Hi Internet People,
I thought I’d keep with the Sherlock theme and talk about one of my favorite Disney movies of all time in more detail, The Great Mouse Detective, which is one of those Disney movies that only a handful of people have seen. If you haven’t seen it, the movie has some things that most Disney movies just don’t have. There’s drinking, smoking, a burlesque show, and murder. That’s some pretty intense stuff for a Mickey Mouse approved movie. The Great Mouse Detective is the perfect movie for Sherlock Holmes fans and even includes a brief, and very shadowy cameo, by the great detective and Dr. Watson. With all the buzz about Sherlock Holmes during the holiday season I started thinking more and more about this movie and Basil’s arch enemy, Ratigan.
Our title detective is a mouse named Basil who solves crimes all over London, well you don’t get to be a great solver of crimes without gaining some enemies. Much like Sherlock Holmes, Basil has a criminal mastermind who constantly tries to pull one over on him named Ratigan. Now most Disney villains are pretty evil, but Ratigan really takes the cake. He starts off the movie by kidnapping a toy maker and threatening to kill the man’s only daughter unless he helps him to take over the British government. That’s already some intense criminal behavior, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg for Rattigan.
During the song sequence for “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” all of the henchmen are singing about how evil and crafty their boss is, but the very drunk Bartholomew makes a bit of a faux pas. When they get to one of the choruses that goes, “Oh, Ratigan, Oh, Ratigan, You’re the tops and that’s that, To Ratigan, To Ratigan,” Bartholomew slurs out, “The world’s greatest criminal rat.” The song immediately stops and Ratigan loses his mind. While the henchmen try to save him, Bartholomew winds up being fed to the very fluffy cat, Felicia. Ratigan literally kills one of his own people for calling him a rat, even though he totally is a rat. While other Disney villains have killed people, Ratigan is the only one to do it just because he was upset about something.
At the end of the movie Ratigan tries to murder Basil and during this scene basically rats out. He goes from being refined and cultured to snarling, long nailed, and almost naked. It’s like watching The Hulk only way freakier. Besides already being terrifying the voice work of Vincent Price adds the perfect touch of fright in all of his scenes. If you haven’t seen The Great Mouse Detective you should totally check it out, especially if you like anything Sherlock related.
I’m going to be live tweeting Daredevil today with @_JonathanWhite_ and @quietlikeastorm. We are going to try and finish the first season, we only have four episodes left I think. You can check that out on Twitter, @kleffnotes. We’d love if you joined us. I’ll also have a new and very exciting video up today on my YouTube channel. You can also find a bunch of cool articles on The Nerdy Girl Express.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine