymore and 2: there's only so many times you can do the goddamn veggie dance before going insane (even as a toddler) they were moved to my closet for storage, and after that, sadly i can't remember what became of them. maybe it was a narnia situation, the bars went back to australia /JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ
I'm British and whilst those specific ballet dvds weren't familiar I had a very similar one growing up that had a vague storyline about a girl dreaming of being a ballerina and going to classes mixed with actual instrucition and this just sent me down a google rabbit hole desperately trying to find it - it was called 'classical ballet: from dream to reality'. Even back then I remember thinking that it was incredibly boring and repetitive and yet I watched it and practiced it constantly. Also as a former tap dancer I AM a little offended lol.
I'm British and had the original as a kid but it was called Bella Ballerina. I'm gonna check the next one out actually because it sounds interesting. Funnily I started adult ballet lessons in October then found out I probably tore my ACL a decade ago so had to stop, but the doctor said the classical exercise might really help after surgery or get better balance - wo it might be more useful than I think haha
I have a really distinct memory of receiving this for Christmas when I was around 6, barely playing with it for more than an hour and my mom getting miffed that the DVD was only a half hour long when she assumed it was a whole series
The funniest thing is that I just found out about this series during my research of doll lines, I skimmed across Bella dancerella and then completely brushed it off until this video came out And I have no memory of this EXCEPT for the cinderella Bella dancerella WHICH IS WEIRD?? Because it came out in 2005 but i wasn't even born until 2006 BUT I REMEMBER THE COMMERCIAL FROM MY CHILDHOOD?? Guessing they were reselling it, but even then I have no clue
I had the ballerina line in the UK and they made more Disney lines I had found out so I think they also added things like a magic wand and the Enchanted line, so maybe its that or the combination of dvds in a bundle
regarding the rant about the different positions and how they don't teach the harder steps- in ballet the 5 positions are quite literally in everything you do, from leaps to turns- you will be using any variety of these positions. so i feel its less about, here's the basics and here's the cool thing you do later, its more about telling them how these position will apply to everything by showing how they are used in a small combination.
I had those last 2 dvds! I have particularly strong memories of the first because when I was turning 4 I was so obsessed with it that my birthday party was me and my friends performing sleeping beauty, organised by my mum. For anyone else who remembers the dvd, I was of course the fairy who saves Aurora and not aurora cause she had a sick ass dance in the dvd. Thank you for awakening these memories 🫡
2:22 found the exact same thing so my research ended up looking at the trademark for Bella Productions (?) and seeing that they had a legal case when distributor pulled out of a deal. I didn't even find the information that you did mine came from TH-cam and reddit mainly and finding the ad editor's TH-cam account. I was in the UK and I was looking under Bella Ballerina at first and didn't know about the Disney branded DVDs either, so it was so fun going onto TH-cam then seeing how young Bella was and then seeing how she had gained an American accent over time
Oh my god! Bella dancerella was ringing absolutely no bells until you got to the high school musical one where all of a sudden I remembered a blowup basketball we had and the headset. I don’t think we ever watched the video, but we owned the headset and the blowup basketball. Wild! Maybe we did watch the video because I was thinking the entire time that Gabby looked mildly familiar. Who knows!
I remember Bella Dancerella but never realized so many DVDs were produced! I was a kid in the early 2000s and can vaguely remember going through a ballet phase.
Great thing to note is that even now, people are making ballet barres with PVC pipe and there are a lot of tutorials, especially since the pandemic closed studios and Barre Fitness got popular - so it looks kinda kiddie in those colours, but it's actually pretty good as a cheap and portable alternative to making a free standing galvanised steel bar at home which would be the next best thing to a professional premade one, or a fixed one.
As you asked, the barbie film did use motion capture, I have vivid memories of watching the bonus features for that film as a kid and they go into how the motion capture worked and showed videos of the dancers in those goofy suits
this reminds me a bit of a ballet DVD that I had as a kid called prima princessa. I don't remember if it was meant to be explicitly educational but I do remember that it featured a paper flower craft for some reason
Omg my sister and I had the ballet mat and the popstar ones of these i just remember they live in the garage because we would get wayyy to into it and my mom was like "this is an outdoor activity but it needs a tv"
I’d somehow never heard of Bella Dancerella, but as a childhood dancer and lifetime Barbie 12DP lover this whole video really took me back :) the early 2000s ballet aesthetic is something that can be so personal
DUDE, I had the Swan Lake one as a kid and it was my LIFE. I had forgotten literally everything except for the theme song...which has lived in my head rent free for years. "Bella, Bella, Bella Dancerella..." Thank you for the nostalgia, I didn't know anyone else remembered this!
