Scrat

Scrat

Scrat is a saber-toothed squirrel who loves acorns. He is commonly shown in scenes as a comic relief character, involving Manny, Sid and the rest, but never interacts with them, directly with a few exceptions. He appears in all four films, as well as his own short films, "Gone Nutty" and "No Time For Nuts" and has also made a cameo appearance in Sid's short, "Surviving Sid." He usually has his own stories in the film, independent of the main plot, which are parallel with the journeys of the other main characters simply by chance, making the other characters meet him occasionally. Although not fully part of the gang, Scrat has proven major success around the world and has become a breakthrough character of the series. Ice Age: Scrat Tales

Appearance and Personality

Scrat is a crossover of a squirrel and a rat (hence the name Sc-rat), is small and has brownish fur. He has a pointed jaw like a rat and a body similar to a squirrel. Scrat also has small saber-teeth similar to a saber-tooth tiger and a large curled bushy tail nearly as big as his body. He is also very shy and timid.

Scrat is always seen chasing his acorn. Once succeeded, he usually hugs it, buries it or pretends to eat it. This doesn't last for long as he always loses it. Scrat is usually a glutton for punishment, having to risk his life to get his nut back. He was struck by lightning, chased by avalanches, got into fights with piranhas and Sid (In the first film after the dodo bird fight). Scrat is also nutty when it comes to his acorn.

An example of one of Scrat's torture.

A possible basis in science?

Palaeozoologists working within the University of Science and Technology, Ottawa, were on an expedition in the Ottawan Mountain Range, and while engaged in a dig, came across what appeared to be the partially-preserved fossilized remains of a small mammalian creature, dated to be approximately 36 million years old. This corresponds with the current 31 million year estimate; the point at which, so-called “modern day” squirrels were thought to have diverged from a common ancestor and were later introduced into Western North America, most probably as a result of continental drift. Further laboratory analysis of the unidentified mammal’s jaw structure, revealed the presence of a primordial, saber-like tooth structure, while a computer-generated reconstruction of its backbone and tail revealed the animal to have possibly been a common ancestor of the common day squirrel. Phylogenetic analysis has reinforced this theory and lends tenuous, yet encouraging evidence to the fact that the creature “Scrat”, made famous by the popular Ice Age animated movies, may indeed have been a direct ancestor of the common Delmarva Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger cinereus).

Roles in the series

Movies

Scrat is shown in the first film, naively making his way through the ice age with his only possession: One single acorn. He tried to bury it into the snow, but with little success, as the snow itself was frozen solid. With enough force, he stomped down on it, causing the ice around it to crack. This began a chain reaction, which cracked more and more ice, until an entire glacier came crashing down, nearly smashing Scrat. However, Scrat escaped, only to be stepped on by masses of migrating animals. Eventually, Scrat would make his way to a tree and try to bury his acorn there, but inevitably would use it as a lightning rod by mistake. As time went on, Scrat unknowingly followed Manfred and the others up north, getting flung into the sky, and sliding through ice slides. Eventually His acorn is frozen and when he tries to thaw it, turns into a piece of popcorn. 2000 years later, At some point after the Ice Age films (as shown in the epilogue of the first movie), Scrat was frozen, while in pursuit of his acorn and thawed out 20,000 years later on a tropical island. However, he lost his nut, presumebly forever. Scrat took his anger out on a nearby palm tree and was hit on the head by a coconut, which more than compensates for 20,000 years and a lost acorn.

At some point after Scrat's travels up north, he stockpiled many acorns into a tree stump, but mistakenly stocked them too tight, which caused them to shoot out of the stump and into the sky, taking poor Scrat with them and eventually, one would jet back down to Earth with the impact of a guided missile, causing the land beneath to rupture. This began the continents to drift apart, leaving Scrat stranded on a single patch of land with nothing but an empty acorn shell.

By the second film, Scrat made his way to a great glacier and yanked out his beloved acorn from the side. This let loose a stream of water, evidence that the current ice age was ending. Scrat hastily tried to plug the holes in the ice back in, but rather ended up being shot out from the glacier's side and falling down a long way down, until he hit solid ice, and was sent through the icy slide when a young Platybelodon slid through there.

Scrat eventually was close to retrieving his acorn when he saw it under the icy surface of a lake. He tried to get it back by stomping on the surface, but ended up under the ice. He had lost it when it ended up above him, and he remained on the lower levels of the ice. Eventually, he would get his cherished acorn back, having battled piranhas and baby vultures, being stomped out of a nest, scaling ice walls, and at last, reaching his cherished acorn. It is revealed in the second film that Scrat is a professional at some kind of ice age martial art. This is demonstrated when he is attacked by the aforementioned piranhas and one of them attempts to eat his adored acorn, and then again, at the end when he is resuscitated by Sid. Warning signs that Scrat is about to perform this martial art appear in the form of slitted eyes and a loud war cry.

As Scrat had his acorn with him at one point after being stomped out of the nest, he had little time to regroup with it, as the great ice dam behind him came crashing down, sending he and his acorn helplessly drifting through massive walls of water in a nest. Finally, Scrat had reached one of the walls, that he was floating near, and began to climb it, using his acorn as a pickax, but rather ended up diverting the waters, that had flooded the valley when the acorn had weakened the ice and broken through it, sending Scrat, his acorn and all of the water away. Scrat saved the animals, but died in the process.

