In 1985, Ron Clements became interested in a film adaptation of "The Little Mermaid" while he was serving as a director on "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986) alongside John Musker. Clements discovered the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale while browsing through a bookstore. Believing the story provided an "ideal basis" for an animated feature film and keen on creating a film that took place underwater, Clements wrote and presented a two-page treatment of "The Little Mermaid" Walt Disney Studios to chief Jeffrey Katzenberg at a "gong show" idea suggestion meeting. Katzenberg passed the project over, because at that time the studio was in development on a sequel to their live-action mermaid comedy "Splash" (1984) and felt "The Little Mermaid" would be too similar a project. The next day, however, Katzenberg approved of the idea for possible development, along with "Oliver & Company". While in production in the 1980s, the staff found, by chance, original story and visual development work done by Kay Nielsen for Disney's proposed 1930s Andersen feature. Many of the changes made by the staff in the 1930s to Hans Christian Andersen's original story was coincidentally the same as the changes made by Disney writers in the 1980s.