Nightmare Fuel / Oliver & Company

♫ It's a big old, bad old, tough old town, it's true... ♫

• Sykes is generally considered one of Disney's craziest, scariest, and nastiest villains, even by today's standards. Disney didn't sugar-coat how loan sharks are in real life. More specifically, mobster loan sharks (there are independent ones who aren't as hands-on), which is what Sykes heavily implies to be, even though he has no henchmen other than his dogs. You do NOT want to be in debt to a mob-sponsored loan shark. Robert Loggia's shady and raspy voice isn't a slouch, either.
  • Robert Loggia's voice for Sykes also qualifies, making him sound as horrifying on the inside as on the outside.
  • Most of the other Disney villains were terrifying and evil in their own right. Still, Sykes trumps most of them due to following in Lady Tremaine, Frollo's and (to a lesser extent) Mother Gothel's footsteps, in that, he isn't even played for laughs. He is highly typical and realistic. People like him exist in real life.
  • It gets better: The chances of you getting attacked by an evil queen, a sorcerer, a sea witch, or a pirate are slim-to-none. And no one has good publicity like Gaston. But are there Ax-Crazy Loan Sharks out there who beat up and even go as far as to murder the people who don't pay their debts? You bet your biscuits!
  • Sykes' Establishing Character Moment as he rolls his window up Fagin's neck.
    Sykes: Now I lent you money, and I don't see it. Do you know what happens when I don't see my money, Fagin? People get hurt. People like you get hurt. Do I make myself clear?
    Fagin: (wheezing) Clear! Pretty clear!
  • The Polish version makes it more terrifying:
    Sykes: You were given a lot of money and you try to act dumb. Do you know what happens to people who try to fool me, Fagin? I crush them like bugs. And you are an especially miserable bug. Do I make myself clear?
  • Sykes is also notable for being the first Disney character to wield a handgun onscreen and in the presence of a child. He even visibly (and accurately) loads a magazine. Thankfully, he never fires it.
  • The real kicker? This version of Sykes is different from the one from the novel, who was just a London street thug, and though he wasn't any less violent and cruel, he did at least show some remorse in some of his crimes, and has a few Pet the Dog moments. This version of Sykes has none of those qualities.
• A moment of Sykes that stands out is his phone call that Fagin walks in on, where he tells someone how to go about correctly murdering a person and disposing of their body with the "cement shoes" method. He even adds, "Don't kill him yet," - implying it's a gang killing designed to set fear into the hearts of rivals. The way he speaks so casually about the whole thing only adds to the fear, chuckling and lightly joshing with the caller like a manager instructing a new employee how properly file some paper forms.
• When Sykes is spelling out Jenny's ransom, you can tell he is on the phone with Winston, telling him to contact Jenny's parents. You can't hear the other side of the phone conversation, but you can only imagine how Winston must be feeling now, knowing that his employers' daughter, whom they trusted him with, is in a life-or-death situation. Especially since the audience knows what Sykes doesn't - that Jenny's parents are out of the country, and this being the '80s, Winston can't quickly get in touch with them.
  Sykes: That's funny, Mr. Winston, but I don't think you really appreciate the situation. Someone could get hurt. Just get the old man on the phone and tell 'im it's about his daughter... Jenny.
  • The threatening look Sykes gives Jenny when he catches her struggling to escape could be interpreted as non-verbal Perp Sweating, given he's tied her to a chair placed under an ample bright light.
• Sykes and his Dobermans attempt to break down the door to his office, believing Jenny managed to break free and lock him out. This may seem like Stupid Evil on his part, but at the same time, this is only moments after he caught her struggling.
• Never mind how it ends; the entire penultimate fight between Dodger and Roscoe and DeSoto is really vicious.
  • Not to mention Fagin’s panicked attempt to explain his ransom plan while Dodger is fighting the two Dobermans. He frantically explains his plan to Sykes to appease him and get him to call off his dogs. Any dog owner would be terrified if they saw their beloved pet in such a brutal fight.
