Basil of Baker Street

**Basil of Baker Street** (or **Basil** for short) is the dauntless protagonist of Disney's 1986 film, *The Great Mouse Detective*.

## Appearance

In stark contrast to the physical appearances of other rodent characters from previous and succeeding Disney films (such as Timothy Q. Mouse, Jaq and Gus, Amos, Remy, etc.), which more accurately or cartoony resemble real-life mice, Basil and the other rodent characters in the film are designed in a very unique and stylized way, with much more human-like body proportions while still having a rodent head. Basil, however, is probably the most notable.

Basil is a tall (small from a human's perspective), slender, anthropomorphic mouse with a thin rectangular frame and contrasting soft facial features; the bridge of his nose is quite large and has a slight bump reminiscent of previous Sherlock Holmes depictions such as Basil Rathbone. He has light brown fur, a sand-like color on the muzzle, and obviously his underbelly, mauve inner ears, a maroon nose, and black eyes. Unlike real-life mice, he has no whiskers, fur-covered hands, and feet, but retains the buck teeth.

Basil's common outfit he wears through-out much of the film is a basic white dress shirt with a high collar, a red-brown waist-coat, a bottle-green neck-tie, grayish-brown pants, and black shoes with white spats. When he is residing in his flat when there are not yet any crimes to solve, he wears a dark magenta bathrobe with midnight purple accents.

When he *does* roam around London solving crimes and what he wears for most of the film is a chocolate-brown jacket, which he wears under a dark-honey brown inverness (a type of jacket with a short cape-like garment covering the upper arms) and a matching deer-stalker cap, adding to his trademark earthy-colored outfit.

When Basil sneaks into Ratigan's lair, his sailor disguise consists of an navy, high-collar, single-breasted coat with a matching captain-hat and lighter trousers of the same hue, a magenta turtle-neck, and black boots. He also wears a fake black pencil moustache, which Ratigan later rips off. Some believe this disguise may be a reference to the film Sherlock Holmes and The Secret Weapon.

## Personality

Basil is a take-off of the classic Sherlock Holmes character, modelling his career after the famous detective's. Basil is portrayed as a brilliant, plucky mouse who refuses to back down or end his pursuit against Prof. Ratigan, which makes him tenacious. Basil comes off as a jack-of-all-trades at several points in the movie, showing skill in areas such as science, history, and disguise (though his disguise inevitably fails), not to mention being physically capable (this is emphasized in the film's climax in the Big BenTower).

Despite this, Basil can also be prickly and self-centered, ignoring Olivia and Dawson at the beginning of the movie, and only offering to help them once he realizes Olivia's case might be the solution to finally capturing Ratigan. Though Basil is always calm and collected during his hunt, he can also be very emotional and operatic, becoming very moody if things do not go his way or if the situation looks dire, such as at the beginning of the movie and when he is nearly defeated by Ratigan. Despite his indifferent attitude towards Dawson and Olivia at the start of the movie, he can be quite affectionate and empathetic, as shown when he tries to cheer up the former after losing Fidget in the Toy Store, and when he chooses to save Olivia from being crushed to death in the gears of Big Ben after Ratigan kicks her off the platform he was standing on before getting her to safety to protect her from the criminal mastermind, showing that he had also come to care for her as a friend. As Olivia is bidding him goodbye near the end of the movie before she leaves, he affectionately teases her by mispronouncing her surname, causing Dawson to chuckle, with the trio silently admitting that it has become an inside joke with them. After the door closes behind Olivia, Basil clearly already misses her, admitting that she is 'not such a bad girl', his actions that he had come to value her companionship, as well as Dawson's.