haha I remember commenting about this on the Angelina Ballerina episode after looking into the brand over the last few months 😂 So happy you decided to make the video and take this out of the Lost Media No-man's-land
Awesome video and I had so much fun watching! I'm from the UK and you have just unlocked a crazy old memory for me! I had the How to be a Ballerina on VHS and would dance to it ALL THE TIME so much that my parents would groan everytime I put it on hahaha This actively made me pick up ballet when I was young and influenced my love of Princessy and pink stuff. Can't remember if the "good toes, naughty toes" exercise was this one or the other one you showed but that lives in my head rent free.
I love bella dancerella, I have the dvds, and i loved them, i used to have a swanlake mat, but i loved them all, and my all time favorite one is "Cinderella", i would've guessed someone would do a video like this, Thank you so much!
Oh my gosh my algorithm is algorithm-ing right now. “Bella Bella Bella Dancerella” lives rent free in my head. The pop star one was my absolute favorite, but I think I had the second ballet installment too instead of the first one. Or maybe it just completely slipped out of my mind, too. I still have one of them on dvd, but I don’t have any of the mats. My brother actually had the kung fu one! I totally forgot that existed, but we mostly just used the little blow up thing to punch and kick without following the instructions. And I would’ve killed to have the High School Musical one if I knew that was a thing! Thanks for the nostalgia whiplash, this was such a good vid
I never realised this was a whole franchise, I just remember one day being farce and watching the swan lake video after seeing it lying in our collection because we didn’t really have that much access to cable when I was little and lived through mostly DVDs.
My family had Bella Dancerella. I knew we had Swan Lake, but this video made me remember that we also had the princess one. (The one that goes "Ariel! Belle! Aurora!" Not the twelve dancing princesses one.)
oh my god my sister and i had this as kids.. i went looking for it online a few years ago and it took me a while but i eventually found it. we also had a hannah montana version of this sort of disc/game. now i just need to find the myth and legend (the random cringe hip hop dvds we had)
When I was little I was in ballet but I got kicked out because I was obsessed with looking at myself in the mirror and didn't pay attention to the teacher or to what I was supposed to do 😳 so my grandma got me Bella Dancerella DVDs and the equipment that came with it. I don't know where the equipment went but I do still have the DVDs in a shelf with all my other movies from 10+ years ago. Also lets be honest she rocked those braces like people who have braces get so embarrassed and/or say those are the things that they're self conscious about but when I was younger I used to want some because I didn't actually know what they were actually used for but I just wanted to be as fancy as them because I thought braces were like piercings but for your teeth. I don't want them anymore now especially because I'm lucky enough to not need them but I still think people who have them are gorgeous and it makes me sad that braces are so embarrassing for people.. but I would never pick on someone who's embarrassed by that sort of thing because I'm not going to be the person who tells someone how to feel about something that they don't like about themselves because that does more harm than good but i still personally think they're cute. Anyway thanks for this huge throwback!
oooohhhhHH mY GOD I HAD THIS! I FEEL LIKE I JUST GOT FLASHBANGED!! Weirdly enough my only memory of this is me showing the bar and mat off to my MUCH older family members before an Ohio State game when i was like 6. Didn't even remember the videos lol. Love niche videos like this!
I relate to what you said at the start of the video. I had a girl in my kindergarten, that was attending ballet classes, and decided to wear her ballet shoes as her indoor shoes once. I was looking at them the whole time, and when I came home, I asked my mom if I can have shoes like that. _(I rarely asked for anything, so that's how you know I _*_really_*_ wanted them. My mom learned 2 years ago I wanted a rag doll...)_ She simply responded with: *"They aren't for walking, if you want ballet shoes we can sign you up for a ballet class."* I wanted to try, so my mom took me to the studio for a trial lesson. Most of the lesson was just us stretching with our soon-to-be teacher monologuing how _everything we think of ballet is a lie. How it's serious hard work and if we don't keep up right now, we aren't fit for it at all. Because our proper first lesson will be even harder. Better quit now if you aren't serious. You won't have fun here-_ Bold move while dealing with 5-8 yo kids, but it was meant to leave out only truly determined kids. And it did work. I decided ballet isn't for me. I did end up going to other dance classes. Multiple times, at different ages. And I had lots of fun. People who were running those classes were focusing on us moving a lot and having fun as we do so. And even tho I stopped dancing at some point I still love it as a fun way to exercise.
