The Little Mermaid (1989 film)/Awesome

The 1989 film

 * Awesome Music: Especially some of the new pieces from The Musical.
 * Ursula's awesome Villain Song, "Poor Unfortunate Souls".
 * The opening/end credits music.
 * Ursula's song "Poor Unfortunate Souls" was the most breathtaking, show-stealing moment of The Little Mermaid. Not to mention the sheer awesomeness that is her Evil Laugh. Screw Jafar, Ursula's evil laugh scared the crap out of me.
 * Seconded. And the French version is incredible too, thanks to Micheline Dax's performance (though some could argue that she borders on Narm sometimes... Not that it's a bad thing ! YMMV).
 * Of course, there's also "Under the Sea", the musical number that firmly announced that Disney animation, after years of cultural near-irrelevance, was back. This was the first movie this troper recalls where she and her family sat through a significant portion of the end credits, just to hear this song again.
 * Crazy Awesome: Eric does a LOT of stuff that no reasonable person would do, and comes off as a major Badass because of it.
 * The final battle, especially Eric who shows off how totally badass he is.
 * Eric's dispatchment of Ursula DEFINITELY qualifies.
 * Hell, Eric has a ton of them over the course of the first movie, he's basically a prototype version of Aladdin.
 * Scuttle, after being little more than the comic relief for the entire movie, is told: "find a way to stop that wedding!" He does, in the most awesome way possible.
 * In that same scene, Eric's dog Max gets a Moment of Awesome by saving Scuttle from being strangled by Vanessa/Ursula by biting her in the ass!
 * For this troper, found Ariel rescuing her Prince from drowning was awesome! Granted he did save his damsel in the end, but you got to admit, Ariel is like the first Disney Princess to ever RESCUE her love interest!
 * Ursula is quite possibly the only villain to put together a plan and have it work completely. She suckered Ariel, traded her for Triton and essentially took over the entire ocean.
 * Ursula's transformation from the beautiful Vanessa to the monstrous sea-witch. Seriously, only Ursula can mix Squick with pure awesome.
 * Ariel being naked from the waist down after her first transformation is pretty awesome.
 * Any time Triton uses his trident usually becomes a CMOA.
 * Well, except that one time.

The Series

 * In the episode "Thingamajigger", the Evil Manta gets his hands on the eponymous item (actually a boot someone dropped into the sea) so he can theaten King Triton with it. (At the moment the boot was found, a stray cannonball from ships fighting on the surface fell and destroyed the rocks the boot happened to be pointing at - so they assumed the boot did it!) Ariel, however, manages to scare him away by pointing two "Thingamajiggers" at him like a pair of guns.
 * What's even better about it is that the "Thingamajiggers" Ariel pointed at Manta belonged to her future husband Eric.
 * In "Whale of a tale", Ariel adopts a baby killer whale, Spot, who got lost by his family. And he is too inocent, scared and childish to go back to the wild ocean. However, when three sharks attack Ariel, who has been like a mother to him, Spot gets mad. And the way he beats the crap out these terrifying sharks, is just... beautiful.
 * The music in this episode is so good it makes all the others look lame.

The Musical

 * Whereas Eric saves the day, it's quite different in the stage/Broadway musical. Without her magic shell that she was given by her father, Poseidon, Ursula will die without it. In the climax, Ariel smashes the shell, destroying Ursula AND saving the day!