One thing giving a leg-up to Ratigan is the fact that The Great Mouse Detective was one of the last features to use Xeroxography, transferring the artists' drawings directly onto the cel, without the added homogenizing step of being traced in ink or digitally reigned in by tight, albeit exquisite final-line work. This very graphic feel – one that Walt Disney himself acquiesced to only because of the added savings it represented in face of rising production costs – greatly benefits all the performances in the film. These are highly stylized characters – as near caricature as anything since 101 Dalmatians - and the sometimes broken outline seems to contain their toon egos inside the thin black id of crisp graphite strokes.

The character design is also a strong factor here, and vastly different from subsequent Keane characters that, even in the realms of a calligraphic desert landscape or a fantasized French countryside, remain anchored to a physics and anatomy that more closely resembles real life. Ratigan's barrel chest and tiny head rest precariously and almost impossibly on finely tapered legs, ridiculously thin ankles, and tiny little feet. His joints feel generously oiled, and his hands and arms twist and bend at greater than ninety-degree angles, accenting the pauses, stops and exclamations of this ne're-do-well in gentleman's clothing. He rolls and rotates his hand within the Barbie socket of his wrist in perfect counterpoint to the rolling of his "R�?s and long drawn out vowels. As finely tuned and fluid as his gestures are, Ratigan's entire body seizes up like iron with lightening speed. Keane glides from extreme to extreme, and sometimes even pops into a pose that is startling as well as expertly timed. There is economy to the melodrama of this "mouse�? and while the character is pushed and pulled to some grotesque extremes, it's never too much. It's somehow just right, just far enough to make us take notice of the impossible way Ratigan's neck is craned forward, his head even growing slightly larger than normal with his snout pushed out like a racehorse reaching for the finish. He recoils inside of only a pair of drawings and conforms to the physiognomic "norm�? without ever feeling like he has done something supernatural – at least not in the kingdom of Mousedom.

In one delightful moment of pantomime, that reveals so much character in so little movement that it always earns an audible laugh, Ratigan leans in holding his pocket watch, admonishing Basil for being late to his own capture. Basil responds with a dryly delivered assessment of the villain's despicable character, to which Kean and his team have Ratigan respond with a held pose – arm extended, gold watch in-hand, and a wide, toothy grin of disdain on his face – frozen for 40 frames. It's barely a count of two seconds before, in two very simply drawings, Ratigan snaps the watch shut between his thumb and forefinger, never moving a muscle elsewhere, and holds again for sixteen frames. The finished take has a perfect count of three, superb simplicity and comic timing. What follows immediately thereafter, is just as funny and also a bit frightening, and shows an amazing level of skill as well as a deeply felt understanding of the character's psyche.

"Oh, by the way, Basil,�? says Ratigan, "Hmm hmm, hmm hmm (laughing between pursed lips, his eye-lids at half-mast) I just loooove your disguise.�? The rat glides over to Basil, enunciating with exaggerated "o�?s and wide "a�?s, his lips contorting back and forth like an alternately opening and closing tulip. He reaches out to take hold of Basil's pencil mustache, pinching it like an uncle reaching for his infant nephew's cheek, and as he finishes the z in "disguise�? and rips the moustache away from Basil's face, in six graceful frames his clinched jaw lowers to his chest in counterpoint to the arch of his wrist as he pulls up on the end of the fake whiskers, and his face turns into wicked snarl, eyes closed and brow knitted tightly. Just as the disguise tears away from Basil's face, with his arm pointed down and wrist angled out, in a single frame Ratigan's face bursts into an extreme, wide-eyed look of fury – mouth agape, eyes bulging, lips turned down. With a swift seven-frame follow-through, Ratigan's arm sweeps across his chest arcing almost over his shoulder and he settles into a stare that is absolutely chilling. Elegant animation taking full advantage of the best principles of squash and stretch, and all imbued with such life – such specific life.

Keane's supervision of Ratigan takes uncompromising and full advantage of everything rubbery and broad about animation that makes it so distinctly different from real life. Yet, instead of being just wildly funny, it is absolutely real in the way only great character animation can accomplish. The gesture, the silhouettes, the extreme poses, the sheer fun of it all is akin to watching an Olympic skater perform a no-holes-barred free-form program using every trick in the book without apology. It is not cocky, it is simply without restriction or confinement of any set of rules, and it makes you want to stand and cheer as way of expressing how much fun it is to watch.

The film, as a whole, is sometimes dismissed as a lesser work. Even former Walt Disney Studios president Jeffrey Katzenberg is quoted in "The Disney Villains�? as saying "Everything about The Great Mouse Detective is at a level of 80%. Everything about it is pretty good as opposed to GREAT (sic).�? In retrospect this assessment seems snobbish and too dismissive of a film that took Disney animation out of creative stasis and reminded both audiences and executive alike that animation could be fun, entertaining, surprising, and financially successful. The wit and satire of the film feel much fresher in repeated viewings than either of Katzenberg's great green ogre episodes. The script is tight, clever, and exceptionally well constructed, and may be second only to the Musker and Clements screenplay for The Little Mermaid. While The Little Mermaid is frequently pointed to as the film that changed the course of Disney animation – it still stands squarely on the shoulders of Basil of Baker Street and company. Had the intrepid team who championed this film in Disney's darkest hour (to date) not accomplished what they did, chances are that Ariel would never have found her way to the surface in a vast ocean of mediocrity that had become Disney animation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.