An Ode To Ursula, One Of The Most Iconic Witches To Ever Do It

It’s Witch Week here at Decider, so we’re celebrating all the iconic figures who’ve toiled over cauldrons, cast sinister spells and sped away on their brooms and into the inky night. While I’m certainly a fan of Sabrina Spellman, Glinda The Good Witch and The Craft quartet, I’m here with an important PSA this Halloween: Don’t forget that Ursula is a witch, too. 

I’m talking about The Little Mermaid’s campy, vampy sea witch, a fabulously purple, tentacled legend who is all too often excluded from the witch canon. The title is right in her name: she’s based on The Sea Witch from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, which served as the basis for The Little Mermaid (although Disney notably took some liberties to make the tale much lighter for its 1989 animated classic).

While it’s tragic Ursula doesn’t get the love she needs during spooky season, I’ve got a theory as to why. We’re looking up to the sky instead of under the sea when we think “witch.” But really, Ursula has all the makings of a magical villain — between her catchy signature tune, one-of-a-kind origin story, and lasting legacy — and it’s time we give her credit where credit is due this Halloween.   

Plenty of witches have left their mark on the culture, but Ursula is perhaps best known for her unforgettable musical moment. Arguably her most starry feature comes with her slinky number,  “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” which was first performed by Pat Carroll in Disney’s 1989 film. The legendary track features choice lyrics like “Yes, I’ve had the odd complaint / But on the whole, I’ve been a saint” and the simple, yet iconic, “The boss is on a roll!”

Ursula even proves that she’s talented and smart by throwing a little Latin into the mix: “Beluga, sevruga / Come winds of the Caspian Sea! / Larengix glaucitis / Et max laryngitis / La voce to me!”

Impressed? Well, you should be. The woman is singing, dancing (a choreographed number with EELS, no less) and speaking two languages.  

And although Ursula — and her devious musical number — are all animation, she’s got something to her not every witch can claim: roots in the real world. The Sea Witch was famously inspired by Divine, a drag queen who is best known for her appearance in Pink Flamingos, John Waters‘ 1972 comedy.

The Little Mermaid animator Rob Minkoff told Vogue that the character of Ursula was originally conceptualized as a Joan Collins-esque villain, but he crafted her into a “much more voluptuous” image after drawing inspiration from Pink Flamingos.

“Pink Flamingos was on an endless loop at the Bijou [Theater] at CalArts when I was a student there,” Minkoff told Vogue. “Divine seemed like such a great, larger than life character, and it just seemed like a funny and quirky idea to take [Ursula] and treat her more like a drag queen.”

Speaking with Time magazine earlier this year, Waters himself said Ursula and Divine are similar not only in looks, but also in nature.

“Ursula was an outsider. She was magic. She had a style that some people might not understand,” Waters told Time. “But she was proud of herself. She was confident. She never questioned her look. She never felt—as other people might have—that she looked weird or anything. She looked beautiful on her own terms.”

Ursula may have roots in the ’70s, but her influence has extended far beyond the decade of disco. Not only does the witch have a famous backstory, but she’s got iteration after iteration putting their own spin on it.

Since Ursula first appeared in The Little Mermaid in the late ’80s, she’s been reimagined multiple times, with different actors taking on the role originated by Carroll — who once said Ursula was “the one thing in my life that I’m probably most proud of,” per The New York Times.

“I don’t even care if, after I’m gone, the only thing that I’m associated with is Ursula,” Carroll once said. “That’s OK with me, because that’s a pretty wonderful character and a pretty marvelous film to be remembered by.”

Without Carroll, there would be no Ursula blueprint, but plenty of other stars have made the character their own. After Carroll’s turn, Sherie Rene Scott played Ursula in a stage musical in 2009, while the character made the jump to TV with ABC’s fairytale drama, Once Upon A Time. Merrin Dungey and Tiffany Boone split the role, with Boone playing the teenage version of the sea witch. In fact, Once Upon A Time loved Ursula so much (good taste), they included another version of her in a previous season, where Yvette Nicole Brown voiced Ursula the Sea Goddess.

And of course, I have to mention Decider favorite Whoopi Goldberg, who put her own twist on Ursula in 2017’s Descendants 2. Her performance was followed shortly after by Queen Latifah, who starred as Ursula in 2019’s The Little Mermaid Live!

More recently, Ursula popped in to hang out with The Simpsons in Disney+‘s 2022 short, The Simpsons: Welcome To The Club, in which she was voiced by Dawnn Lewis, who took over after Carroll’s death that same year.

The latest star bold enough to portray Ursula on the big screen was Melissa McCarthy, who memorably took on the role in this year’s live-action Little Mermaid. McCarthy told Today in May that she drew inspiration from Divine, as well as Carroll while getting into character as Ursula.

“I am a huge fan of drag, I always have been,” she said at the time. “There’s a bravado to it, and a self-deprecation to it.”

McCarthy added, “I can’t touch Pat Carroll. I mean, she’s perfection, so it’s, like, you just admire and bow.”

Much like McCarthy, I think it’s time we admire and bow to Ursula herself. The legend of the sea has inspired generations of Little Mermaid fans and cemented her status as one of Disney’s best villains.

And if Ursula still isn’t on your Halloween shortlist by now, I have one more point that I think will win this witch over with just about anyone: Ursula is an easy costume, and isn’t that what we’re all looking for days before Halloween, anyway? Sure, you could go all out and get a white wig or even dye your hair, but you really don’t need to. As long as you have a black and purple dress, a gold necklace, and some red lipstick, people will be able to connect the dots.

As Ursula once wisely said, “Life’s full of tough choices, isn’t it?” But placing Ursula firmly in the witch canon isn’t one, if you ask me.