Roscoe and DeSoto

Roscoe and DeSoto are the secondary antagonists in the Disney's 1988 animated feature film Oliver & Company. They were two Dobermans owned by Bill Sykes. Roscoe wears a red collar and DeSoto wears a blue one.
==Personalities==
Roscoe and DeSoto both come off as smooth-talking, mobster-like goons who don't mind playing with their victims. But they can also be violent, vicious, cruel, brutal, ruthless, thuggish, mean, and downright heartless. This portrayal also plays on the stereotype of Dobermans being savage, brutal, and often used as guard or attack dogs.
Roscoe appears to be attracted to Rita, as he tells her, "You know, Rita, I can't figure out why you'd rather hang around a dump like this when you could be living uptown with a class act like myself.", but she is disgusted by him.
Roscoe seemed to be the more cool-headed of the two, while DeSoto is a bit more vicious, shown when DeSoto displayed a desire to eat Oliver, while Roscoe thought it would be better to heed their master, Sykes' call. Also, at the end of the film, while Roscoe falls off the back of Sykes' car to his death after accidentally tearing off Dodger's bandana, DeSoto had to be fought off by Oliver for him to die.
While both had a rivalry with Dodger and his gang, Roscoe seemed to be the one to take it more seriously.
The two appear to be protective of each other. When Oliver scratches DeSoto's nose, Roscoe aggressively runs to him, despite previously being indifferent towards the cat. At Sykes' hideout, Roscoe also pulls Dodger off of DeSoto when he gains the upper hand. Lastly, DeSoto appeared to be enraged at Dodger following Roscoe's death, and viciously attacked him.
==Appearances==
===Oliver & Company===
Bill Sykes (who lent Fagin some money) comes by Fagin's home in his car to collect and sends his two dogs, Roscoe and DeSoto, into Fagin's boathouse to ensure that Fagin goes to meet him. Meanwhile, the Dobermans harass Dodger and the gang. Once inside, Roscoe flirts with Rita, while DeSoto sniffs around the houseboat. When Francis insults Roscoe, he loses his temper. Tito tries to fight them, but is luckily held back by Einstein, who suggests Roscoe picks on somebody his size. However, Roscoe is not intimidated by him, but Dodger waltzes up to him and asks him if he has lost his sense of humor. In reply, Roscoe smashes their TV and says, "See? I find that funny." and chuckles sinisterly.
Just as further unpleasantness is about to ensue and when their master, Sykes, calls for them with his horn, DeSoto finds Oliver, but Roscoe tells him to forget it and to go. Nevertheless, DeSoto tries to eat Oliver, who in return, scratches him on the nose, causing the two dogs to attack Oliver, not before Dodger, and then the rest of the gang stand in and protect him. Both dogs hesitate, knowing that they can't take on the whole group. Outside, Sykes honks his horn again outside for the dogs to return to the car, and Roscoe and DeSoto leave reluctantly, with Roscoe swearing retaliation; starting with Oliver.
Later, when Fagin goes to talk to Sykes about getting his money from Oliver's owner awkwardly, Roscoe and DeSoto attack Fagin after Sykes orders them to do so with a snap of his fingers, but Dodger leaps forward and fights the dogs, taking severe (but invisible) injuries in the process. When Fagin tells Sykes about Oliver's owner being wealthy, he shows him, Oliver, as proof. Fagin then explains that they're coming tonight to get the cat back, loudly and adequately this time. Sykes, convinced, has his dogs pull back from Dodger and tells Fagin he has 12 hours to pay him his money back as his "last chance" when feeding dog biscuits to his dogs while Fagin and Oliver come to Dodger's aid after Dodger lays injured and unconscious with severe (but invisible) injuries from the Dobermans' attack.
After Sykes kidnaps Jenny after they unknowingly watched, in their master's car, Fagin giving up the ransom the whole time, Oliver and the gang secretly follow them to Sykes' warehouse. While Sykes ties up Jenny, he tells her not to cry as Roscoe and DeSoto pace around, growling. Then, he orders Roscoe and DeSoto to sniff around the place for intruders after hearing a noise. When Dodger and the gang sneak into the warehouse, one of the dogs, Georgette, screams because of a broken nail, alerting Roscoe and DeSoto. Later, DeSoto is the first to smell them, informing Roscoe.
