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. 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. "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".