The Little Mermaid (franchise) as good a villain as Ursula. Disney's The Little Mermaid is an animated television series featuring the adventures of Ariel as a mermaid prior to the events of the first film. This series is the first Disney television series to be spun off from a major animated film. "The Little Mermaid" premiered in the fall of 1992 with the animated prime time special called "A Whale of a Tale", then moved to Saturday mornings. This series originally appeared on CBS, with an original run from 1992 to 1994. It was later shown in reruns on The Disney Channel and Toon
Ursula (The Little Mermaid) Clements eventually learned that Walt Disney himself had actually attempted to adapt the fairy tale into a feature-length animated film as early as the 1930s, but the project was ultimately shelved due in part to its sad ending. Clements suggested "The Little Mermaid" to Katzenberg, who finally green-lit it after having first rejected it. Hardly present in Andersen's original story, the sea witch is not a prominent character and lacks a proper name. Among Clements' ideas to alter the story, the filmmaker decided to "make the witch more of a villain", describing Ursula as "a fun character to develop" into