Fidget The Bat

Fidget
Home	Sewer's Lair
Occupation	Ratigan's right hand henchman (in the film), Olivia's sidekick (in Disney Adventures comic story when reformed), used to work at a carnival
Story appearances
Feature films	The Great Mouse Detective Mickey's House of Villains
TV shows	House of Mouse
Video games	Basil the Great Mouse Detective
Voice actor	Candy Candido

Fidget the Bat is a peg-legged bat and was the secondary antagonist in Disney's 1986 feature film The Great Mouse Detective. He used to be Professor Ratigan's right-hand man. He was voiced by the late Candy Candido.

Background

Physical Description

Fidget is a bat wearing a cockney gangster's beret, scarf, a black shoe, and a peg leg. He has yellow eyes and sharp teeth.

Personality

Fidget is, at first, a cowardly, greedy minion in the employ of Professor Ratigan. He is somewhat forgetful, as he left his beret and Ratigan's list (which allows Basil to track him down and find Ratigan's hideout, respectively) when he ran away the first and second time, respectively. Despite this he is also cunning, he knows his way around London very well, and he also ambushed Olivia. He isn't a very good speaker, as he has difficulty with speaking properly about what happened to Ratigan's list.

However, in the comics, he has become a much better person.

Appearances

The Great Mouse Detective

In the beginning, he kidnaps Hiram Flaversham in their toy shop, leaving his daughter Olivia Flaversham all by herself. Desperate to find him, she sets out to find Basil of Baker Street, the only detective with the skills to find him. When she informs Basil that it was Fidget who kidnapped her father and that he was a bat with a peg leg, Basil immediately knew Ratigan was behind the kidnapping, and set out with Olivia and Dr. Dawson to find them.

Ratigan charges Fidget with kidnapping Olivia as a means of blackmailing Flaversham with her life, as he is needed to help Ratigan overthrow the Queen of Mousedom on her Diamond Jubilee. Fidget also is charged with stealing tools and uniforms for Ratigan's gang to use when they overthrow the queen, and steals them from a local toy shop. Basil tracks him there, so Fidget disguises himself as a baby boy in a crib using only a bundle until Olivia, out of curiosity, comes across the crib falls in love with him and finds Fidget. He captures her and manages to escape before Basil can stop him.

Unfortunately, Fidget later discovers that the list of the things he needed to steal was missing, and realized that Basil would use it as evidence. When Ratigan learned Basil was on their trail, he almost fed Fidget to his cat Felicia, but spared him when he found that Fidget could help him to capture Basil. Fidget tracks Basil and Dawson to a local pub and tricks them into following him to Ratigan's Lair, where he dresses up like Olivia in a bottle to lure in the duo. Basil and Dawson are captured, and are left for dead while Ratigan and Fidget run off to overthrow the queen.

Fidget delivers the fake robotic queen built by Flaversham to the queen, and they arrest her to be fed to Felicia. Fidget carries out this task, but instead he is nearly eaten once again when Basil, who escaped Ratigan's trap, rescues the queen at last second, but is saved by Toby. Fidget is tied up while Basil stops Ratigan, but escapes his bonds and once again kidnaps Olivia. He and Ratigan escape on a hot air blimp over the Thames River.

During their getaway, the crooks are pursued by Basil, Dawson, and Flaversham on a makeshift balloon, and Fidget who is pedaling the blimp's propeller tries to outrun them. Unfortunately, the extra weight is too much for him, and tells Ratigan that they have to lighten the load, meaning throw Olivia off the balloon. Deciding that Fidget outlived his usefulness, Ratigan throws him out instead. Fidget, however, cannot fly because of his bad wing and falls into the Thames River below, where he was thought to have died but was later revealed to have survived the fall. How he survived and decided to be good we have yet to know.

If he ever appears in a possible sequel, we will know how he survived and reformed.

Book Appearances

Comics

During a comic taking place after the movie, he has not only survived, but also reformed helping out Olivia. When Olivia heard about the Sideshow Sea Beast, she called him and Toby and head out for the carnival. He told Olivia that the beast is the talk of the show and that he used to work at a carnival. Fidget even showed Olivia how some of the tricks are done. Once he showed her the attraction, the monster got angry and held Fidget captive. Olivia saved his skin by carrying a chum bucket of fish guts, which is the beast's dinner. After the beast threw Fidget, Olivia hoped Fidget remembered that he can fly (how he got to fly again was unknown). Once the beast went back to the ocean, Olivia and Fidget celebrated with caramel apples. He probably reformed because with his boss Ratigan gone, he was pretty much lost and had no where else to go. Another suggestion is that he had enough with crime. It is also known that they solve other mysteries, but what they are is unknown.

Trivia

• In Italy, Fidget was called Vampirello, literally "Little Vampire".
• Fidget has several disabilities, notably his peg leg and a crippled wing which prevents him from flying. However, in the comic book, he seems to have overcome the latter injury, however, how this was accomplished was unknown.
• According to Basil, Fidget likes to drink a drink called Rodent's Delight.
• Fidget likes to hang upside-down. (Much like real-life bats do.)
• Oddly, Fidget wears his beret at the end of the film despite that he lost it when he was at Basil's house. This could mean he has more than one beret.
• In the movie, he appears to be absent-minded, but in the comics, he appears to be smarter and brotherly to Olivia.
• It's not clear if Fidget was a carny before or after the movie.
• Fidget was a combination of many precedent Disney henchmen; Mr. Smee from Peter Pan, the Goons from Sleeping Beauty, Jasper and Horace Badun from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Sir Hiss from Robin Hood, Mr. Snoops, Nero and Brutus from The Rescuers, Creeper from The Black Cauldron and had inspired Toadwart from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Joanna the Goanna from The Rescuers Down Under, LeFou from Beauty and the Beast, Iago from Aladdin, Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed from The Lion King, Pain and Panic from Hercules, Helga Sinclair from Atlantis, and Lawrence from The Princess and the Frog, due to suffering from humiliation, until his reformation where he is now like Pumbaa, Jiminy Cricket, and Wreck-It Ralph.
• Fidget has a raspy voice.
• Disney thought of making Fidget a scary, yet lovable character to viewers which he is today.
• Fidget calls Olivia, "Livy" as of the comic.
• In both the movie and the comic, he was working under a boss; first Ratigan, then Olivia Flaversham.
• In the German dub, Fidget is known as "Greifer", although it is occasionally misspelled as "Griefer."
• Fidget is noticeably Candy Candido's final role before his death. Since Candido normally has a deep, croaky voice (as with his roles as the Indian Chief, the Goons, and Captain Crocodile), his voice actually had to be digitally sped up in order for Fidget to sound high-pitched.
• He is also similar to Helga Sinclair from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, both being thrown overboard to "lighten the load". However, unlike Fidget, Helga didn't back down until she was thrown overboard again, and was shown to still be alive for a little after the fall. Plus, he is confirmed to have survived the fall and became nicer, giving away his criminal past, while Helga's final fate is unknown.
• His design is similar to the Gremlins in the 1984 Steven Spielberg film Gremlins.
• His design will be used for Timothy "Tim" Hatcher the gremlin in A-film's The Troll Story.
• His voice actor also provided the voice of one of the patrons at the bar (the one who said "Get off the stage, you eight-legged bum") using his real voice.