Trivia: Though not revealed in the movie, the Prince's name is Adam. At the New Orleans Disneyworld, the Princess hotel rooms have portraits of each Disney prince. The 'Beauty & the Beast' prince is shown in human form and his name stated underneath as 'Prince Adam.' In addition, the officially licensed Disney Fisherprice 'Little People' sets include 'Belle and Prince Adam.'
Trivia: Gaston's socks strongly resemble the logo of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
Trivia: When Maurice comes to the castle for the first time, one of the puddles of water is shaped as Mickey's head.
Trivia: When Maurice is running through the woods and he sees the sign post with the signs pointing to places in California, look at where each is pointing. The ones that point in the direction of the sunny path are the names of where Disney's amusement parks are, the ones that point down the dark, menacing path are where the Six Flags amusement parks are. Six Flags is obviously Disney's rival, so what better way to smear them than to show Six Flags as dark and dirty, while Disney is bright and sunny.
Trivia: This was the first Disney movie for which a woman, Linda Woolverton, wrote the script.
Trivia: When Belle's father is lost in the forest, he looks at a sign at the crossroads that have barely readable lettering. If you look closely, you can clearly see "Anaheim" written, along with Saugus, Newhall and Valencia. Anaheim and Valencia are the locations of Disneyland and The California Institute of the Arts, respectively.
Trivia: At the very beginning of the movie, as soon as the picture comes on the screen, it shows the castle before it is cursed. There is a deer in the foreground drinking out of the stream. If you watch the deer, it suddenly picks its head up to look around. This portion of animation is taken from Bambi - it's Bambi's mother, in the scene right before the hunter kills her.
Trivia: In that theatrical version, the song "Gaston" had a different ending. It went something like "There's just one guy in town who's got all of it down and his name's G-A-S-T-O-N Gaston.". But this was edited when released on video.
Trivia: The dance sequence between Belle and the Prince is actually reused animation of the dance between Prince Philip and Princess Aurora from the film "Sleeping Beauty."
Trivia: Lyricist Howard Ashman's suggestion to the voice actress of Belle (Paige O'Hara) was "Streisand". As such, Belle's singing voice is somewhat reminiscent of Barbra Streisand's.
Trivia: The character of Cogsworth was originally intended for John Cleese.
Answer: In the prologue, it states that the Beast must find true love by his 21st birthday, and that he had been cursed for ten years, so since his relationship with Belle takes place as the deadline approaches, he must have been 10 when he was cursed.