Your Friend the Rat
| Your Friend the Rat | |
|---|---|
Poster for Your Friend the Rat
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| Directed by | Jim Capobianco |
| Produced by | Ann Brilz Brad Bird |
| Written by | Jim Capobianco |
| Story by |
Jeff Pidgeon Alexander Woo |
| Starring |
Patton Oswalt Peter Sohn |
| Narrated by | Tony Russell |
| Music by | Alex Mandel |
| Edited by | Steve Bloom |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment |
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Release date
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November 6, 2007 (with Ratatouille DVD/Blu-ray) |
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Running time
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11 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Your Friend the Rat is a 2007 animated short film by Pixar, originally released on the home video release of the film Ratatouille. The short takes on the form of an educational film and stars rats Remy and Emile, two of the protagonists of Ratatouille, who argue for the reconciliation of humans and rats. They use historical facts presented via various styles of animation.
This is Pixar's second short film to feature traditional animation; at 11 minutes, it is also the longest Pixar short to date. Along with 2D animation, the short also includes stop-motion animation, computer generated imagery (CGI) and live action. Like Ratatouille, Your Friend the Rat also features a musical sequence. This is also Pixar's first short film to have a cameo of a protagonist of a film that releases a year later, which was a cameo of WALL-E.
Your Friend the Rat won the Best Animated Short Subject category at the 35th annual Annie Awards and was released on DVD and Blu-ray with Disney·Pixar's Ratatouille (November 6, 2007).
The short starts in with Remy introducing himself and Emile to the audience and speaking on behalf of oppressed rats everywhere. Emile starts frowning about having to speak out, while Remy pulls a scroll and a two-dimensional animation starts by presenting the relation between a human and a rat in contrast with human-dog and human-cat relationships. Remy points out that humans regarded rats in former times as sacred and luck-bringing. He says that during the Roman Empire if a white rat crosses your path, it brought good luck, while if a black rat crosses your path, it brought bad luck. He moves on to discussing black rats (Rattus rattus) and their connection to the Black Death, pointing out that it was caused by fleas not rats, resulting in the death of one third of Europe's population.
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