Studio Head Jeffrey Katzenberg took this as a sign that the number was too slow and wouldn’t hold the attention of the largely child audience the movie was hoping to draw.
Future test screenings showed the song was popular, the song stayed and it became a massive hit for Disney.
He wanted the song gone, but luckily, he was talked off the ledge.
During an early test screening, a kid dropped his box of popcorn in the middle of the song, and was apparently much more focused on cleaning it up than he was an Ariel’s big number.