Basil The Great Mouse Detective

In this episode we discuss the 26th Disney animated feature: Basil The Great Mouse Detective.

Follow us @gabblesisters on Instagram.

Email us at gabblesisterspodcast@gmail.com.

Warning: in this episode we touch on topics including murder and suicide.

Bibliography:

• Basil The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Disney+ extras
• Basil of Baker Street - Eve Titus (1958)
• Sherlock Holmes (1984-1994) 
• Sherlock Holmes (2009)
• Sherlock (2010-2017)
• Sherlock & Co. (2023-) 
• A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle (1887)
• The Complete Sherlock Holmes with introduction by P. D. James (2009)
• Drawn To Greatness: Disney's Animation Renaissance - Michael Lyons (2021)
• Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation - Chris Pallant (2013)
• The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman (2020)
• Columbo (1971–1998)
• Poirot (1989–2013)
• Inspector Morse (1987–2000)
• "The allure of mysteries" - Michaelson Monaghan, The Psychologist (2020)

Transcript

Intro

Megan 0:00

Oh, oh yeah, okay.

Bronwen 0:01

What did you think I was gonna say?

Megan 0:04

I I couldn't really imagine. The thing that I imagined coming out of your mouth was I really enjoyed Fidget.

Bronwen 0:10

No.

Megan 0:12

And I was thinking, oh no, oh no, please don't say Fidget. Let's not have another Pain and Panic moment.

Bronwen 0:16

No, no, I don't like actually I think I go on to talk about the bat. I've got some notes on the bat, but we 'll get to that. No, I don't really like Fidget.

Megan 0:28

Welcome to Gabble Sisters. Join us on our walking tour of every Disney animated feature, taking in the history, psychology, and music of a randomly selected film each episode. Think Goose. Forward march.

Bronwen 0:48

So hello Megan.

Megan 0:50

Hello Bronwen.

Bronwen 0:51

How are you?

Megan 0:52

I'm alright, thank you. I thought that I might be a bit hoarse today because I was singing in a choir concert last night, but I think I'm okay.

Bronwen 1:00

You sound good. You sound good.

Megan 1:05

How are you?

Bronwen 1:06

I'm alright, yeah. Yeah.

Megan 1:08

Good.

Bronwen 1:08

Not much to say. Not much going on. Not a lot going on at the moment.

Megan 1:12

That's a Taylor Swift reference.

Bronwen 1:14

Yes it is.

Megan 1:14

Yeah, go me.

Bronwen 1:17

Have you been doing anything Disney related recently?

Megan 1:21

So it's a bit of a tenuous Disney related update that I have this time. In any free time I have at the moment, I've been playing the game Animal Crossing. One of the things that you can do is change your island tune. So then anytime like you hear the bell ringing, or whenever you speak to someone, you hear the island tune. So I changed mine to be do do do do do do do do

Bronwen 1:51

The Gabble Sisters.

Megan 1:53

The Gabble Sisters.

Bronwen 1:54

Nice.

Megan 1:54

Yeah. And the other thing is, um, I've been reminded in Animal Crossing of this episode that we're doing today because in the shop recently there was a deerstalker hat.

Bronwen 2:06

Oh.

Megan 2:07

So I've been going around wearing my little deerstalker and it's adorable. And yes, it reminds me of Sherlock Holmes. So, how about you, Bromwen? Do you have any Disney updates from this month?

Bronwen 2:19

Not really. I haven't done much Disney related to be honest.

Megan 2:22

That's tragic.

Bronwen 2:23

I know, it is quite tragic. I, for reasons I don't quite understand, I watched Flubber fairly recently.

Megan 2:29

Oh cool!

Bronwen 2:30

You know, I was surprised. I went on Letterboxd to look at the reviews, and they're all really bad.

Megan 2:35

No!

Bronwen 2:36

People don't like it, they think it's stupid. And I'm like, no.

Megan 2:41

I mean, it's it's a family film.

Bronwen 2:43

Yeah.

Megan 2:44

It is silly. Oh, Flubber is great. I remember it being really funny, and I love Weebo.

