Jeffrey Katzenberg, now chairman of Walt Disney Studios,
and Roy Disney, vice chairman of the board of the Walt Disney Company,
inherited one other picture from the previous management that would
cause them problems. It was a picture planned to be quite different,
light and fun-filled, with whimsy and charm, and largely influenced
by the popularity of the British comedy group, Monty Python.
It was based on the stories by Eve Titus about Basil of Baker Street,
a mouse who lived next door to Sherlock Holmes and shared many of
his traits and talents. There was a villain who was known as
Ratigan, a takeoff on Moriarty, Sherlock's nemesis, and there was
a mystery to be solved and a gang of villains to be caught.
The story had all the right elements: the characters had the
necessary appeal; the plot was one that could be easily handled with
animation; and everyone felt that while it was not powerful it would
be a happy picture filled with the old values that had made the Disney
films so successful.
They had the problems that haunt the production
of every film, however, and there was still much to be learned.
For one thing, the audience never had a chance to know the characters
or their relationships before the story was off and running.
In addition, the animators were having their troubles establishing
the crucial personalities through the acting. Veteran animator
Tom Sito claimed that the earlier animators had achieved a fine ability
to "grasp the acting in a scene...They could synthesise a performance
into two key poses. This is what the animators of this generation
lack. They have characters flapping their arms around, mugging
and doing all these superfluous gestures and not communicating their
ideas." Overacting and lack of focus have always been problems
with lesser actors in the theatre.
The personality of Ratigan, the villainous leader
of the rat pack, had come not so much from the demands of the story
but from a provocative photo found in an old book. Supervising
animator Glen Keane told of how he was thumbing through these "photographs
of people of London in the 1800s, of railroad men, and there was this
one guy smoking a cigar he had a top hat and there was just
something about this guy this Ratigan...this rat sucking the
cigar, completely dressed to the hilt, he was sharp and perfect
he's a sewer rat dressed like a king and he lives as a king!"
Glen came up with another procedure which added
to the believability and dimension of his character. He explained:
"I wrote of a history of Basil as a child and Ratigan as a child.
What kind of kid was Ratigan? Why did he end up going this path?
What was it like at home for him? In animating it, it just felt
like you were spending some time with this guy you weren't
just plopping down at this point in history as if there never had
been years before."
Once again Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy Disney tried
to breathe more excitement and tempo into this mild-mannered story.
They changed the name to The Great Mouse Detective, which
was certainly more provocative than Basil of Baker Street.
Jeffrey was sure that a way could be found to systematise animation,
as in a live-action film, keeping the cost down and properly preparing
the material. Storyman Vance Gerry recalled the problem:
"The best things in the [older] pictures didn't have much to
do with the story. Those were the things people remembered and
they [the story crew] should be trying to get these things, and if
you did get it, it was one of the first things Jeffrey cut out because
it was too vulgar."
Both Jeffrey and Roy knew what they wanted and what
the picture needed and it was frustrating trying to find the places
that could be patched up to make it all more interesting and exciting.
They cut out slow spots, giving up quaintness and subtleties in order
to keep the tempo from sagging, but they could not ass the extra entertainment
that was needed.
Several years later Jeffrey summed up his reactions to the finished
film this way: "Everything about The Great Mouse Detective
is at a lever of 80%. Everything about it is pretty good opposed
to GREAT. For instance, Ratigan is intimidating but not
intimidating enough. The music is passable and the characters
are...not accessible enough. the story a good story, but not
great." Then he hastened to add: "I don't want
to sound disrespectful to the movie, because I think we couldn't be
where we are today without it. That movie us part of out learning
curve." Then he added Oliver & Company as
another important "learning" film, and concluded, "Without
those movies, we wouldn't have Little Mermaid, and Beauty
and the Beast, and Aladdin."