The Great Mouse Detective
The Great Mouse Detective (released July
1986), known as
Basil, the Great Mouse Detective in
Great Britain, is the 26th animated film produced by the
Walt Disney Company. Based on the children's story
Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus, it draws heavily on the tradition of
Sherlock Holmes; Titus named the main character after actor
Basil Rathbone, who is best remembered for playing Holmes in film. The main characters are all mice and rats.
The movie is notable for its early use of computer generated imagery. For a chase scene that takes place in the interior of a clock, the movements of the clock's gears were produced as wire-frame graphics on a computer and traced onto animation cels. The characters were then animated by hand over these cels and the characters' completed cels placed on top of them. This was Disney's first animated film to use CGI animation though not the last by any means.