Bronwen 2:49

Yeah, Weebo Weebo is the best thing about it. Weebo is the best thing.

Our relationship with the film

Bronwen 2:58

So, shall we talk about Basil, The Great Mouse Detective? Why are there three different names for this film to start with?

Megan 3:07

For us, this is actually very offensive. It's anti-British.

Bronwen 3:10

Well.

Megan 3:11

So we'll get into this in more detail, but the film is based on a series of books called Basil of Baker Street.

Bronwen 3:19

Okay.

Megan 3:20

Which is about a mouse Sherlock Holmes. And they decided that calling it Basil of Baker Street was too British. So they called it the Great Mouse Detective for release in America, but they kept the Basil for the British release. So we got Basil the Great Mouse Detective. And then confusingly on a re-release in America, they called it the Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective, which is just a bit of a mouthful.

Bronwen 3:48

Yeah, that's a real mouthful.

Megan 3:50

So we always knew it as Basil the Great Mouse Detective.

Bronwen 3:52

Yes, we did. And then when I went to search for that on Disney Plus, I put in B A S, it was just like can't help you. Can't help you. So I had to go to the Great Mouse, yeah.

Megan 4:07

Yeah, and even when you start searching for the Great, the Great Mouse Detective is quite low down the list.

Bronwen 4:13

It takes a very long time.

Megan 4:14

It wants to show you The Greatest Showman. Please watch this.

Bronwen 4:18

Yes.

Megan 4:19

Please don't watch Basil The Great Mouse Detective.

Bronwen 4:22

This film and we'll get into this, I imagine. I remember this film very well. It feels like the rest of the world has forgotten it, including Disney.

Megan 4:30

Yeah, it's weird, isn't it?

Bronwen 4:31

Yeah. This is another one of those films. All three so far are films that I can't remember seeing for the first time.

Megan 4:38

Yeah, yeah.

Bronwen 4:39

I they're just there. I remember really enjoying this. I don't know why. Well, I think I particularly liked for some reason, I really liked the bit in the toy shop as a child, because obviously children like toys.

Megan 4:52

And there's I do remember as a child as well the toy that the dad gives Olivia at the beginning, the little ballerina doll. Oh my goodness, just thought that was genius.

Bronwen 5:02

I have that as a note. I really like the dancing doll.

Megan 5:05

Yeah.

Bronwen 5:06

I really like it.

Megan 5:06

V ery cool. Very cool design.

Bronwen 5:09

But watching it again for the podcast. I actually watched it twice.

Megan 5:14

Oh, well done.

Bronwen 5:15

I know, I know. And I was just sort of like, okay, yes. I'm trying to think what changed. Obviously, I grew up. Did I just develop taste or did something else happen?

Megan 5:29

It's a good question.

Bronwen 5:30

And actually, maybe I'm gonna get into that when I talk about sort of the psychology of mystery and crime, like crime stories. But I think as an adult, there's something missing in terms of I don't think this film is one thing or another, and I think this fits into very much what was happening during the Dark Ages, that era during Disney. Sort of this is just pre-Renaissance, this.

Megan 5:53

Yes.

Bronwen 5:53

And no, this film is absolutely not a Renaissance film.

Megan 5:58

Some have claimed.

Bronwen 5:59

Some some have claimed they are wrong, and one of the things that I always think about those films is that they just don't really know what they're doing. They're sort of like, are we trying to what sort of market are we aiming for? And I'll get into like Katzenberg feels like he's quite a big part of this. He's like, I want to aim for like a hip teenage market, and I just don't think this film is that, but it's also like kind of dark and weird, and not really a traditional family film either. So yeah, as a child, I really enjoyed it. As an adult, I'm sort of more on the fence.

Bronwen 6:35

What about you?

Megan 6:36

I think my feelings are very similar, but so yeah, I remember watching it quite a lot when we were young because I I think we owned this one, and I remember enjoying it, and I also remember enjoying it when I went to watch it in our big Disney watch-through.

