Just the thought of the scene when the rats converge in the kitchen in Disney's Ratatouille gives me the willies. They're (shudder) rats. Uggggh.
Becoming a parent, I quickly learned, was setting myself up for dozens of movies/tv shows featuring the world's creepiest animals thrown onto a screen in the attempts to make kids think they're just as cute and cuddly as your average puppy.
Who are they trying to kid? Rats, spiders and cuddly tigers? Oh my.
Remy in Ratatouille: He can read! He can cook! Gotcha - but he's still a rat. And rats don't belong indoors, not to mention in a restaurant kitchen mixing up French delicacies. Since this comes from the folks at Disney, I can't help but ask, did they take a look in their archives? I hold the rat scene from Lady and the Tramp wholly responsible for my residual rodent revulsion.
Charlotte in Charlotte's Web: Another reader, with a talent for writing, Charlotte is the true hero of the movie and E. B. White's book that bear her name. She's still a spider! With big buggy eyes and larger-than-life chompers. And did anyone catch the tail end of the Dakota Fanning version, with the egg sack full of thousands of little spiders just waiting to scuttle off and settle in the corners? See Also: Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.
Alvin, Simon and Theadore in Alvin and the Chipmunks: I will always remember the day a contractor left a door open at my parents house and a chipmunk snuck in. Total. . . and complete . . . pandemonium. Followed by plenty of cleaning up of little pellets of poop in my bedroom. Ewww. Another member of the rodent family, chipmunks carry disease and are best-known for storing their food in their cheeks so long they come close to bursting, followed closely by their "chirpy" chipmunk calls. Ever said, "say it, don't spray it," when your kid spoke with a full mouth? Try telling that to a chipmunk . . . or to the three singing sweethearts who hanker for hula hoops? That Dave lets these little guys live in his house and eat of his cereal bowls is giving me flashbacks. . . to poop cleaning.
Oswald: With the disarming voice of a Savage brother, how could anyone dislike the bright blue resident of Big City who tips his bowler to everyone he meets? Maybe the fact that octupi have been known to kill sharks, detach one of their eight legs to escape predators and shoot bright clouds of ink at anyone who gets in their way? Fish may be friends, not food, but the octupus is not the friendliest member of the ocean community.
Images: Disney, Flixster, Amazon, Parent Previews
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