Your Friend the Rat (2007) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Very funny and highly entertaining "learning" films has the rats from Pixar's RATATOUILLE telling us the history of rats and explaining why humans should make peace with them. We get to learn various things like how they help us in science experiments, how they are worshiped in India and we get to learn about their earliest days on Earth. I was really shocked to see how funny this short was and it really wanted to make me watch the feature, which I'm sure is a good thing. There were several jokes that had me laughing out loud including the wonderful one where the rats were hit with an atomic bomb and we're told they suffered no side effects but then we see them walk out with three heads on the one body. The black plague sequence was also extremely funny as well as the scenes where we learn that rats can get into your home by the toilet. I enjoyed that they also mixed up the animation a little here as it wasn't all CG. The final joke with the rats trying to keep the disclaimer off the screen also worked very well.

This short film was on the Ratatouille DVD as an additional extra. On other Pixar DVD's the character driven shorts tended to be funny and like mini-films (eg Mike's New Car) and I expected the same from this one as well. The clue is in the title though because this film is actually a sort of educational piece presented by Remy and Emil. In the film they make the plea for rats as being grossly misrepresented by record and perception. To remedy this they present the history of the rat, where it came from and why it has gotten such a bad reputation down the years.It is a clever chance of pace for the added short film because it takes the creative humour of Pixar and makes a bit of an attempt to do something new. For me it mostly works and I found it to be quite interesting but not at the expense of entertainment value. The laughs are not that strong but the style of delivery means it is continually amusing. Talking of style of delivery the main thing I liked about it was that the animation was a lot more creative and impressive that the all-CGI film itself. Yes, the CGI is quite brilliant as usual but I appreciated the mix of styles and techniques employed here. Not sure if it was deliberate to achieve this but to me it felt like the studio reminding the viewer that it is not the computers that make all this seem easy so much as the animators behind it – regardless of style.Overall then, not a hilarious short film but an interesting and entertaining one. Amusing throughout, the simplified run through history is well presented but for my money what makes it worth seeing is the range of animation styles all coming together in this film.

If you have the DVD of Ratatouille, then you would have this short animated "documentary" showing a short history of rats. Presented by brothers (from the film) Remy (Patton Oswalt) and Emil (Peter Sohn), they plead the case for rats by illustrating the historical and scientific facts about the species and their interaction with humans. These include the plague, their strength, being pets, being experimented on - because they have the same combination of organs as humans, and some more stuff. Also starring Lou Romano as Linguini, Tony Russel as Disclaimer Guy, Sigmund Vik as The Norwegian Rat, Jim Capobianco as Director voice and a quick bit of footage from A Bug's Life with John Ratzenberger as P.T. Flea. It is obviously better to see Ratatouille before this. Good!

This is an extra from the DVD release of RATATOUILLE. It is a documentary about rats that some might find stuffy--like some sort of public service lecture or an episode of BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY. However, since I am a history teacher, I liked it--particularly the segment on the Black Death. Plus, while the text of the film is indeed dull, the graphics and laughs are excellent (I particularly liked the obscure reference to Francois Truffaut). Interestingly, while the movie RATATOUILLE is pure CG, this features what looks like traditional hand-drawn animation--and very high quality animation it is. So even if you don't like the topic or dialog, you can't help but respect the animation.Who says learning can't be fun?