29:36 the way you were possessed by Amy Adams 😭😭😭 This video literally unlocked a memory, because when I saw that wand with the feather duster attachment it all came flooding back to me.
It's weird how you perceive things when you're little. When I was young, I thought Bella was AN ADULT (because I was a toddler), but obviously looking back it's so strange to realize that she's just a kid hahahaha
saaame except the fashion I realised it was pretty out there and reminded me of the 2000s Queens Nose reboots with Harmony and Melody her older sister who was a pop star and The Misti Show before they removed the interview and gaming segments. She gave sitcom big sister vibes
Your name is lillian farrell? I have a good friend by that name but she was a grown woman in 05
SAME i thought she was at least thirty as a kid LMAO
Haha me too!!
Oh my gosh. Thank you for making this Sarah. The only thing I remember from the ballet VHS is that during the fruit and veggies segment, all of the young girls got to choose which vegetable costume they wanted to wear, EXCEPT for the girl with brown skin - Bella just assigned her a fruit. As a young brown girl, that made me so mad lol.
I think she was also excluded from some dance segments. *sigh* early 2000s media.
SOMEONE ELSE FREAKIN REMEMBERS THAT!!! my older sister and i wouldn’t let that go
And she was a banana
That’s so sad!
Yes! When they demonstrate the ballet positions, the two other girls go demonstrate with Bella but that girl did it by herself by the couch.
I felt weird speculating about little girls from 20 years ago, but the vibe I was getting was that she was shy/ nervous/ not as experienced. When they cut to her doing the positions you can tell she’s having trouble matching her feet to the mat. I don’t think that (quite low budget) production had the resources to find and cast amazing child performers, so they were maybe like “this one girl we cast is struggling but we can write around it”
I’m hoping that’s the reason she was less present, but it still felt like they were excluding the only black girl. And the casting in the subsequent installments wasn’t very diverse so that makes me raise an eyebrow too.
I USED TO WATCH THESE EVERY YEAR ON A FAMILY ROAD TRIP AND A COUPLE YEARS AGO I REALIZED THIS AND WAS LIKE WAIT WHY IS THE DARKER SKINNED GIRL BEING SHOWN LESS THIS ACTUALLY BAFFLED AND UPSET ME I'M SO GLAD I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO REALIZED
If no one else is brave enough to say it, I will: Bella Dancerella should represent Australia at Eurovision 2025.
Was not expecting to see a random Eurovision reference here 😂
ur so right bestie
@@hannahbarley97 there are DOZENS of us who are fans of both Saraserif and Eurovision! DOZENS!!!!
Fun fact: The song “I’m in the Middle of a Muddle” from the Cinderella dvd was actually a deleted song from the original 1950 Disney film that was replaced by both “Sing, Sweet Nightingale” and the song the mice sing while Cinderella is doing chores before the ball.
There is a volume from Disney’s Lost Chords albums series that has the original demo, as well as a modernized cover of that song, as well as a couple other songs that were originally planned to be in Cinderella, but were cut for various reasons or written for earlier drafts and versions of the film.
That's actually so cool!
i definitely had that ballet bar thing as a kid but i don't remember the videos at ALL, i certainly don't remember her being a little 13 year old with braces
Oh I have a DOOZY of a story for you. I'm from Melbourne, and in watching this video I remembered that Mary scouted me and one of my friends at dancing to be a part of advertising Bella Dancerella (formerly Ballerina)!! That picture of the family I'm fairly certain is in her house WHICH I'VE BEEN IN. We still have the screen test on tape somewhere at home. My friend was the one who made it to advertising, but I was involved in promoting it at a toy fair that year! Bringing back a lot of memories for me.
1:56 that's my friend sitting down on the right!!!! She's also in the first video! THIS IS CRAZY!!!!!
Also your Aussie accent wasn't too bad, actually!
48:55 12 dancing princess did use motion capture for the dancing, same with all the barbie dancing movies. It was also the first movie not based on a per existing ballet, so it was choreographed by the NYC ballet company with their dancer. I’ve seen the behind the scenes dvd extra too many times.