Bronwen 6:53

Yes, I agree. I don't think I'd watched it in a very long time.

Megan 6:56

Yes.

Bronwen 6:56

And so there was something quite fun about going back to it.

Megan 6:59

Yes, yeah, I think nostalgia is a big part of it for me. Like I still do enjoy this film, and I think a lot of that is to do with the nostalgia. I think the last time we watched it through, because we were watching all the films chronologically, we watched it straight after The Black Cauldron.

Bronwen 7:14

Oh my word.

Megan 7:15

And I think that's significant.

Bronwen 7:16

Yes.

Megan 7:17

That I watched The Black Cauldron, and we'll get onto our feelings about that in another episode, sometime down the line.

Bronwen 7:23

Yeah.

Megan 7:23

But then I watched this and I thought, oh phew, this is a good film.

Bronwen 7:27

To be fair, I think this is it does feel on the scale on a scale of like the darkest dark age film to Renaissance. This is veering on Renaissance.

Megan 7:38

Yeah, definitely.

Bronwen 7:39

We're headed, we're headed to

Megan 7:41

Starting to get that formula.

Bronwen 7:42

Yeah, we're starting to get there, I think. Yes. The players are coming like at the studio, the people that are going to be the big people in pulling Disney into the Renaissance period are starting to set up. So yeah, that's happening. So we're all in a similar place with this film, I think.

Megan 8:00

Yes, yeah.

Bronwen 8:01

I will say though, this is the very first thought that I wrote about this film. I really enjoyed watching the old blue castle ident.

Megan 8:10

Yes, I thought that as soon as it came up.

Bronwen 8:12

Something that annoyed me when we watched Hercules was I find it really frustrating when Disney takes like their big old classics like Hercules and they stick the new ident on. So on this one, because this film is old and no one cares about it, they've left the old blue one on. Because for me, that like the brr br that's such a part of the nostalgia. It's that blue castle. So yeah, I enjoyed that. That made me very happy. Yes. I like the new one, but nothing beats what you watched when you were five.

Megan 8:45

Oh absolutely.

Bronwen 8:46

Y'know.

Synopsis

Megan 8:51

First of all, it's synopsis time. So haikus.

Bronwen 8:55

It's haiku... I'm not going to lie to you, Megan. I wrote this haiku five minutes before you walked into my house because I forgot. I came in here and I put my laptop down and went, I haven't done the haiku. So I've written one haiku because I think that's what this film deserves.

Megan 9:13

Ooh burn.

Bronwen 9:16

It's really bad.

Megan 9:19

We're primed. We're primed.

Bronwen 9:22

A haiku for the Great Mouse Detective, or whatever you choose to call this film.

Megan 9:28

By Bronwen Quan-Thomas.

Bronwen 9:29

By Bronwen Quan-Thomas. Flaversham's missing. Ratigan. Oh Ratigan. Basil Saved the Day. I feel like that summarises the film. I think that summarises the film.

Megan 9:44

Yeah.

Bronwen 9:45

I really like that Ratigan oh Ratigan is seven syllables.

Megan 9:49

That's pleasing.

Bronwen 9:50

That is pleasing.

History

Megan 9:51

Yeah.

Bronwen 9:55

So, Megan, why don't you tell us a little bit around the history that relates to this film?

Megan 10:02

So I thought I'll talk about two broad things. The first one you can probably join in with from your research, because I thought it would be good to contextualise the making of this film, and you said earlier about the people involved in making it. So you may well have read more about that than I did. But I thought it was worth setting up that context. And then what I've done really is compared it with the source material.

Bronwen 10:27

Yeah.

Megan 10:28

So both the Basil of Baker Street books and the Sherlock Holmes stories. So setting up the context of this film being made. So this film came out in 1986, and this was solidly in what Roy E. Disney, so Walt Disney's nephew, called a stagnant period for the company. And

Bronwen 10:50

He's not wrong.

