Web Video / Rat Movie: Mystery of the Mayan Treasure

And one of the rats walked off a cliff.

"Rats, we're rats
We're the rats
We prey at night, we stalk at night
We're the rats"

Rat Movie: Mystery of the Mayan Treasure is a 5 minute comedy crime thriller short film uploaded to YouTube by content creator Jerma985, on the 6th of November 2014. It follows three thieves and their attempt to steal a treasure chest containing priceless Mayan treasure. The video was entirely created with 3D Movie Maker, featuring voice acting from Jerma and two of his YouTube friends, Star and Boo.

The video was an instant hit with Jerma's fanbase, and later regained popularity when it was featured in a livestream by Vinesauce on the 23rd of January 2018. Six months after the video's release, on the 7th of April 2015, a sequel short film was uploaded under the title Rat Movie 2: The Movie, double the length of the original.

On April 2021, Jerma proudly hosted a Reanimated version of the original video on his second channel, featuring 43 different animators.

See also The Blue Shell Incident, a Spiritual Successor created by Vinesauce Joel.

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The movies contain examples of:

Rat Movie: Mystery of the Mayan Treasure

• The Ace: The Cat Police are treated as this by the more bipedal cops. Not that it would take much to look good compared to them.
• Animal Stereotypes: The rats are sneaky and devious (if not always subtle) villains, and fear only the Cat Police, who are cool-headed, competent, and possibly evil space aliens.
• Anyone Can Die: And quite a few do. Even though a majority of them return for the sequel.
• All There in the Manual: Dr. Digestion and Button-Up Barry's names were revealed in a March 2020 livestream
• Bait-and-Switch Accusation: The competent-seeming police officer sounds about ready to bust the Giant Rat, based on the crime of... being a rat. But then he lets the rat know he's just kidding around with him. Because of course his conversation partner is not a rat.
  Police: Be careful though, there's apparently a giant rat around.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Apparently, the movie took place during Dr. Digestion's birthday. While this allows him to drive the car, he gets killed on the same day. The world explodes too, but he's not alive to worry about that.
• Comic Trio: Dick "Dastardly" Richards is the schemer that isn't as level-headed as he think he is, Button-Up Barry is the skeptical complainer, and Dr. Digestion is a Cloudcuckoolander who blindly goes with Richards' plan.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Dr. Digestion, big time. Also the fat cop, who cannot stop talking about food and seems to have only the most tenuous grasp on the basics of his profession.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Dr. Digestion, after watching the Giant Rat kill and eat his boss, notes that it reminds him of his favorite movie, The Movie, nonchalantly kills the Giant Rat when it tries to eat him too, and then goes back to wondering if maybe Frozen (2013) shouldn't be his favorite movie instead. Unfortunately for him, the rats have a backup king.
• Downer Ending: After the Giant Rat is defeated, the Earth explodes, killing off the surviving cast. Doesn't get any worse than that.
• Drives Like Crazy: Dr. Digestion. Things tend to explode around him when he drives.
  Dr. Digestion: It's my birthday!
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Cat Police end up blowing the world up after killing the second Giant Rat.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Dick Dastardly cannot believe what he's seeing when his cerulean-colored cohort in crime runs over a pedestrian while trying to find the diner where the Mayan treasure is kept.
  Dick Dastardly: Hey, you... You just... You're running over a guy right now. Are you fucking serious?
• Excuse Plot: When it comes time to explain why the Mayan treasure is so important, the characters begin mumbling.
• Gainax Ending: The world explodes mid-congratulations and a flying saucer with a cat head mounted on top flies into frame.
• Horrible Judge of Character: The human cops absolutely buy the rats' story that they aren't.
• Implausible Deniability: When Button-Up Barry asks how long the group's hideout has had a rat problem, Dick "Dastardly" Richards insists that it doesn't have one, despite the clear presence of rats.
• King Mook: The Giant Rat, who makes all of the rules.
• Klingon Promotion: The rats show a variation of this. Whenever the Giant Rat dies, another will grow to replace them.
  Giant Rat II: (grows to giant size) Now I get to be the giant rat, cool, surprise! (mauls Dr. Digestion)
• MacGuffin: The titular Mayan treasure.
• Mixed Metaphor: Dick "Dastardly" Richards introduces himself with one after breaking into a bar.
  Dick "Dastardly" Richards: Ladies and gentleman of the jury, may I have the attention of the class!
• My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: Button-Up Barry is not a fan of Dr. Digestion's driving.
  Barry: Remind me, the next time we do this, I'm getting my nan to drive.
• Never Trust a Title: Not only is the titular Mayan treasure an ordinary treasure chest with no known backstory behind it, it also gets completely forgotten about when the Cat Police arrive.
• Oh, Crap!: The Giant Rat completely loses his shit when the Cat Police arrive.
• Only Sane Man: Button-Up Barry comes across as this.
• Police Are Useless: The human police group fail a spot check and fall for the Giant Rat telling them that there are no rats. Averted with the Cat Police, who quickly spot a rat on one of the human policeman's back.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Button-Up Barry decides he's had enough of it when the Rats get a hold of Gerrard, and exits stage left.
  Barry: Ah, fuck this, I'm off!
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The Giant Rat, talking to the cops, after taking over the diner.
  Giant Rat: Hello sir, welcome to the Rat Café. There's no rats here. There's just, uh, hamburgers.
• Stylistic Suck: The use of 3D Movie Maker at a time when more sophisticated tools like Source Filmmaker are available is likely to this effect
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Dick "Dastardly" Richards doesn't trust Button-Up Barry not to screw up the heist and calls out Dr. Digestion for his bad driving, Barry doesn't particularly like either of them, and Digestion... is too dumb to really care about them one way or the other.
• Terrible Trio: Dick "Dastardly" Richards, Button-Up Barry, and Dr. Digestion are three thieves of conflicting personalities that attempt to steal the Mayan Treasure. They ultimately turn out to be near harmless, as, when they encounter the rats, Barry runs away, Dick "Dastardly" Richards is slain without a fight, and Dr. Digestion only takes one casualty before dying.
• Threat Backfire: Dick Dastardly tells the rats "over my dead body are you getting this treasure". They promptly comply.
• Villain Song: Rats! We're rats! We're the rats... We prey at night, we stalk at night, we're the rats! I'm the giant rat that makes all of the rules! Let's see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into...