Barbie's Nutcracker was the first FULL animated movie to use Motion Capture after Lord of the Rings invented it.(Extra fun fact) :)
The cheerleader dvd was single-handedly keeping me active as a little girl but I NEVER knew about this other lore…
omg…… this awakened a core memory deep in the recesses of my brain. i’ve been doing ballet since i was 3 and my mom bought the swan lake vhs tape at a consignment sale to try and get me to enjoy it more as a toddler 😅
also i’m glad that other people in the comments remembered bella as being an adult and not a teenager lol
the way i SCREAMED when i saw the thumbnail! I had absolutely and completly forgotten about it, aside from remembering the bar and the mat (it had a very particular smell of plastic, kinda nice, and i've never really forgotten hahaha) - i'm in the process of watching the video and the further you go the more i remember, I must have watched the dvd as a kid at least a million times. The 80-2000s crossover outfits, the girls braces (Which i clearly couldn't tell as a kid lmao), the mat getting flipped - you're bringing me on an insane nostalgia trip here!!!! Thank you so much for making this video
omg thank you for making this - despite being in my 20s the bella dancerella theme song/jingle has been stuck in my head for years
Oh my gosh same!
Same! I remember it from the ads and in the UK it was Bella Ballerina so I also don't think we had the other versions. Means it took me ages to find that version existed and I wasn't losing my mind 😂
Same! It runs through my mind at least once a week, I’m so glad I’m not the only one
I honestly thought Bella Dancerella was like a fever dream - I was obsessed and had the ballet barre set (I did ballet when I was very young, had many surgeries and had to quit at the age of 6 so this was how I got my ballet love out for a few years and I vividly remember trying to do everything the video said, without pausing which was basically impossible to have a snack in the time in the video for a 7 year old me (I guess as a kid the fruit and veggies dance was snack time because it was food related?). I had a friend who had the Bella Dancerella hip hop set. I also mentioned that I was watching this to my mother and she mentioned that I had the High School Musical one? I have zero memory of it though.
I can literally still smell the plastic of the floor mat oh my god
"I'm In a Middle of a Muddle" is actually a deleted song from the 1950 movie! The BD video was a tie-in to the Cinderella Platinum Edition DVD that cane out that fall, and on the second disc, it features the storyboards and a song demo for it.
Also, yes, Mattel DID use MoCap for the 12 Dancing Princesses. I vividly remember seeing a behind-the-scenes video on the Barbie website, and that's how I learned about the technique.
Woah that’s crazy! Then that makes sense that I like that song more than the other ones haha
The moment I heard it I thought wow this sounds like it came straight out of the 1950s! Makes sense now! Wish they kept it, my no1 gripe with Cinderella is too much mice, not enough ella.
Yes! I was just gonna say that! It’s one of favourite deleted songs. Mu top favourite is Dancing on a Cloud
I'm south african and had zero interaction with this franchise but the 2000s ballet content for little girls was still so nostalgic! I was born in 2008 but because I don't live in a first world country I actually grew up on a lot of the older kids content from America which I always find super interesting.
when i was really little i used to climb up and sit on top of the bella dancerella barre. one day i was sitting on it and it fell backwards and i knocked the wind out of myself for the first time. i ran to my mom freaking out because i couldnt breathe and my parents didnt know what was going on so they freaked out and called an ambulance. so all these firetrucks and ambulances arrive at my house but by the time they get there i can breathe again. then everyone saw the knocked over pink and purple barre and knew everything.
This whole time I didn't know the Barbie ones were not Bella. I had the 12 dancing princesses one because I was Barbie obsessed. I also have memories of the ballet double feature DVD, it got passed around my dance class. I was in awe of the idea of a boarding school let alone one that was ballet based. My poor dance instructor had to let our class down gently, we all had this idea we could apply and get in despite being fairly new at ballet and living in the Midwest USA.
I was obsessed with the bella ballerina VHS set as a kid omg it made me want to join real ballet so bad. I "learned ballet" exclusively through that video and imitating Barbie ballet movie adaptations enough to where I confidently and probably poorly freestyled a routine for a cruise talent show when I was 6. bella ballerina raised me to be the diva I am today thank you bella ballerina o7
I had the Disney princess dvd! It’s been ingrained in my memory and I actually rewatched it recently for fun. I can’t believe someone else remembers these!
I did too! I thought it was something I dreamed up before I came across this video!
ariel swim, ariel skip!
Wow! The memory of Bella Dancerella feels like a hug from an old friend.
I remember seeing this in a store with my mom when I was younger and she said “That looks *super* cheap”
You forgot to mention the Bella Ballerina shoes that Skechers made! I don’t remember Bella Dancerella, but I do remember seeing the Bella Ballerina shoes in the commercials, and how they had a disc at the bottom of them that allowed you to spin easily
Those shoes had nothing to do with Bella Dancerella at all. They just happened to be called the same thing as the original name for this.
