The Great Mouse Detective / YMMV

Accidental Innuendo: "Oh, I love it when I'm nasty!"
Adaptation Displacement: There are actual books about "Basil of Baker Street". Many people just assume Disney made an original film based off of Sherlock Holmes.
Adorkable:
- Could briefly be used to describe Basil after Olivia's My Parents Are Dead moment. He gets very awkward and tongue-tied before snapping back to his usual self. There's also the scene where he's awkwardly trying to cheer up Dawson. "I say...Dawson, old chap?" with a nervous smile.
- Dawson. Slightly clumsy and awkward, but very friendly.
Awesome Ego: A common reason as to why Basil and Ratigan's characters are both enjoyed. Despite both of them being Insufferable Geniuses, their Ham-to-Ham Combat is entertaining enough to make them appealing.
Awesome Music:
- Henry Mancini, people. Why this film didn't get a soundtrack release at the time is a mystery (and when it did, it wasn't via Disney — step forward Varèse Sarabande with the re-release in 1992).
- Despite the film as a whole not being a musical, the filmmakers couldn't resist giving Vincent Price not one, but two Villain Songs as Ratigan in the form of "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" and "Goodbye So Soon", and both songs are just as delightfully nasty as he is.
Best Known for the Fanservice: Show this to people or bring it up and one thing they'll remember is the Miss Kitty mouse's song and dance in her showgirl outfit◊.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Allow us to take a break in the narrative with a burlesque show at a Bad Guy Bar, complete with a mouse Ms. Fanservice.
Canon Fodder: Perhaps due to its status as one of the few Disney movies not to be given a sequel, it has a bustling fan fiction community, some stories of which are mouse-ified re-tellings of other Sherlock Holmes stories.
Catharsis Factor: Considering what a rat bastard he is, seeing Ratigan fall screaming to his doom feels pretty good.
Common Knowledge: Disney promotes this film as the first use of computer animation with the Big Ben scene. But that honor actually goes to The Black Cauldron, which was released a year prior and used CGI for a few objects.^note
Crosses the Line Twice: The lyric from Ratigan's Villain Song where his Mooks ask if his Evil Plan is "Worse than the widows and orphans you drowned!"
Cult Classic: Commonly cited as one of Disney's most underrated films, along with The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Like his human counterpart, Basil's Mood-Swinger tendencies could be a hint towards a mental disorder, perhaps a form of Bipolar Personality Disorder.
Draco in Leather Pants: Fidget. While he has some comical and likable qualities, the manner in which he kidnaps Mr. Flaversham and Olivia is pretty violent and scary, and at one point he suggests throwing Olivia off the balloon to lighten the load. And yet, a massive amount of fans took a liking to the guy, with even Disney Adventures presenting him as a youthful, sympathetic sidekick to Olivia.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Fidget, so much so that a comic story in the last issue of Disney Adventures gave him a Heel–Face Turn and turned him into a sidekick to Olivia. A few animation, film, and comic magazines during the time of the film's original release and re-release had reviews and articles questioning why "the big dog" was pushed so heavily in the advertising when it was the bat who most audiences came away remembering.
- The Miss Kitty mouse is quite popular among fans of the film. She's best known as Ms. Fanservice, despite being a One-Scene Wonder.
Fandom-Enraging Misconception: The official pronunciation of Basil in the film is "Baa-zle"^note, not "Bay-zle"^note. Using the wrong pronunciation for him is an easy way to annoy fans of the film.
Fanfic Fuel: "The Sideshow Sea Beast", a mere five-page and otherwise unremarkable tie-in comic, shows Olivia and Fidget as best friends who have apparently been solving mysteries together, with Fidget even calling the former Livy. This has spawned a number of fanfics trying to explain Fidget’s Heel–Face Turn and how he befriended Olivia.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Comics about Basil are very popular in the Netherlands. But Dutch Disney comics tend to feature relatively obscure Disney characters anyway — a good half of the weekly comics are about Br'er Rabbit, Madame Mim, Hiawatha, Panchito, or Horace Horseshoe.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- This was not Disney's last project that involved a Funny Animal version of a famous great detective character accompanied by a Nice Guy sidekick and a spunky little girl. Darkwing even contains a Shout-Out with DW owning a statue of Basil.
- Ratigan, 1897, cape caught between clock gears. NO CAPES!
- Also, Ratigan is Professor Moriarty as a Sissy Villain long before the actual Moriarty got in on it. And honey, you should see him in a crown.
- Additionally, Basil wore a large dark coat◊ as a disguise◊ long before the actual Sherlock did the same on a regular basis.
- The box that Olivia is sitting on when Dawson finds her reads "Dr. Gaston's Liver Pills." 5 years later, we would meet Dr. Gaston, and he was evidently health conscious, based on eating 4 dozen eggs every day.
Ho Yay: There's no such thing as a Holmes adaptation without it, and it occurs between both the aforementioned Basil & Ratigan and Basil & Dawson.
Jerkass Woobie: Fidget. He's a criminal who definitely Would Hurt a Child but he's also a cripple who gets yelled at by Ratigan, is nearly eaten alive for leaving a clue behind, and gets tossed out of a blimp and falls into the Thames.
Love to Hate: Ratigan, mainly due to Vincent Price's love of hamming it up.
Memetic Mutation: "Oooh, I love it when I'm nasty!"
- After the film was renamed from Basil of Baker Street, there were suggestions to rename other Disney movies with extremely simple titles.
Moe: Olivia Flaversham is an adorable little mouse girl who also happens to be so dang sweet to boot.
Moral Event Horizon: Ratigan murdering one of his lackeys simply because he called him a rat while intoxicated, despite the rest of his lackeys' wishes.