Rat Movie 2: The Movie

• Ambiguous Ending: During the final scene, where the Giant Rat flushed the Noah's Ark Toothbrush down the 'Mount Doom' toilet, three action figures of Dick "Dastardly" Richards, Gerrard, and Sergeant Scritchy-Scratch are seen on the floor, with the clear implication that everything that has happened, including both Show Within a Show reveals, was just the Giant Rat role-playing with himself. Since the movie ends shortly afterwards, we have no further implication if that's truly the case.
• Back from the Dead: None of the deaths in the last movie stick. The Earth is back to normal and Dick "Dastardly" Richard and Gerrard are still alive.
• Big Damn Heroes: Gerarrd the Guardian comes in towards the end to stop the Cat Police. It doesn't stick. Both times.
• Comically Small Demand: Dick "Dastardly" Richards was about to sell the fake Noah's Ark Toothbrushes to the Cat Police, for a measly twenty dollars per brush.
• Creator's Apathy: In-Universe, the movie executive admits he doesn't mind if the sequel of the Rat Movie is terrible, since "as long as we sell the merchandise and keep the suits happy, who cares about the subject matter?". However, this is the cat attached to him that's forcing him to say this.
• Daydream Believer: Dick Richard thinks that Finding Nemo was a documentary and he (correctly, albeit) assumes that the blue toothbrush from the start of the movie, which was part of a movie they supposedly rented from Blockbuster, was an actual artifact.
• Faux Horrific: Everyone at the birthday party freaks out at the Clown's arrival as if he were some sort of Monster Clown, even though he doesn't do anything (besides wonder at everyone's sudden panic attack). The panic ends when the Clown gets knocked out.
• Fusion Dance: The Cat Police transform into their true form by fusing with each other. Even the police car joins in with the fusing. They also planned to have the Giant Rat fuse with them if he handed over the Noah's Ark Toothbrush, but the Giant Rat refused.
• Gainax Ending: There's two. First when the Giant Rat flushes the Noah's Ark Toothbrush down the toilet after brushing his teeth with it in the film Dick "Dastardly" Richards and Button-Up Barry were watching, and then, the revelation that the events of the film's last third might have been just a game the Giant Rat played by himself. And then he flushes the toothbrush down the toilet again.
• Grail in the Garbage: Dick "Dastardly" Richards and Button-Up Barry's subplot has them look for the Noah's Ark Toothbrush in the sewers, as the Giant Rat flushed it down the toilet. They don't find the Noah's Ark Toothbrush, but they find a large amount of toothbrushes that look exactly like the real deal.
• Heel–Face Return: For some unexplained reason, the Rats are now the heroes and Gerrard is on their side.
• Heroic Canines, Villainous Felines: The Dog Capital is a group of benevolent alien dogs that aligns with the Giant Rat, while the Cat Police are revealed to be Evil All Along aliens who plan to decimate Earth.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Gerrard lets the Giant Skeleton take him so that the Giant Rat can get the toothbrush and bring it to Mount Doom.
• Klingon Promotion: When the Giant Rat gets stuck in the toilet on the way to Michael's birthday party, he asks his subordinates to help free him. One decides instead to flush him back down, and that rat becomes the new Giant Rat.
• Mundane Object Amazement: The powerful artifact that has the Cat Police waging all-out war on the dogs, rats and the planet itself for control of the DNA of every animal on earth is... a blue toothbrush.