    • Syke's complete passiveness to the above situation blatantly shows that he's sicced Roscoe and DeSoto on some poor schmuck(s) many, many times. Even with all the clamor of Dodger getting mauled, Sykes (who at the moment is casually assembling a model tanker) is still aware enough to hear Fagin's desperate prattling and register that Fagin could indeed still pay him back (at which point he gives another casual finger-snap to call off his Dobermans).
  • Now imagine the above happening to young Jenny since Sykes planned to do that to her.
• Also worth mentioning is how Fagin, after practicing his proposal to Sykes with Dodger, walks up to Sykes's door with utmost confidence, only to immediately start cowering when Sykes suddenly bellows, "YEAH, WHO IS IT?!" through the intercom. You can feel Fagin's anxiety from this moment up to when he starts tripping over his words to Sykes, who loses patience and initially refuses to hear him out.
• When Sykes sees the "pizza delivery man," he arms himself with a realistic-looking handgun, remarking, "I didn't order any pizza." It shows how dangerously savvy he is.
  • He proceeds to load his handgun right in front of Jenny, and the poor girl's face screams Oh, Crap!, given that she has just seen Oliver and Fagin's dogs on the monitors, giving her hope of rescue, and now that hope is likely about to be scuppered as Sykes is clearly intending to find them and kill them.
• Jenny's face when she, Oliver, and Fagin's dogs fall from the crane, it's only for a split second, but we're talking about a frightened child who is seemingly about to fall to her death until everyone falls onto the conveyor.
  • This only leads to a collective Oh, Crap! moment for the whole gang as Sykes and his Dobermans await them at the bottom. They would have been Doberman chow if Fagin hadn't burst in when he did.
• Everything with Sykes' vicious Dobermans, specifically DeSoto, who seems more hostile and merciless than Roscoe. Proved when DeSoto finds Oliver despite Roscoe telling him to forget about it and informing him it would be better to heed their master:
  DeSoto: I like cats! I like to eat em!
  • Roscoe isn't that much better himself; seconds later, he wants to kill Oliver for defending himself. He leaves threatening Oliver at the top of his list against Fagin's Pack.
• Sykes' dogs getting electrocuted on the subway. Onscreen. Intense.
  • To elaborate, Roscoe grabs Dodger's scarf and tries dragging him off the car. There is a moment of suspense as Dodger gets pulled closer to the vehicle’s edge, but he escapes by slipping his bandanna off at the last moment, throwing Roscoe onto the tracks. The poor dog limply flops around on the tracks as he yelps and whimpers, and sparks and bolts fly everywhere, something which even Dodger is horrified to witness! Seconds later, thanks to Oliver, DeSoto falls to a Sound-Only Death that is more similar. It's more than a little horrifying; even Dodger and Oliver are both horrified by what happened to DeSoto, implying that they never intend to see both Dobermans die that way.
• Sykes catching the train. Especially since we get a quick split-second close-up on his eyes as he comprehends what is about to happen just as the train kills him in a fiery blaze, and throwing the remains of him and his car into the East River. If you listen closely, you can hear his horrified scream just before his death.
  • Imagine being the poor driver of the train! He's on his usual evening route, nothing out of the ordinary... until he gets to the bridge, where suddenly there are somehow two vehicles on the track! That shouldn't even be possible unless they somehow drove onto the bridge for some insane reason, and there's nothing the driver can do; even the emergency brake won't stop the train in time. All he can do is desperately pull the train horn, hoping the drivers can get out of the way in time. One does... but the other doesn't.
• As terrifying as Sykes and his dogs can be, the stray dog pack that appears at the movie's start (pictured above) is not much more pleasant. Not only do the hounds look rabid, but they menacingly chase Oliver around and likely would have killed him right there had the poor kitten not been able to evade them by climbing a fence. Although they are never seen again in the movie, nor are they mentioned, they seemingly give Oliver a slight trauma regarding dogs, as later in the film, when he encounters another dog (Dodger), he is quick to demand that said dog keeps away from him.
• Georgette screeching at Oliver after finding him eating from her bowl. It’s comparatively less frightening than every other example, but it can definitely startle some between the close-up of her enraged expression and how loud she gets at the end of her rant after she was clearly withholding her anger for a while.

---