Bella Ballerina was the name of the DVDs in the UK, but yeah I think they have nothing to do with each other
48:57 there is a behind the scenes of the 12 dancing princesses with the lady who danced as Genevieve . And yes the dancing was motion captured 😊
i’m so glad bella dancerella wasn’t a fever dream 💀 i had the popstar, cheer, and hsm ones and also did not know she was australian lol
the queen has uploaded
finally someone talks about this 😭 i would be on that wrinkly ballet mat for hours as a kid
i have literally never heard of this series before, yet i am fully ready and committed to spending an hour of my life watching this
I thank you very much for this video. It's about time someone covered this. I learned a lot! We used the Swan Lake DVD for ballet when my younger sister was into ballet, but the DVD was second-hand, and we didn't have the bar. I don't know where it is now. Our Mum put so much pressure on us to suck in our guts when that song came on, she took it pretty seriously.
watching this as a former dancer is so funny. I remember my sister had the first bella dancerella but you just conjured for me so many lost memories of mattel's 12 dancing princesses one, and I think my cousin had the cheerleading one.I had no idea there were so many. I don't think I ever saw the video for the first one but honestly I feel like the memories of those other two videos were unknowingly occupying so much of my brain. I just cleared years of memory storage space
Wow, I remember watching How To Be A Ballet Dancer as a kid! The segment that sticks out in my memory is that section where all the kids are sat in a circle and the teacher instructs them on pointing toes
I'm so gonna love rewatching this video 1000× as I go to sleep
I swear a got flashback when I saw that Pop Star dance mat in your thumbnail. I spent hours with Bella. Me and my friend would dance at his house the whole day when I visited him (ToT)
I used to own how to be a ballet dancer! I remember my mum getting it from a charity shop for me and being absolutely obsessed with it! I had completely forgotten the name of it until now so thank you for reminding me! (I've also noticed Tap and Ballet seem to be paired together quite often for some reason. The ballet studio I went to as a kid was also a tap studio so you could do one dance class after the other which was quite interesting.)
Edit: Adding onto my comment, I actually think it might not have been from a charity shop because I remember getting it with another DVD called "Dance Like The FLOWER FAIRIES" which I was even more obsessed with and used to watch so much it's practically ingrained in my memory.
sarah. i love you. there’s a ad playing i haven’t even watched the video. I CANT BELIEVE OTHER PPL KNOW ABOUT BELLAAAA i’m actually freaking out rn i still have my dvd and mat and everything from this omggggg
I’m pretty sure the Cinderella vocalist is Jennifer Hale- the official VA for all modern Cinderella properties owned by Disney
I never thought anyone would ever talk about this!!! Thank you!!!
I didn't even realize the Dora dance dvd was a part of the Bella Dancerella franchise and I remember getting that set as a kid, brand new with the outfit and all. I also remember getting the Disney princess set which ended up including both the Disney princess AND the Cinderella Bella Mat? I don't know if they all came like that, but I didn't realize until later that the Cinderella Bella movie was longer then the cut up version that they put in the bonus features of the Disney princess one. I also remember the Swan Lake and the original Bella Dancerella. The way that I've never been more shocked learning Bella was 13 when they started making these, but I do also remember always thinking that it was weird how they used a completely different girl then the first one they started with. I guess they didn't, she just grew up and stopped speaking Australian.
take a shot every time bella nods aggressively
You are doing Gods work girllll yess 😭🫶🏻 Angelina ballerina, Kipper, Charlie and Lola and now Bella Dancerella my nostalgia can’t take it 😫 i thought i was one of few who still had these properties ingrained into their lil girlhood but i’ve finally found my people 🥺😭 thank youuuuu 🩷
Hi, dance teacher here! Your video was in my recommended, and I totally watched the whole thing. I think the only "Bella" that I vaguely remember, were the very early ones. But regarding the tap edition Bella, a lot of the basic steps, at least the ones you showed in the clips, are actually dance steps that I do teach my preschoolers at least, in their tap classes. It's the same for most any type of dance, but those tap steps, although super basic, are really steps that build on to others. So, the tap dvd wasn't going to help you be a world famous tap dancer, but it could have definitely helped someone learn very very basic things. Thanks for the vid :)
I took a tap and ballet hybrid class when I was 7 and all I remember is being told “wrong foot” 😆 my sister got the ballet bella dancerella for Christmas one year and I don’t remember her using it after New Years
BABE WAKE UP NEW SARAHSERIF JUST DROPPED
I’ve had the Bella dancerella theme song stuck in my head for 15 years.
