Trivia for
The Great Mouse Detective (1986) More at IMDbPro »

• When this film was originally released its title was "The Great Mouse Detective." When Disney re-released it years later they gave it the title of "The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective." When the film was released on video a few months later, the title on the box was back to "The Great Mouse Detective" but the title on the film itself read "The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective."
  
  
• Released, originally, with the Mickey Mouse short Clock Cleaners (1937).
  
  
• The box that Olivia sits down on to cry is "Gaston's Liver Pills", a reference to the father of one of the artists.
  
  
• Sherlock Holmes speaks with the voice of Basil Rathbone (sampled from one of his earlier movies.)
  
  
• In the German version of the movie Fidget's name is "Greifer," but in the end credits his name is misspelled. It reads "Griefer."
  
  
• The clock tower scene is the first major use of computer animation (the clock's gears) in a feature-length animated film. The same scene was also the first time traditionally animated characters were put inside a computer-generated background.
  
  
• Basil of Baker Street and Dr. David Q. Dawson are named after Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, who played Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson together in several films.
  
  
• Alan Young had performed a near-perfect Scottish accent as the voice Scrooge McDuck for the 1977 Disneyland Records adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" (which he also developed and wrote). He repeated the role of McDuck in the 1983 film adaptation, and was a natural for the Scots brogue of Hiram Flaversham. He continued as the official voice of the tightwad McDuck in a series of Disney film and television projects.
  
  
• During the recording of Vincent Price's lines, animators sketched his exaggerated Shakespearean gestures and worked them into the animated poses for Ratigan.
  
  
• The same bears from Girdler's Grizzly (1976) were used along with several other animals as models for the characters in this film.
  
  
• In the scene where Basil, Olivia and Dawson are running through the toy shop, looking at all the moving toys, trying to find Fidget, Dumbo the elephant from Dumbo (1941) can be seen as a musical toy blowing bubbles.
  
  
• Professor Ratigan was Vincent Price's favorite role.
  
  
• Ratigan was originally designed to look thin and weak, but when Vincent Price was chosen to play the role, his appearance was changed accordingly.
  
  
• The lizard in Rattigan's gang made an earlier appearance as Bill, the "lizard with a ladder" in Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951).
  
  
• As Toby races to Buckingham Palace with Basil and Dawson in tow, he runs in front of a horse drawn carriage. The animation of the carriage is of the pound wagon from Lady and the Tramp (1955), as it was being stopped by Jock and Trusty in the climax.
  
  
• "Let Me Be Good To You" was originally to be sung by Madonna, but the directors decided that this was not contemporary enough for the audience to enjoy. Melissa Manchester was hired as the new singer of the song. "Let Me Be Good To You" was also once entitled, "Look At Me".
  
  
• In the Sherlock Holmes story "The Sign Of Four", Holmes borrowed a dog named Toby.
  
  
• When designing Fidget, the Disney animators were focused on creating a scary, yet comical and lovable character. They were looking for a raspy voice and chose Candy Candido, who had starred in voice-over roles in many previous Disney films as well as Ralph Bakshi films. His own looks were used in matching Fidget's looks. Candido's deep, throaty voice was sped up to avoid Fidget's voice from becoming too low. (Candido's original voice can be heard as the mouse shouting "Get off, you eight-legged bum!" at the juggling octopus in the pub.)
  
  
• The firemen musicians on top of the music box in the toy shop is a reference to veteran Disney animator Ward Kimball. Kimball had a Dixieland jazz group called "The Firehouse Five, Plus Two", that often performed at Disneyland, even appearing on "The Mickey Mouse Club" (1955).
  
  
• As Ratigan is ranting about how much he hates Basil, we see that he has a voodoo doll in the shape of a mouse in a deerstalker. The doll bears a striking resemblance to Basil, not as he appears in this film, but as he appears in Paul Galdone's illustrations in the book on which the film is based.
  
  
• Production took only one year to complete thanks to the use of computers.
  
  
• CASTLE THUNDER: It is heard every time lightning flashes during the storms in this film, and a version played at slow speed is heard a few times. This was the last animated Disney movie to regularly use the Castle Thunder sound effect. Starting with "The Black Cauldron" the previous year, Disney began trying out newer, digitally-recorded thunder sounds.
  
  
• The lines spoken by Sherlock Holmes (voiced by Basil Rathbone) are from the story "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League". According to the text of the story, this would mean that the film takes place sometime in the autumn of 1890.
  
  
• Several of the sound clips of Toby howling are recycled from "Lady and the Tramp".
  
  
• John Cleese was the original choice for the role of Basil.
  
  
• During the entire scene inside the toy shop, Olivia never utters a single word, staying true to Basil's earlier line, "And not a word out of you. Is that clear?"
  
  
• During the opening scene at the toy shop, a doll can be seen in the background. It is dressed in the exact same outfit Basil later wears when he sneaks into Ratigan's club (a striped shirt and blue hat).
  
  
• During "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind", when Felicia first appears, a piece from Gort's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is played on the soundtrack.
  
  
• Look fast: When Basil is looking for a map in his apartment, he unrolls one and looks at it VERY briefly. It looks like a clichéd treasure map, but one of the locations reads: "Downtown Burbank."
  
  
• The sailor's costume worn by Basil in the scene where he and Dawson enter the pub, is an animated version of the costume worn by Basil Rathbone, when he played Sherlock Holmes, in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943). Ironically, in the Secret Weapon, Rathbone was also entering a pub to find information.
  
  

• SPOILER: As Basil was based on Sherlock Holmes, Rattigan was based on Holmes' arch-nemesis Moriarty, and, like Moriarty, Rattigan fell to his death with Basil (Holmes) while Basil escaped death.
  
  

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