• Nested Story Reveal: Michael's birthday party turns out to be a pitch for a sequel to the Rat Movie presented to the rats. Then that, along with the Giant Rat obtaining the Noah's Ark Toothbrush from the dogs, turns out to be another movie that Dick Dastardly Richards and his partner had rented from Blockbuster. And then the Gainax Ending possibly implies that everything in the movie (including the two layers of nested movies) was just a game the Giant Rat was playing by himself.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • The Cat Police have attempted to obtain the Noah's Ark Toothbrush for centuries, and the members of the Dog Capital have guarded the toothbrush for over two thousand years. Despite their long rivalry, we only get to see a brief fight between the two factions.
  • Sometime after Dick "Dastardly" Richards and Button-Up Barry collected several fake Noah's Ark Toothbrushes in the sewer, the actual Noah's Ark Toothbrush is later recovered by the Giant Rat and Gerrard, and they're somehow are able to identify that the Noah's Ark Toothbrush isn't fake.
• One-Winged Angel: The Cat Police merge together towards the ends of the movie to destroy the Giant Rat, becoming a giant, human skeleton.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The cats employed this on the movie executive for the past two weeks, all seemingly in a ploy to unleash their Trojan Horse when the dogs would bring the Giant Rat into their lair to reveal the Noah's Ark Toothbrush to him.
• Rule of Three: All three parts of the movie end with the Giant Rat flushing something down the toilet. The first one ends with him taking the Clown and trying to bring him into the toilet on the way out. The second one ends with him stealing the Noah's Ark Toothbrush during the battle between the cats and dogs, brushing his teeth with it, then flushing it down the toilet. The third one ends with him taking the Noah's Ark Toothbrush on Gerrard's command, bringing it to Mount Doom (In reality, just the bathroom), then flushing it down the toilet again.
• Sequel Non-Entity: Dr. Digestion from the first movie is absent in Rat Movie 2: The Movie, which is notable mainly because Dick "Dastardly" Richards and Button-Up Barry are well and alive again. Dick "Dastardly" Richards' still wears the patch with Dr. Digestion's face on it, which is the closest thing to Dr. Digestion getting any acknowledgment.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: When the Giant Rat confronts the Cat Police, Dick and Barry both decide to high-tail it out of there before the situation escalates.
• Sequelitis: Deliberately invoked with the sequel pitch for the Rat Movie.
  Movie Executive: As a sequel, we're trying to do one very important thing. That's sell toys, sell books, and sell audio tapes. Now the movie itself could be about a blue toothbrush, and as long as we sell the merchandise and keep the suits happy, who cares about the subject matter?
  Giant Rat: But, I'd— what if you— what if I don't have a suit?
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: The Cat Police, who turn out to be intergalactic would-be conquerors seeking the Noah's Ark Toothbrushes to obtain the DNA of every living animal on earth, with which they intend to decimate the Earth with.
• Unexplained Recovery: Dick "Dastardly" Richards is still alive in this movie, despite being killed by the rats in the first movie. That's not even getting into the world itself.
• The Unfought: Despite killing Dick "Dastardly" Richards and Dr. Digestion in the first movie, as well as being in the center of the conflict between the dogs and cats, the Giant Rat never fights anyone during the events of the movie. He does threaten the Cat Police, but he flees when they turn into a Giant Skeleton. Unlike most examples, the protagonist is the one who is never fought.
• Vocal Evolution: As oppose to their cheery voice in the first movie, the Cat Police speak in a deep and monotonous voice, reflecting their new characterization as evil aliens.

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