I literally had no memory of this until your video! I had to call myself sister to see if she remembered having the floor mat just to make sure I wasn’t making up a memory lol! I love how your channel always brings back memories I’ve forgotten about
The Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses film used motion capture for the dances! Its depiction of ballet was innovative at the time. The extra features on the DVD includes a lot of behind-the-scenes information about how they got the dancing in that movie to look so good.
I had the original ballet dvd as well as the Barbie as the Island Princess knock off version, and loved both lol. A couple years ago I went down the Bella Dancerella rabbit hole and rewatched the videos to find that, to my surprise, Bella was not the adult I thought she was as a kid but a young teen, wild how our child minds perceive things lol
this just brought up a memory I didn't think anyone else knew about, it's so interesting and i remember wanting bellas purple and pink Y2K fit like soo badly and i remember that i broke the bar trying to do gymnastics because i was in dance and gymnastics and my parents bought this for me as a christmas gift.
I really enjoy learning about all these properties I was either too old for, or not interested in at the time. It's supplemental history ✨
I was so confused by yhe ballet one (called Bella Ballerina in the UK) that it was like a TV show I hadn't ever seen before like the random monkey and teddies really didn't add to anything. It was very much talking down to kids in that it didn't think ballet would be enough alone, or that they'd understand how an episode of TV works, but those songs are super catchy and following along with the mat was pretty easy
i did, in fact, forget everything from the ballet DVD. i was more entertained for the map
38:23 Oh we need Descendants bella dancerella!!
I bought Bella Dancerella for my daughter when she was little. Good times.
I had no idea Bella (Gabby) was Australian. I guess l have a later version of the ballet set. She has no braces or Australian accent in the version I own.
you dont know the shock that overtook me when i saw this in my feed, bc literally this whole week this thought's been stuck in my head like "what was that trippy ballet tutorial vhs from my childhood called??" i had the bella ballerina and pop star sets as a kid, and my sister had the dora one. i remember the headphones that came with the popstar one straight up didn't work at all, and the plastic bars from the ballerina one eventually became a burden because 1: i was growing taller too fast to use them anymore and 2: there's only so many times you can do the goddamn veggie dance before going insane (even as a toddler) they were moved to my closet for storage, and after that, sadly i can't remember what became of them. maybe it was a narnia situation, the bars went back to australia /JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ
Bella Dancerella Popstar was literally my life as a kid 😭 this video brought back so many memories
I'm British and whilst those specific ballet dvds weren't familiar I had a very similar one growing up that had a vague storyline about a girl dreaming of being a ballerina and going to classes mixed with actual instrucition and this just sent me down a google rabbit hole desperately trying to find it - it was called 'classical ballet: from dream to reality'. Even back then I remember thinking that it was incredibly boring and repetitive and yet I watched it and practiced it constantly. Also as a former tap dancer I AM a little offended lol.
I'm British and had the original as a kid but it was called Bella Ballerina. I'm gonna check the next one out actually because it sounds interesting. Funnily I started adult ballet lessons in October then found out I probably tore my ACL a decade ago so had to stop, but the doctor said the classical exercise might really help after surgery or get better balance - wo it might be more useful than I think haha
Congrats to “Bella” for living my little girl dreams though
I had the Cinderella Bella Dancerella and I loved that thing so much that I still have it. Pretty much the entire set.
I have a really distinct memory of receiving this for Christmas when I was around 6, barely playing with it for more than an hour and my mom getting miffed that the DVD was only a half hour long when she assumed it was a whole series
The funniest thing is that I just found out about this series during my research of doll lines, I skimmed across Bella dancerella and then completely brushed it off until this video came out
And I have no memory of this EXCEPT for the cinderella Bella dancerella
WHICH IS WEIRD??
Because it came out in 2005 but i wasn't even born until 2006
BUT I REMEMBER THE COMMERCIAL FROM MY CHILDHOOD??
Guessing they were reselling it, but even then I have no clue
I had the ballerina line in the UK and they made more Disney lines I had found out so I think they also added things like a magic wand and the Enchanted line, so maybe its that or the combination of dvds in a bundle
I’m 27 and you unlocked a memory I completey forgot about. I loved this when I was 6.
regarding the rant about the different positions and how they don't teach the harder steps- in ballet the 5 positions are quite literally in everything you do, from leaps to turns- you will be using any variety of these positions. so i feel its less about, here's the basics and here's the cool thing you do later, its more about telling them how these position will apply to everything by showing how they are used in a small combination.
