Dash it all, Basil! The queen’s in danger. Olivia’s counting on us. We’re about to be horribly splattered, and all you can do is feel sorry for yourself. Well, I know you can save us. But if you’ve given up, then why don’t we set it off now and be done with it!
I have been feeling incredibly uninspired lately, thus the lack of posts. My husband was watching The Great Mouse Detective yesterday and I thought that a crossover would be fun, which I admit is not very inspired either. But there you go!
Not a corner of London is safe while Ratigan is at large. There’s no evil scheme he wouldn’t concoct, no depravity he wouldn’t commit! Who knows what dastardly scheme that that villain may be plotting even as we speak?
Happy Halloween, my fellow Vincent Price lovahs! Time now for my final delicious, demonic VP movie review of the month:
TRY not to pee your pants.
I would be remiss if I got all the way to the end of October without reviewing this amazing gem of a movie – after all, it holds a special place in my dead-man-lovin’ heart: The Great Mouse Detective was the first Vincey movie I ever saw.
That’s right, homies. I’m a certified child of the nineties and I spent many a countless hour in the second grade reenacting scenes from The Great Mouse Detective with my friends on the playground. Truth, y’all.
As most of you fanatics already know, The Great Mouse Detective was released by Disney in 1986. Vincey voices the nefarious Professor Ratigan (aka: the rodent version of Moriarty), and lemme just say: the man was born to play this role. He’s simply one of those rare and gifted actors who can pull off the cartoony thing – effortlessly! And the fact that the movie is animated only serves to highlight his one-of-a-kind voice. Especially when he does that adorable puppy dog thang with it (y'all know what I’m talkin’ about!).
To add to the scrumptiousness of this role, Vincey even does his own singing! Twice! First in The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind, an unforgettable song and dance number with music by Henry Mancini (namedrop!), and second in Goodbye So Soon (“you followed me, I followed you, we were like each other’s shadows for awhile” – yeah, I’ve had those lyrics stuck in my head every day for the past fourteen years).
A few of my favorite Professor Ratigan quotes (these prrrrrobably won’t make any sense to you unless you’ve seen the movie – and if you haven’t, you got bigger problems on your hands, mah friend):
“Thank you, thank you…but it hasn’t always been champagne and caviar…"
“Youwill remember to smile for the camera, won’t you?”
And my number one favorite Ratigan line of all time:
“Oohhhhh, you want to lighten the loaddddd?”
Seriously folks, watch this film if you want to study how to be a deliciously evil, fun-as-hell-to-watch movie villain. The character of Ratigan is one of the more complex, and therefore more intriguing, Disney villains to date, and the uniqueness of this character is also one of the things that set this movie apart from most Disney films in general. I love characters who are conflicted about who they are, who are trying to suppress their true selves in order to be accepted. And let’s face it: how much more genius can you get than a “foul stenchus rodentus sewer rat” (“dooon’t say it!”) pretending to be an upper-crust mouse? Knowing that this character has had to fight an internal battle all along makes the climactic Big Ben clock tower scene, in which Ratigan finally allows his dark side to emerge, all the more fascinating to watch.
I adore this movie and I always will. Not just because it was my first Vincey movie ever, but because it manages to encompass all of the things that made Vincent Price the unique and unforgettable actor he was.
I started working on this crossover idea about 6 months ago, but… well, life happened. I’m glad it’s finally done, I had lots of fun working on it, and it’s been a while since I drew and had fun. Please don’t think too hard about heights/proportions; they’re a bit like the Muppets
[id: Full colour image of Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens, drawn as mice in the style of Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective. /end id]