Megan 10:52

He's not wrong. So the 80s had been a really sparse time for Disney. So like the last big hitter was The Rescuers in 1977. We have to wait another four years for The Fox and the Hound to come out in 1981, then another four years for the Black Cauldron to come out in 1985, and then this came out in 1986. The Black Cauldron was a massive time and money sink. At the time it was the most expensive animated film ever made and a complete box office bomb. So it put the animation department in real danger. So this is the context that we've got for the making of The Great Mouse Detective. And The Great Mouse Detective was approved as an alternative project while the Black Cauldron was still being made because so many of the animators were unhappy. And as I've made a note here that it was Ron Clements and John Musker's directorial debut.

Bronwen 11:52

Yes, because they go on and do some films that I really enjoy from Disney, like Treasure Planet, for example.

Megan 11:59

Yeah.

Bronwen 11:59

Yeah.

Megan 12:00

And The Little Mermaid...?

Bronwen 12:02

Did they do The Little Mermaid?

Megan 12:04

I thought they did The Little Mermaid, but I could be wrong.

Bronwen 12:06

I don't know if they did. You were absolutely right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have doubted. You're absolutely right. Did they do ...

Megan 12:11

They have a good run. Because yeah, I think then the next one's Aladdin. And then that did they did Hercules as well, didn't they?

Bronwen 12:17

Yes, they did. So the one we've just done before this, they did, yes. And I think

Megan 12:22

Was it then Treasure Planet? Was that then next?

Bronwen 12:25

It was then Treasure Planet. Yes. And I think they did do The Princess and The Frog.

Megan 12:32

That's cool. So it wasn't just them, there were four directors on this: Ron Clements, John Musker, David Michener, and Burny Mattenson.

Bronwen 12:40

That's too many directors.

Megan 12:41

It is a lot .

Bronwen 12:41

That's too many directors. Too many cooks.

Megan 12:44

Yeah.

Bronwen 12:45

Because animation films often have two directors. I'm not quite sure why that is. There's probably a good reason. But four is just too many. There's too many egos.

Megan 12:56

Yeah.

Bronwen 12:57

But they um Musker and Clements are just so associated with the Renaissance.

Megan 13:01

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely.

Bronwen 13:03

They come in, they they bring the Renaissance in with the Little Mermaid, and then when Disney goes through its sort of almost second dark age, they then are brought in to try and bring things back with the Princess and the Frog. Like let's try and get things back back on track.

Megan 13:16

Can they do it again now?

Bronwen 13:18

I mean, so a lot of people we claim we're not in a dark age right now.

Megan 13:22

I want them to bring back 2D animation. I feel like they could do it. They could do it. I believe in them. This was based, like I said earlier, on the Basil of Baker Street books.

Bronwen 13:36

Yes.

Megan 13:36

But the idea was originally put on hold because it was suggested at the time that The Rescuers was coming out, and uh everyone kind of said, Oh, we like this idea, but it's a bit similar to The Rescuers.

Bronwen 13:47

Yes. Well, it's interesting you say that because in 2022 they considered doing a crossover series featuring The Rescuers and The Great Mouse Detective.

Megan 13:57

And I feel like that would really work.

Bronwen 13:59

And the series would have featured the descendants of Basil working at a modern version of the Rescue Aid Society. I would watch that.

Megan 14:07

Yeah.

Bronwen 14:07

Do you know why it was cancelled? Because of the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers

Megan 14:12

Oh.

Bronwen 14:13

Bring back.

Megan 14:14

That's not the same though. Oh, I suppose, like. Crime-solving rodents.

Bronwen 14:20

And actually, I enjoyed, I actually quite enjoyed the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers film. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Megan 14:27

Yeah.

Bronwen 14:27

But at the same time, I actually would prefer The Rescuers, Great Mouse Detective, crossover, crime fighting mice.

Megan 14:34

It's interesting that they canned it because it was too similar to what they were doing at that time. And then they went on and did the Black Cauldron, which was different and terrible. And then they came back to the Great Mouse Detective, which the reviews reflected that that was more in line with what people were expecting. They were happy to be back to mice.

Bronwen 14:55

Really interestingly, I was surprised by how well this film was received. It did well at the box office, it was beaten by an