Roscoe and DeSoto run into Francis, Tito, and Einstein, who were distracting and luring Sykes away while the rest help Jenny, but just as they're about to attack, Georgette pulls a blanket down on the two dogs, trapping them until Sykes comes along and frees Roscoe and DeSoto. Sykes and his dogs chase Oliver, Jenny, and the gang, who escapes with the help of a crane and Tito's electric specialty. Then they fall, and land on a long slide after Sykes destroys the crane's control with an axe through the warehouse. But just as they have them cornered, and Sykes is about to snap his fingers "again" to order his dogs to attack, Fagin bursts in on his scooter, after hearing a honking noise which is his scooter's horn, and the gang flee.
The two Dobermans chase Fagin and the gang on the street but luckily, they can outrun them until Sykes, and his dogs give chase in his car. When Fagin drives his friends to a substation, Sykes is still able to follow them. In a tunnel, when Jenny gets knocked onto Sykes' car hood, Oliver jumps on and bites Sykes' hand, but Sykes tosses Oliver into the back, where Roscoe and DeSoto are. Dodger manages to jump aboard also and jumps on Roscoe, who later grabs hold of Dodger's bandanna after being thrown out of the car's back window by Dodger. Dodger slips off the bandana to which Roscoe was clinging, causing him to fall onto the subway's third rail, which electrocutes him due to the friction caused between the ruined car tires and the rail tracks. DeSoto then jumps onto Dodger and pushes his head toward the electrified tracks, but Oliver manages to jump onto DeSoto's head and claws him, causing DeSoto to yelp in pain, slip, and fall onto the railway tracks and get electrocuted as well off-screen. Sykes is too busy chasing the gang to notice what's happened to his dogs, and continues to chase the gang until his car runs into a train, killing him in the end.
===Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers===
DeSoto (or a reasonable facsimile) appears in "To the Rescue" as a guard dog at the pound and as a dog named Killer in "A Lean on the Property".
===Goof Troop===
Roscoe (or a reasonable facsimile) appears in "All the Goof That's Fit to Print" as a pet dog who first gets hit on the head by a tossed newspaper and then proceeds to angrily chase Goofy through neighborhood yards as the latter gathers all the papers in each yard.
===House of Mouse===
DeSoto appears in the episode "Pluto Saves the Day" with the Pet Shop Dogs band singing "Everybody Wants to Be a Woof". While singing in the choir with Tito growling at him, DeSoto replies with a growl in return, thus scaring Tito off, which contradicts their encounter in the film. Later, he is seen with the other Pet Shop Dogs fighting off Pete (disguised as Snow White) and then chasing him out along with the rest of the dogs and Pluto. Even though he is not in Mickey's House of Villains, it is possible that he (along with his partner and master presumably) joined the House of Mouse's takeover with Jafar and the villains.
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*Roscoe Blvd. and DeSoto Ave. are streets in the San Fernando Valley, several miles from Walt Disney Studios.
*The name of the actor who gave the voice of Francis in Oliver & Company is Roscoe Lee Browne.
*DeSoto's name is reused for DeSoto Cab Company which has its headquarters located in Pleasanton, California.
*Roscoe appears more as Dodger's archenemy, while DeSoto appears more as Oliver's archenemy.
*Although both Dobermans look identical, it is unknown for a fact if they're related.
*Along with their master (hit by an oncoming train), both Roscoe and DeSoto appear to have one of the most graphic deaths in Disney history (more so with Roscoe than DeSoto since the latter's death was only heard from off-screen).
*In several book adaptations of the film, Rosco and DeSoto never got out of their master's car and instead shared his fate when the train collided with them.
*Roscoe and DeSoto appear as the main antagonists to Oliver and the gang, while Sykes is more of the secondary antagonist to them.
*The injury left on DeSoto's nose after Oliver scratches it disappears shortly afterward when the two Dobermans corner Oliver. The mark then reappears after Dodger gets in their way to protect Oliver.
*The characters Cane 1 and Cane 2 (Dog 1 and Dog 2) in the Italian series Slash look exactly like Roscoe and DeSoto, even bearing the same colored collars.http://www.slashcartoon.it/cani/
*The gang only refer to Roscoe by his name and never refer to DeSoto by his name.
==References==
==External links==
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|-|Oliver & Company=
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fr:Roscoe et DeSoto
ja:ロスコーとデソート
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