The Great Mouse Detective at 40: Disney Directors Recount the Budget Cut, Title Change and Vincent Price Pitch
Ron Clements and John Musker used a 40th anniversary panel to reveal how The Great Mouse Detective nearly looked very different.
The Great Mouse Detective almost arrived as a very different Disney movie. At a 40th anniversary panel at LightBox Expo in Pasadena, directors Ron Clements and John Musker retraced how the Sherlock Holmes-inspired feature changed in development, survived a brutal mandate from new studio leadership, and ended up with the title fans know today.
A Sherlock Holmes obsession that became a Disney feature
Clements said his path to Basil started long before Disney. As a teenager in Sioux City, Iowa, he was a dedicated Sherlock Holmes fan, worked part-time as a graphic artist at a local TV station, and used the station's equipment on his own time to make a 15-minute animated short, Shades of Sherlock Holmes, voicing Holmes, Watson and Moriarty himself. He said that film later helped him get a job at Hanna-Barbera.
The project that became The Great Mouse Detective took shape while Clements was working in story on The Black Cauldron. After producer Joe Hale mentioned that studio head Ron Miller wanted new feature ideas, Clements suggested Eve Titus' Basil of Baker Street books. Hale then had layout artist Don Griffith draw an image to help sell the pitch. Miller put the movie into development, and Mel Shaw created a treatment and a set of pastel images.
Musker, who had been a sequence director on The Black Cauldron, moved onto Basil as co-director with Burny Mattinson. He said he did not want a "cute little mouse movie" and pushed the material toward broad comedy, with a version of Basil as a moody egomaniac and influences that included Monty Python and Citizen Kane. Clements said Miller disliked that take, and veteran story artist Vance Gerry was brought in to add more warmth.
By the time Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg took over, the film had already been in development for about two years, with storyboards, story reels, a voice cast and Henry Mancini lined up for the score. Clements said the team had to pitch it again like a brand-new idea. Eisner approved it, but at half the proposed budget and on a one-year schedule instead of two. Clements also recalled that Roy E. Disney told Mattinson the animation department had been set for shutdown if Basil had not been approved.
Why Disney's mouse detective got a new name
That compressed schedule also changed the directing lineup. Mattinson moved into the producer role, and Clements stepped up to co-direct with Musker.
The panel also dug into Ratigan's creation. Clements credited Mattinson with helping secure two major pieces of the film, Mancini's score and Vincent Price. To support Price as the villain, Mattinson had the team watch Champagne for Caesar, and Glen Keane animated test poses to dialogue from that film. Clements said his first experience directing an actor was Price recording Ratigan's song and soliloquy. Musker added that he once made Price mad by asking for too many variations of a line.
Musker also revisited one of the film's most famous behind-the-scenes twists, the title change. After Young Sherlock Holmes opened to disappointing results, Katzenberg concluded audiences did not want anything tied to Sherlock Holmes. References to Holmes were stripped from the marketing, and Basil of Baker Street became The Great Mouse Detective, a title both directors said they hated.
That decision sparked a prank inside the studio. A fake memo, created by story artist Ed Gombert and made to look like it came from executive Peter Schneider, claimed Disney classics would all be retitled in the same style. Schneider was furious, Musker said, but nobody identified the author. Writer Steve Hulett later sent the memo to the Los Angeles Times, which published a story about it.