Eventually, Scrat made his way to Nut Heaven, a heaven for squirrels, where he was among many acorns and was about to approach a giant, golden acorn, but he was brought back to life on Earth when Sid performed CPR on him. Scrat, after waking up, realized that Sid had taken him from his heavenly acorn and attacked him in a frenzy. As Scrat comes to, the golden gates of Nut Heaven are briefly portrayed as a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. This is also expressed by a hysterical Eddie in a much earlier scene ("Crash! Don't go into the light!").

In the third film, Scrat encounters Scratte, a female saber-toothed squirrel, whom he competes with over his acorn, and is instantly smitten. However, after numerous conflicts, the two fall in love, only for Scrat to tire of her finicky nature and return to his old ways. After another battle between the two, Scrat is left the loser; he is stranded on the surface, while Scratte is left in the underground jungle of the dinosaurs... with Scrat's acorn. Scrat screams in frustration, having lost both his acorn and Scratte.

(Though he possibly can retrieve his acorn once again by going back to the dinosaur world where he had fallen when he was in a bubble)

In the fourth film,

Scrat at the beginning of the second movie.

Shorts

Scrat was also the main character in two short films. In the first, entitled Gone Nutty, he loses his meticulously-organized collection of acorns in a catastrophic chain of events. By ramming his acorn into the hole in the exact middle of the collection, he shatters the pile and, incidentally, the continent and accidentally starts continental drift. In the second, No Time For Nuts, he finds a time machine left by an unfortunate time-traveler, and visits a number of historical events. He is eventually trapped in a future when acorn trees have gone extinct, but somehow manages to return to the series' time period. Scrat also had a cameo in the short film Surviving Sid that was significant to the plot.

Games

Scrat is the main character in the Ice Age 2: The Meltdown video game. He's also playable in the other two games based on the series. Though, in the Ice Age 3 game, he and Scratte appear as an interlude, but still playable.

List of Ordeals and Injuries

Scrat is probably the most hardy of the characters. He gets tortured a lot but rarely has any bruises, scratches, or permanent body damage.

Ice Age

• Falls from a very high point in the beginning
• Gets stepped on by creatures weighing tons
• Gets struck by lightning at the top of a tree, when he tried to bury his acorn.
• Gets flicked really high in the air by Diego
• Runs into ice wall
• Frozen in ice for 20,000 years
• Rolls down a hill, gathering snow, forming a snowball

Ice Age: The Meltdown

• Gets filled with water and inflates like a balloon
• Gets his head flattened by a cut-out piece of ice
• Fights a school of piranhas
• Gets beaten by a condor and is thrown out of her nest
• Nearly split in half when the dam breaks
• Falls into a chasm
• Almost drowns.
• Hit by a Platybelodon on a water slide.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

• Falls off a cliff and gets trampled by Manny
• Falls off another cliff
• Gets crushed by a tree
• Has his chest hair torn off by Scratte
• Almost falls into a volcano
• Gets attacked by Scratte while dancing the tango
• Falls from a great height in the Ice Age world to the Dino World, after being trapped in a bubble
• Gets shot up into the air by a rocket with Scratte (he pulls the acorn from scrattes hands)
• Sticks to a tree

Ice Age: Collision Course

• Survived a black hole

Controversy

Main article: Ivy Silberstein

There is some dispute regarding the character. Scrat, from the movie Ice Age, was allegedly stolen from Ivy Silberstein after she pitched her character "Sqrat", a cross between a squirrel and a rat that she claims to have seen in Central Park, to 20th Century Fox movie executives. Ivy claims she created the character in 1999. A CNN report by Jeanie Moos of Ivy's discovery was aired in 2000, 2 years before Ice Age went into development.

Ivy Silberstein was offered a $300,000 settlement by Fox but turned it down, and subsequently lost the case. The case is currently in appeal (Case # 04401 Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, NYC). Ivy has continued her "Make Rupert Murdoch Pay" campaign in hopes of still receiving damages for her perceived infringement.[1]

In a reverse suit, Fox Film Corperation v. Ivy Silberstein, where Fox tried to prevent the registration of the trade mark "SQRAT", the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled a partial Summary Judgement for the Defendant.[2]

Popular culture

Main article: Ice Age in popular culture

• Scrat appeared in the Family Guy episode "Sibling Rivalry" as a gag. In the gag, Scrat is in his normal 3D appearance with Chris Wedge reprising his role while Peter is drawn in regular 2D. Scrat bites Peter's nuts after he refuses to give Scrat his nuts.
• Scrat also appears in The Simpsons episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" drawn 2D. Groundskeeper Willie kicked Scrat for taking his acorn.
• Scrat is also considered as the mascot for 20th Century Fox, the distributor of the Ice Age trilogy.
• In the South Park episode Cartoon Wars part II, Scrat is seen spoofed on a movie billboard called Cold Age: The Smackdown, an obvious parody of Ice Age: The Meltdown.
• In an episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Retro turns a squirrel into a saber-toothed squirrel and Pleakley (suffering from Retcho's power) makes reference to a saber-tooth squirrel, stating he has never heard of one before.
• In the video game Whiplash, Spanx the Long-tailed Weasel is questioned by Raymond about what kind of animal he is, with Raymond later exclaiming "I know, you're a scrat!"
• In the video game, Crysis Warhead, an easter egg in an ice tunnel features Scrat reaching for his beloved acorn, frozen in an ice wall.