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"Oh I love it when I'm nasty." - Professor Ratigan
“A now, as your new royal consort, I have a few slight suggestions.” The dastardly criminal mastermind, Professor Padraic Ratigan, looks positively regal in this exceptional lot featuring a hand-painted production cel from The Great Mouse Detective. The cel captures the fan-favorite villain in an elaborate purple military-style uniform, complete with brilliant gold epaulets, medals, sash, and a towering ceremonial hat. Reclining with supreme confidence before the mechanical Queen, Ratigan's smug expression and dramatically gesturing hands perfectly communicate the character's enormous ego and delight in his apparent triumph. The rich hand-painted colors, bold character outlines, and wonderfully expressive pose make this an especially striking image of one of Disney animation's most memorable villains.
Appearing at approximately the 1:00:04 timestamp, this image comes from the memorable sequence in which Ratigan assumes the title of royal consort beside his mechanical replacement for the Queen. The scene represents the culmination of his elaborate scheme to seize control of Mousedom, with Ratigan enjoying his moment of apparent victory and behaving every bit like the monarch he has always imagined himself to be. His grand costume and relaxed, almost theatrical pose beautifully reflect the character's mixture of sophistication, vanity, menace, and outrageous self-confidence.
Eve Titus wrote a series of stories about Basil of Baker Street, a mouse who lived next door to Sherlock Holmes and shared many of the famous detective's skills and characteristics. Walt Disney Studios adapted the Titus stories into the wonderful feature film The Great Mouse Detective, while still maintaining the connection to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes characters, even though the familiar detective world was transformed into a remarkably detailed society of mice. The resulting film was directed by Ron Clements, featured music by Henry Mancini, and was released on July 2, 1986. Although the script reportedly took approximately four years to develop, the animation itself was completed in about a year, with an estimated total budget of $14 million.
Ratigan was designed and animated by Walt Disney master animator Glen Keane, who gave the character an extraordinary combination of elegant refinement and explosive menace. The inspiration for Ratigan was Professor James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's great nemesis in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Ratigan was famously voiced by legendary Hollywood actor Vincent Price (1911–1993), whose wonderfully distinctive voice was perfectly suited to the character's dramatic personality. Price reportedly considered Ratigan his favorite role because two songs were written especially for him: “The World's Greatest Criminal Mind” and “Goodbye, So Soon.”
Ratigan's magnificent self-regard and grandiose ambitions are perhaps best summarized when he explains his scheme to his henchmen: “My friends, we are about to embark on the most odious, the most evil, the most diabolical scheme of my illustrious career. A crime to top all crimes. A crime that will live in infamy! Tomorrow evening, our beloved monarch celebrates her Diamond Jubilee and, with the enthusiastic help of our good friend, Mr. Flaversham, it promises to be a night she will never forget! Her last night, and my first, as supreme leader of all Mousedom!"
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