I had those last 2 dvds! I have particularly strong memories of the first because when I was turning 4 I was so obsessed with it that my birthday party was me and my friends performing sleeping beauty, organised by my mum. For anyone else who remembers the dvd, I was of course the fairy who saves Aurora and not aurora cause she had a sick ass dance in the dvd. Thank you for awakening these memories 🫡
2:22 found the exact same thing so my research ended up looking at the trademark for Bella Productions (?) and seeing that they had a legal case when distributor pulled out of a deal. I didn't even find the information that you did mine came from TH-cam and reddit mainly and finding the ad editor's TH-cam account. I was in the UK and I was looking under Bella Ballerina at first and didn't know about the Disney branded DVDs either, so it was so fun going onto TH-cam then seeing how young Bella was and then seeing how she had gained an American accent over time
Oh my god! Bella dancerella was ringing absolutely no bells until you got to the high school musical one where all of a sudden I remembered a blowup basketball we had and the headset. I don’t think we ever watched the video, but we owned the headset and the blowup basketball. Wild! Maybe we did watch the video because I was thinking the entire time that Gabby looked mildly familiar. Who knows!
I remember Bella Dancerella but never realized so many DVDs were produced! I was a kid in the early 2000s and can vaguely remember going through a ballet phase.
Great thing to note is that even now, people are making ballet barres with PVC pipe and there are a lot of tutorials, especially since the pandemic closed studios and Barre Fitness got popular - so it looks kinda kiddie in those colours, but it's actually pretty good as a cheap and portable alternative to making a free standing galvanised steel bar at home which would be the next best thing to a professional premade one, or a fixed one.
As you asked, the barbie film did use motion capture, I have vivid memories of watching the bonus features for that film as a kid and they go into how the motion capture worked and showed videos of the dancers in those goofy suits
this reminds me a bit of a ballet DVD that I had as a kid called prima princessa. I don't remember if it was meant to be explicitly educational but I do remember that it featured a paper flower craft for some reason
Omg my sister and I had the ballet mat and the popstar ones of these i just remember they live in the garage because we would get wayyy to into it and my mom was like "this is an outdoor activity but it needs a tv"
I was completely obsessed with this set growing up
I’d somehow never heard of Bella Dancerella, but as a childhood dancer and lifetime Barbie 12DP lover this whole video really took me back :) the early 2000s ballet aesthetic is something that can be so personal
I violently remember seeing this growing up. I had 1000% forgotten this. Oh goodness. I'm pretty sure I wanted it too 🤣
DUDE, I had the Swan Lake one as a kid and it was my LIFE. I had forgotten literally everything except for the theme song...which has lived in my head rent free for years. "Bella, Bella, Bella Dancerella..." Thank you for the nostalgia, I didn't know anyone else remembered this!
haha I remember commenting about this on the Angelina Ballerina episode after looking into the brand over the last few months 😂 So happy you decided to make the video and take this out of the Lost Media No-man's-land
Awesome video and I had so much fun watching!
I'm from the UK and you have just unlocked a crazy old memory for me!
I had the How to be a Ballerina on VHS and would dance to it ALL THE TIME so much that my parents would groan everytime I put it on hahaha
This actively made me pick up ballet when I was young and influenced my love of Princessy and pink stuff.
Can't remember if the "good toes, naughty toes" exercise was this one or the other one you showed but that lives in my head rent free.
Yes the good toes bit is from that! They also hid their toes from mr crocodile
@sarah_serif omg thats so cute!
Aaa wow that's amazing I'm now on the search for a copy just to have and hold lolol~
I love bella dancerella, I have the dvds, and i loved them, i used to have a swanlake mat, but i loved them all, and my all time favorite one is "Cinderella", i would've guessed someone would do a video like this, Thank you so much!
oh this is unlocking a memory for me 😭 i tried to search this up a few months ago and the giant teddys came up
Oh my gosh my algorithm is algorithm-ing right now. “Bella Bella Bella Dancerella” lives rent free in my head. The pop star one was my absolute favorite, but I think I had the second ballet installment too instead of the first one. Or maybe it just completely slipped out of my mind, too. I still have one of them on dvd, but I don’t have any of the mats. My brother actually had the kung fu one! I totally forgot that existed, but we mostly just used the little blow up thing to punch and kick without following the instructions. And I would’ve killed to have the High School Musical one if I knew that was a thing! Thanks for the nostalgia whiplash, this was such a good vid
This was my favorite toy as a kid and what got me into dance. I love ballet because of Bella Dancerella
That song is forever trapped in my head
That commercial theme song was so 2000s.
