Fidget

**Fidget** is a male sentient bat.

## Description

For a long time the young but crippled bat Fidget was Professor Padraic Ratigan's trusted minion, inefficient though he sometimes was. Later on, Fidget reformed and became an ally of Olivia Flaversham.

### Personality

Fidget is very nervous and paranoid, in part because of the abuse he suffered from his former master Ratigan. He has little self-confidence, but is not very generous, even bordering on sadism at times. After turning over a new leaf, Fidget has become more generous and compassionate, as well as a voice of wisdom for Olivia.

### Physical Description

Fidget is a short bat with dark grey fur. He wears a black cap, a purple scarf and black pants. In spite of his young age, he also has circled yellowish eyes, and is severely injured: he has a peg-leg, as well as an injured wing which used to prevent him from flying, though this wound seems to have gotten better.

## Appearances

### *The Great Mouse Detective*

In the 1986 movie, Fidget is first tasked by Professor Padraic Ratigan to abduct Hiram Flaversham. Later, Ratigan gives Fidget a list of things to steal in planning for his new plot to take over the Mousedom, including uniforms, gears, and "the little girl". Fidget succeeds in bringing all the elements back to Ratigan, but loses the list itself on the way. Ratigan, at first, loses his temper and begins to feed Fidget to Felicia, knowing that thanks to the list Basil will be able to deduce the location of his lair and foil his plans. However, he eventually decides not to punish Fidget and to let Basil come to his lair, secretly preparing a trap for the detective. Fidget is later tasked with pedalling to propell Ratigan's zeppelin to Buckingham Palace; there, he disguises himself as a London Guard and brings the Clockwork Queen to Moustoria. Fidget appears one final time during Ratigan's attempted escape, once more propelling the zeppelin. Exhausted, Fidget suggests that they "throw out weight" (thinking of getting rid of hostage Olivia Flaversham). Ratigan, instead, throws Fidget out of the aircraft, in spite of Fidget's cries that "he can't fly". The bat is thus last seen plummeting to his presumed death into the Thames.

### European comics

Fidget is first revealed to have survived the fall in the 1987 comic story *The Rogue's Revenge*, like his master Ratigan, and has resumed serving the nefarious Professor. Unlike Ratigan, whose survival is explained at length, Fidget's recovery is left unexplained. He reappeared in countless other stories, always as Ratigan's henchman.

### *The Sideshow Seabeast*

Fidget's character underwent a drastic change in the 2007 American comic story, where he is revealed to have eventually reformed and become a friend of Olivia Flaversham's, helping the little girl with her very own investigations. In the comic, Fidget and Olivia visit a carnival, where Fidget explains many of the tricks to Olivia, which he knows from his former life as a crook. They are, however, puzzled by the most admired exhibit, a live seabeast (resembling the creature from the movie *The Creature of the Black Lagoon*), who turns out to be a genuine creature who escapes in the night…