Some Poor, Unfortunate Souls Were Scarred For Life When Ursula's Head Fell Off At Disneyland

When you're a kid, there's very little that comes to being as cool as getting to see your favorite cartoon characters up close and personal, which is what makes places like Disneyland so appealing.

Sure, it's all well and good to see characters like Mickey and Minnie Mouse on our small screens, but part of us just wants to BELIEVE that they're actually real and we could possibly interact with them. So of course, getting to see them in person just fuels our beliefs all the more, and turns places like that into something pretty special.

Who wouldn't want to get to hang out with characters like Aladdin or Winnie the Pooh? Sure, deep down in our hearts we knew they were all actors in costumes, but it didn't matter because they were THERE! Even the animatronic non-human characters were enough to convince us that magic was real and we'd actually gotten to visit a fantasy world.

Of course, a lot of the illusion hinges on things going smoothly, and when they don't, it can be pretty disastrous for someone's sense of whimsy and wonder. Case and point: some tourists at Disneyland recently encountered a jarringly headless sea witch, and the results are about as hilarious and horrifying as you'd expect.

As the Huffington Post reports, people were in for a pretty unfortunate shock while on Disneyland's The Little Mermaid ride, as Ursula the sea witch appears to have lost her head over what to do about Ariel.

As documented in videos and pictures by several Twitter users, people discovered that the animatronic Ursula's head had fallen off of her body, and was dangling in place by just a few strings. It was possibly the most metal thing to ever happen at a Disney park.

Worst (or best) of all, the witch kept singing even with her head literally hanging on by a thread, making this less the "Happiest Place on Earth" and more the stuff of our worst nightmares.