Scrat
| Scrat | |
|---|---|
| Ice Age character | |
 | |
| First appearance |
|
| Last appearance | |
| Created by | Ivy Silberstein (Sqrat) Chris Wedge |
| Designed by | Peter De Seve |
| Voiced by | Chris Wedge |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Saber-toothed squirrel |
| Gender | Male |
| Family | Baby Scrat (son) |
| Significant other | Scratte (formerly; Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs) |
| Eyes | Gold |
| Fur | Yellowish-brown and gray with white underbelly |
Scrat is a fictional character in the Ice Age franchise. He is a saber-toothed squirrel who is obsessed with collecting acorns, constantly putting his life in danger to obtain and defend them. Scrat's storylines are mostly independent of those of the Herd, though the two do intersect at times.
Scrat is voiced in all Ice Age feature films and short films by director Chris Wedge, only directly interacting with the story's main characters on eight occasions, mostly with Sid. In a special feature in the second film's DVD, his name has been stated to be a mix of the words "squirrel" and "rat", his species allegedly believed to have been a common ancestor of both. In the Ice Age DVD commentary, he is referred to as "The Scrat" by directors Wedge and Carlos Saldanha.
The character served as the mascot to its animation studio, Blue Sky Studios, until its closure.
Concept and creation
The origin of Scrat is disputed. Cartoon designer Ivy Supersonic claims she created the character in 1999, after seeing a squirrel-rat hybrid in Skidmore College's Case Green. She called her character "Sqrat" and says she presented the idea to 20th Century Fox movie executives. A CNN report by Jeanne Moos of Ivy's discovery was aired in 2000, two years before Ice Age went into development. Supersonic claims the studio's own documents actually identified the character in Ice Age as "Sqrat", though her creation was not saber-toothed.[1]
Supersonic was offered a $300,000 settlement by Fox Studios. She turned it down and subsequently lost in court. The case later went to appeal (Case # 04401 Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, NYC). Supersonic still had hopes of receiving damages for her claimed infringement.[1] She did win a partial summary judgment from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in a reverse suit, Fox Film Corporation v. Ivy Silberstein (her real name), in which Fox had tried to prevent her from registering the trademark "SQRAT".[2] On July 7, 2020, Disney lost the rights to the character following the trademark dispute, and thus was not featured in The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild.[3][4][better source needed]
According to Chris Wedge, artist Peter de Seve came up with the design for Scrat after a visit to the Museum of Natural History. Wedge called it "sort of a squirrel based on some lemur."[5]
Appearances
Films
Ice Age
In Ice Age, Scrat first attacks Sid when the latter tries to eat his acorn, successfully regaining it. He later meets Manny, Sid, and Diego with a human baby Roshan. Manny asks Scrat where the baby's family is and Scrat attempts to tell them about nearby saber-toothed tigers, but Diego kicks Scrat away before he could do so.
Ice Age: The Meltdown
In Ice Age: The Meltdown, after Scrat creates a hole in the valley and released all the melted ice, later attacks Sid for saving his life (when he had already almost died and gone to paradise and was about to get a giant acorn).
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
In Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Scrat is stepped on by Manny and falls onto Sid's head while chasing his acorn. Next, he appears when Sid's "children" are batting a ball around, the ball actually being Scrat. Also, when Scratte rips off his fur, he screams so loud the herd can hear him, causing Crash and Eddie to deem the place a "Jungle of Misery". Lastly, while Diego is sleeping, he wakes up when he gets hit with Scrat's acorn.
Ice Age: Continental Drift
In Ice Age: Continental Drift, Scrat is taken hostage by Captain Gutt and his crew at the same time as Manny, Sid and Diego, eventually escaping once the ship sinks. Sid pries open a clam, he finds Scrat inside. Sid's grandmother mistakes Scrat for a rat and continuously hits him with her cane until he falls into the ocean.
Ice Age: Collision Course
In Ice Age: Collision Course, Scrat accidentally launches several deadly meteors to Earth after an attempt to bury his acorn leads to him taking control of a UFO.
Short films
Scrat is the main character in four short films. In the first, Gone Nutty, he loses his collection of acorns in a catastrophic chain of events. He jams his acorn into a hole in the middle of the collection, which shatters the pile and with it the entire continent – which begins the continental drift. In the second film, No Time for Nuts, Scrat finds a time machine left by a time-traveler and visits several historical events. He becomes trapped in a frightening future when oak trees have become extinct but somehow manages to return to the series' time period.
