Our all time favourite Disney baddie has always been Gaston but our second favourite is Professor Padriac Rattigan from The Great Mouse Detective. The Great Mouse Detective (released in 1986) is Disney's own unique take of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Basil was the title character- the Sherlock Holmes of the piece, his assistant was his Mr Watson, and Professor Ratigan was the Professor James Moriarty of the piece and Basil's arch enemy. He is an evil genius/mad scientist and also quite wealthy. He was voiced by the legendary horror actor Vincent Price. Vincent Price himself said that Rattigan was his absolute favourite role. We don't blame him, in fact when we were both 13 we went off to a friends house and watched it on video. We loved every minute of it and Ratigan was a blast. Our friend Tyrone The Terrible has Vincent Price as one of his idols, he also has Peter Lorre, Jack Nicholson and Tim Curry as his idols as well. Vincent Price's voice was just PERFECT in the Great Mouse Detective- so much creepiness and hamminess. Vincent Price was a horror movie legend, he played mainly evil mad scientist type roles. We might get the Great Mouse Detective on dvd, and so should you- it's a great movie. We loved Vincent Price as the voice of Ratigan, we also like him doing the monologue at the end of Alice Cooper's song Devil's Food and the rap he did for the hit Michael Jackson song "Thriller" especially his evil laugh at the end. At Halloween parties my friends had they would ALWAYS play Michael Jackson's Thriller to get things in a halloween mood, we would also play lots of halloween games. Ratigan is a rat, but he does NOT like being called or refered to as one- it upsets him. And if you've seen the movie- you know what happens when someone upsets him.....they end up as a meal for his pet cat Felicia!
Here's Vincent Price's memorable monologue from the Alice Cooper song Devil's Food.
"Leaving lepidoptera - please, don't touch the display, little boy, aha cute! Moving to the next aisle we have arachnida, the spiders, our.. finest collection. This friendly little devil is the heptothilidi, unfortunately harmless. Next to him, the nasty licosa raptoria, his tiny fangs cause creeping ulcerations of the skin *laugh*. And here, my prize, the Black Widow. Isn't she lovely?.. and so deadly. Her kiss is fifteen times as poisonous as that of the rattlesnake. You see her venom is highly neurotoxic, which is to say that it attacks the central nervous system causing intense pain, profuse sweating, difficulty in breathing, loss of consciousness, violent convulsions and, finally.. death. You know what I think I love the most about her is her inborn need to dominate, possess. In fact, immediately after the consummation of her marriage to the smaller and weaker male of the species she kills and eats him - *laugh* oh, she is delicious.. and I hope he was! Such power and dignity - unhampered by sentiment. If I may put forward a slice of personal philosophy, I feel that man has ruled this world as a stumbling dimented child-king long enough! And as his empire crumbles, my precious Black Widow shall rise as his most fitting successor!"
Vincent Price's last film role as the kindly inventor in the Tim Burton classic Edward Scissorhands.
Here is the rap from the hit halloween song Thriller by Michael Jackson.
"Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'awl's neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shel
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller."
Click on this link to hear his evil laugh: If you dare!
http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/play/port_lofi.cfm/sound_iid.15716
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