The Rodents of Disney - From Mickey Mouse to Ratatouille

For some reason Walt Disney seems to have had a fascination with rodents throughout the years, starting with their signature star, Mickey Mouse, and most recently the Pixar star, Remi the rat from Ratatouille. These mice and rats have run the gamut in looks and talents and reality through the years, and Disney having Pixar in their back pockets certainly is helpful for turning the tide in the right direction of believability.

Walt Disney first brought us Mickey Mouse in the movie Steamboat Willie in a black and white film from 1928. While we could tell Mickey was a mouse, even without his name, he certainly didn't do mouse things or have any true resemblance to a mouse, at least not the ones I used to see and try to avoid stuck in the traps at my old workplace. As far as the voice, mice do squeak, so maybe that odd falsetto of Mickey's was supposed to resemble that. And, of course, it's been debated all over the place. Why did this mouse have Pluto, a dog for a pet, and what was with that size differential? He should have been really tiny compared to this dog. I'm not even going to get into the debate on why Pluto and Goofy were both dogs. That's a whole other article.

Despite the fact that Mickey Mouse remained Disney's mascot, and is so still to this day, to the extent of the universal souvenir from Disney World or Disneyland being a set of mouse ears, it seemed they just couldn't help from bringing more cartoon rodents to us. The Rescuers featured mice trying to save an orphan girl and riding on a giant albatross. Not much was based in reality with that one, and they were wearing clothing as well. Speaking of that, why did Mickey rarely ever wear a shirt? This was similar to another mouse movie, The Great Mouse Detective. In this one the mouse resembles Sherlock Holes wearing his outfit, smoking a pipe, and all. Again, not really based too much on reality and looked too "cartoony."

Animation company Pixar started working with Disney in the 1990s, increasing the overall look and feel of the characters. Their movements and shapes just seem so much more real, starting with Toy Story. Buzz and Woody came off as real toys, not just cartoon images. This month they released the newest Pixar/Disney animation film, Ratatouille. The "star," Remi, is a rat in Paris, dreaming of being a world class chef, like his hero Gastineau. Okay, so the whole wanting to be a chef part is not based in any type of reality, but he and his family do rat things and look like rats. The scavenge in garbage for food and hide in ceilings of houses. They also don't wear clothing. The humans can't hear them talk, but they do talk to each other, which is somehow realistic. Real rats communicate with each other someway, evident if we don't understand it.

Remi, of course, follows his dream, but he doesn't walk around the kitchen of a restaurant being easily accepted as a chef, because he is ... a rat. He has to hide under tables and behind pots, avoiding flames and spatulas, because no one wants a rat in their kitchen. He only knows of flavors that go together because his nose can sniff it out. He begins working with a young aspiring chef (a human) and has to help him do the cooking by hiding in his chef's hat. At no time does the rat ever don an apron or hat. He looks and acts like a real rat. He can't do any of the chopping or anything himself; he has to have the human help him. It has to be a team effort, because he's a rat and can't do it on his own.

The only other rodents in Walt Disney history that closely resembled Remi in Ratatouille are the mice in Cinderella. True, Cinderella made cute little clothes for them, but I can see a person that has lost touch with reality making clothing for mice. If it's done for dogs, why not mice? And, well, Cinderella had no social life to keep her busy at that point anyway, so they kind of are her friends. What helps keep their reality in check is that they do mouse things and are seen as mice, having mice positions in Cinderella's house. Well, until the fairy godmother turns them into white horses for the pumpkin coach.

This all leaves me with much hope for the future of animation and the future of animals in particular in animation, if we can come this far with just rodents. Pixar seems to have taken the world of animation and made it more realistic and believable, yet still leaving us with characters to adore. While the mice look so much more realistic, it seems to have brought even more realism into their stories and the characters as they are developed. We've come a long way to get from Mickey Mouse to Remi in Ratatouille, leaving hope for the genre as a whole.