A third short film, Scrat's Continental Crack-up, was released in 2010 accompanying the feature Gulliver's Travels, and later with Rio as a promotion for Ice Age: Continental Drift.[6]
A fourth short film, Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe, was released in 2015, preceding the theatrical release of The Peanuts Movie. Another short film, Scrat: Spaced Out was released in 2016 on home media with Collision Course.
Scrat additionally has a cameo appearance in Surviving Sid.
Other appearances
Scrat is the main character in the Ice Age: The Meltdown video game. He is also playable in the other two games based on the series.
Starting with the 2013 film Epic, Scrat would go on to become the mascot of Blue Sky Studios and was featured in their production logo up until the studio's final film Spies in Disguise.
Scrat makes a cameo appearance in the Family Guy episode "Sibling Rivalry", in a cutaway gag in which Peter Griffin says Scrat's nuts are his, leading Scrat to attack Peter.
Scrat Tales
On May 4, 2021, it was rumored that a short series produced by Blue Sky Studios known as Scrat Tales would be coming to Disney+. The series would follow Scrat, who discovers that he has a son.[7][better source needed] Footage of the series was later leaked onto YouTube, with former Blue Sky animators revealing that the series would be coming to Disney+ in 2022 after The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. A plush for the character of Scrat's son was also unveiled via Just Play Products’ website, with the second image featuring a blue tag containing the logo for Scrat Tales, although the listing was retitled under The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild to promote the new film.[8] On February 22, 2022, it was announced that the Scrat Tales would release on Disney+ on April 13, 2022.
Relationships
Acorns
Scrat constantly hunts for his acorn either to bury it or eat it, but fate always gets in the way. He invariably ends up in humorous or painful situations: being struck by lightning, pursued by avalanches, and repeatedly knocked unconscious while fighting for his acorn. Yet he never gives up. Scrat generally loses, except when he defeats a school of piranhas and beating up Sid.
Scratte
Scratte (pronounced "Scrat-tay") is a seductive female saber-toothed flying squirrel that makes her debut in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. She is seen in the second trailer with Scrat battling with her for the acorn by propelling themselves down a gorge to reach the fallen acorn, and succeeding. Scratte is also seen as a love interest for Scrat.
Scratte's personality traits have been shown to be flirtatious, feisty, and intelligent. She is equally determined in catching the acorn and uses her feminine wiles to her advantage. She doesn't, however, seem to be nearly as obsessed with acorns as her male counterpart, as she was shown trying to destroy the acorn at the end of the film out of jealousy. Scratte will often injure and manipulate Scrat in the process of retrieving it. However, her attraction to him is implied and fully emerged when he saved her from falling into lava.
In the fourth film, Scratte appeared again in a cameo role as a Siren only to then be dismissed by a disinterested Scrat. In addition, tons of her species live on Scratlantis.[9]
An alien species of saber toothed squirrels, called Scratazons, who bear a striking resemblance to Scratte, were slated to appear in Collision Course, but were later scrapped. [10] They later appeared in the short film Scrat: Spaced Out.
Cultural impact
While initially created as a fictional species for comedic purposes, in 2011 a mammal quite similar to Scrat was described. The newly described taxon, Cronopio dentiacutus was not a squirrel, and did not live in the Cenozoic; it belonged to the dryolestoids, a group of mammals thought to be closely related to therians, and it lived approximately 100 million years ago in Patagonia.[11] The precedence of the animated character to the discovery of the real animal is an example of what is known as the "Dim Effect".[12]
See also
References
- ^ a b Supersonic, Ivy. "A Scrat is a Sqrat / Scrat – by Ivy Supersonic". ivysmedia.com. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved April 11, 2011.
- ^ "Fox Entertainment Group, Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation v. Ivy Silberstein" (PDF). United States Patent and Trademark Office. July 20, 2009. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 8, 2021. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
- ^ Connolly, Jason (January 31, 2022). "The Real Reason Scrat Wasn't In The Ice Age Adventures Of Buck Wild". Looper.com. Archived from the original on February 1, 2022. Retrieved January 31, 2022.
- ^ "Disney Loses Rights To Scrat From Ice Age Following Trademark Dispute". TheGamer. January 30, 2022. Archived from the original on February 4, 2022. Retrieved January 31, 2022.
- ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (March 15, 2002). "Scrounging, screeching Scrat is nutty hit of 'Ice Age'". USA Today. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2011.
- ^ Verniere, James (December 25, 2010). "Swift injustice". Boston Herald. Archived from the original on December 26, 2010. Retrieved January 2, 2011.
- ^ "