Hand-painted animation cell of Ursula, Flotsam, and Jetsam from <i>The Little Mermaid</i>. With her back to the audience, Ursula has both arms extended with her right arm pointing upward. This film is a cinematic adaption of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale.
The character, drawn by Disney Studios artist-animator Ruben Aquino, is a cecaelia or half woman, half octopus, and is loosely patterned after Divine, the larger-than-life female impersonator of John Waters films. Comedienne Pat Carroll voiced the character of Ursula. The cel also depicts the characters of Flotsam and Jetsam, a pair of moray eels that are Ursula henchmen. It was the final Disney feature film to use the traditional hand-painted cel method of animation and is generally regarded as the film that revived the classic Disney animated feature film.