You completely dug up a forgotten memory of mine. I played with that first bar and mat all the time. I didn't even know there was a dvd
You literally cover such niche and yet so so soooo integral to my childhood topics 😱🩷 thank you so much for your videos!!!
I remember the swan lake one. My sister had it. I still get the songs stuck in my head…
The fruit and veggies song unlocked such a deep memory in my 25 year old brain
omg i had the first mat and the bar
I never realised this was a whole franchise, I just remember one day being farce and watching the swan lake video after seeing it lying in our collection because we didn’t really have that much access to cable when I was little and lived through mostly DVDs.
My family had Bella Dancerella. I knew we had Swan Lake, but this video made me remember that we also had the princess one. (The one that goes "Ariel! Belle! Aurora!" Not the twelve dancing princesses one.)
I had the mats and the bar set. I was a ballerina from 6 to 18.
oh my god my sister and i had this as kids.. i went looking for it online a few years ago and it took me a while but i eventually found it. we also had a hannah montana version of this sort of disc/game. now i just need to find the myth and legend (the random cringe hip hop dvds we had)
YOOO YOU UNLOCKED A DEEP MEMORY WITH THIS ONE
oh my god. thank you so much you just unlocked something
When I was little I was in ballet but I got kicked out because I was obsessed with looking at myself in the mirror and didn't pay attention to the teacher or to what I was supposed to do 😳 so my grandma got me Bella Dancerella DVDs and the equipment that came with it. I don't know where the equipment went but I do still have the DVDs in a shelf with all my other movies from 10+ years ago. Also lets be honest she rocked those braces like people who have braces get so embarrassed and/or say those are the things that they're self conscious about but when I was younger I used to want some because I didn't actually know what they were actually used for but I just wanted to be as fancy as them because I thought braces were like piercings but for your teeth. I don't want them anymore now especially because I'm lucky enough to not need them but I still think people who have them are gorgeous and it makes me sad that braces are so embarrassing for people.. but I would never pick on someone who's embarrassed by that sort of thing because I'm not going to be the person who tells someone how to feel about something that they don't like about themselves because that does more harm than good but i still personally think they're cute. Anyway thanks for this huge throwback!
oooohhhhHH mY GOD I HAD THIS! I FEEL LIKE I JUST GOT FLASHBANGED!! Weirdly enough my only memory of this is me showing the bar and mat off to my MUCH older family members before an Ohio State game when i was like 6. Didn't even remember the videos lol. Love niche videos like this!
I still have the bar from the Bella Dancerella set! I just use mine as a towel rack, lol
i had the first dvd and watched it daily. this video made me realize i still remember the songs
Please keep making videos. You're one of my absolute favorite content creators 🥲🩷
I relate to what you said at the start of the video. I had a girl in my kindergarten, that was attending ballet classes, and decided to wear her ballet shoes as her indoor shoes once. I was looking at them the whole time, and when I came home, I asked my mom if I can have shoes like that.
_(I rarely asked for anything, so that's how you know I _*_really_*_ wanted them. My mom learned 2 years ago I wanted a rag doll...)_
She simply responded with: *"They aren't for walking, if you want ballet shoes we can sign you up for a ballet class."*
I wanted to try, so my mom took me to the studio for a trial lesson. Most of the lesson was just us stretching with our soon-to-be teacher monologuing how _everything we think of ballet is a lie. How it's serious hard work and if we don't keep up right now, we aren't fit for it at all. Because our proper first lesson will be even harder. Better quit now if you aren't serious. You won't have fun here-_
Bold move while dealing with 5-8 yo kids, but it was meant to leave out only truly determined kids. And it did work.
I decided ballet isn't for me. I did end up going to other dance classes. Multiple times, at different ages. And I had lots of fun. People who were running those classes were focusing on us moving a lot and having fun as we do so. And even tho I stopped dancing at some point I still love it as a fun way to exercise.
I was a popstar girlie. And i forgot about the adult woman dj and roxy. How? I was in love with them. I rewatched their parts multiple times.
29:36 the way you were possessed by Amy Adams 😭😭😭
This video literally unlocked a memory, because when I saw that wand with the feather duster attachment it all came flooding back to me.