Newer Than They Think: Villain Songs in general are some of the Disney Animated Canon's most enduringly popular songs today, but they weren't really established until this film. In fact, before "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind", villain songs in Disney movies were actually very rare. Two earlier examples are "The Elegant Captain Hook" from Peter Pan, where the eponymous captain's crewmates sing a lot more than the captain himself; and "We Are Siamese If You Please" from Lady and the Tramp, which is sung by the main antagonist's pet cats who appear out of nowhere and are never seen again.
Older Than They Think: This is widely credited with the first extensive use of computer animation in a Disney feature film, when in fact it had been used for several special effects and a boat in The Black Cauldron. Of course, Disney doesn't like to talk about that one.
One-Scene Wonder:
- As they move through the building Basil's mousehole is in, you see a pair of silouhettes and a very familiar voice is heard, Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes himself!
- Remember the Miss Kitty mouse? She's in the show for only one song, but... well, it's a very memorable one, and judging by the amount of fan material about her, quite a few people remembered as the most exciting part of the movie. Also, she has the ever-sexy voice of Melissa Manchester.
- The unidentified lady mouse at the end of the film has gained a following among fans despite only briefly appearing in the movie's conclusion and tends to appear as an O.C. Stand-in in fan works.
Popular with Furries: Basil, David, Olivia, and Ratigan have their fans. However, if it's one thing everyone remembers about the film, it's Miss Kitty Mouse.
Presumed Flop: The film tends to be grouped alongside Disney flops such as The Black Cauldron and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, with some considering it to be a failure due to how overlooked it is. While the film didn't do spectacularly well and was outdone by An American Tail released that same year, it still performed moderately well at the box office, grossing $50 million worldwide against a budget of $14 million, which was good enough to convince Disney that animation was viable, saving the animation department (which was in a dire situation due to the failure of The Black Cauldron), and leading to the Disney Renaissance.
Retroactive Recognition:
- Oh, hey there, Alan Young! Fancy hearing your fake Scottish accent in another Disney animated production!
- Tony Anselmo also has one of his earliest voice roles as one of Rattigan's thugs, later being better known as the current voice of Donald Duck.
Rooting for the Empire: Ratigan is clearly the bad guy due to his evil plan involving regicide and despotism. However, given how much of an Insufferable Genius Basil is and how Laughably Evil and hammy Ratigan is, many fans ended up rooting for the latter over the former. It doesn't help that his, "I love it when I'm nasty!" quote has gained Memetic Mutation.
Signature Scene:
- The Miss Kitty's mouse musical number in the Bad Guy Bar. It does kind of come out of nowhere, but it certainly leaves an impression.
- Ratigan's Villainous Breakdown and the confrontation inside the Clock Tower.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: When this film's title was changed from Basil of Baker Street to The Great Mouse Detective, the name change earned a good deal of scorn, even from inside the studio, suggesting titles for their other films such as Seven Little Men Help a Girl. This prompted animator Ed Gombert to write a memo with these alternate names. This fake memo circulated through Disney Animation and eventually reached then-studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, setting off a chain of events that left the memo to be immortalized in a January 1987 episode of Jeopardy! and earned animation a tongue-lashing from Katzenberg's newly installed right hand Peter Schneider, whose name Gombert used when he wrote the memo. Changing Rapunzel to Tangled and The Snow Queen to Frozen would receive similar reactions years later, minus the shenanigans from the animators.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- Many fans note the irony of the film being one of few Disney didn't churn out any sequels for, despite the Sequel Hook and source material leaving plenty of potential for further adventures, not to mention the tons of Canon Fodder left from its universe.
- For as much as the film hypes up the rivalry between Basil and Ratigan, it can be a bit underwhelming how little they're actually seen together. The moment when Basil and Dawson get caught outside Ratigan's lair is the only time you actually get to see Basil and Ratigan have a normal conversation.
Ugly Cute: Fidget◊, when he's not bursting into the scene with a Scare Chord, is pretty cute for a crippled and mangy bat.
Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Although Basil is pronounced "Baa-zle" in the movie and in marketing (which is the British English pronunciation of the word), some viewers (especially American viewers) frequently pronounce his name as "Bay-zle" instead, since that is how the word is typically pronounced in American English. Fans of the film find this to be a source of irritation.
Vindicated by History: While probably being overshadowed at the time by An American Tail—which came out the same year, the movie has since been viewed as slept on and deserving of way more note than what it got at the time—and that devotion is very affectionate.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The inside of Big Ben still holds up even today.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The movie has the villain's Mooks cheerfully singing about murdering widows and orphans (by drowning them, no less), a 19th-century version of a striptease, and the villain going Ax-Crazy when his Evil Scheme falls through, and he straight up tries to kill the hero with his bare paws.
Win Back the Crowd: After the financial and critical failure of The Black Cauldron, the success of the movie renewed optimism in the future of Disney's animation studio, ultimately laying the foundation for the incoming Disney Renaissance.
The Woobie:
- Olivia's father is kidnapped and her home is wrecked all in the course of a couple of minutes. Her only hope is to find Basil of Baker Street but she has no idea where he or it is, and gets lost in the rain. Then, when she finally finds her "hero", he couldn't care less (initially). It's hard not to want to give her a huge hug.
- Her father also counts, being abducted and forced to help a dangerous criminal mastermind perform a regicide.

YMMV / The Great Mouse Detective

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