A bunch of young musical theatre lovers on the video-sharing app TikTok have been creating songs, choreography and even set pieces to collaboratively cook up a recipe for Ratatouille: The Musical (or Ratatousical), a non-existent stage musical adaptation of the 2007 Disney/Pixar film about a rat in Paris who longs to become a chef — and the results so far are pretty great!
The original film isn’t even a musical or even much of a pop-culture hit compared to other Disney films like Frozen. But the film still appeals to any creatively ambitious person who has longed to become more than they were told they could be. Because the ongoing pandemic has closed most theaters, theatric artists stuck at home have had lots of time on their hands to create their own songs and dances for the would-be musical.
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While the TikTok musical has a somewhat complicated backstory, it began when Emily Jacobson composed a quick silly song called “Remy the Ratatouille”, praising the cartoon rat as one worth remembering.
Her song sparked the idea for a musical after Brittany Broski, a TikTok creator with 5.8 million followers, posted a video of Jacobson’s song over footage of a life-size Remy dancing at Disney World, and composer Daniel Mertzlufft rearranged Jacobson’s song into something sounding like a full-fledged finale to a Disney musical.
From there, various composers and singers on TikTok — like Gabbie Bol, RJ Christian and Blake Rouse — took the idea and ran with it, creating short one-minute snippets of songs that are both silly, completely serious and give viewers an amuse bouche taste of what a Ratatouille stage musical would actually sound like.
Clips from the musical are below, but as a quick primer for those who haven’t seen the 2007 film: Remy, an ambitious culinary rat, is told by his father that humans are dangerous and his proper place is digging through the garbage with his very large family, but he eventually befriends Alfredo Linguini, a young dishwasher who accidentally stumbles into a cooking position in the restaurant of the deceased but renowned chef Auguste Gusteau.
Hiding in Alfredo’s chef’s hat, Remy controls Alfredo by gently pulling his hair to tell him what ingredients to use. But the restaurant’s only female chef, Colette Tatou, suspects something fishy (or ratty) is going on with Alfredo, and an infamous dour food critic, Anton Ego, threatens the restaurant’s very existence unless Remy and Alfredo can serve up a truly memorable dish.
With that in mind, here are song titles and clips, arranged in narrative order, from Ratatouille: The Musical with a little additional context about the characters singing them.
Here’s a copy of the playbill cover:
first we have the poster created by @tinymallet pic.twitter.com/7c9wUR9woU
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
Here are two songs in which Remy’s father warns him about the deadly way that humans view rats. One of the songs is entitled, “Trash is Our Treasure.”
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
Dancer Alley Kerr even created a dance for “Trash is Our Treasure.”
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
Two ballet dancers perform a brief dance to Jacobson’s “Remy the Ratatouille,” and a designer’s imagining of how the set for the song might look:
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
In “Anyone Can Cook”, by RJ Christian, Christian plays the ghost of Auguste Gusteau, who convinces Alfredo that he must try to cook, even though it’s a demanding art.
@rjthecomposer I worked way too hard on this #ratatouille #ratatouillethemusical #musical
In this alternate version of “Anyone Can Cook”, musician Kevin Chamberlin presents a more upbeat version of Gusteau, encouraging Alfredo’s culinary potential.
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 19, 2020
Here’s “Recipe for Success.” Christian (playing Remy) teams up with Cameron Reese (playing Alfredo) and they sing this song at the moment the two decide to work together to create culinary dishes in Gusteau’s restaurant.
@rjthecomposer The duet you’ve been waiting for featuring my roomie and friend @thecameronshow as Linguini. The Recipe to Success #ratatouillemusical #ratatouille
In “Collette’s Training,” a singer named Genevieve plays Collette, who teaches Alfredo the hard lessons of surviving in the heat of the kitchen.
@bowlingforsnails everyone pls tag @ratatouillemusical i love remy i wanna help tell his story #ratatouille #ratatouillemusical #fyp remy is my #Yellow
In “Ratatouille Tango,” Acacia Pressley plays Collette and Blake Rouse plays Alfredo as she whips him into shape to start cooking like a true professional.
@aaacacia_ #duet with @blakeyrouse sorry for the lack of enthusiasm but i was trying to remember it #WeWinTogether #fyp #ratatouillemusical #musical #singer #fyp
In this video, Singer Ryan David Jacobs plays the role of Skinner, Gusteau’s former sous-chef and new owner of the restaurant, who suspects that a rat is the secret to Alfredo’s success. The song is called “Little Rat.”
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 18, 2020
In this melancholy piece, Alfredo sings to Remy, worried that he has to let the rat go rather than keep up the charade that he is really cut out to be a chef.
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 19, 2020
Finally, Christian plays food critic Anton Ego, contemplating the modesty of Alfredo’s titular dish, ratatouille, just before he takes a bite.
— linds | spn spoilers (@jojochalamet) November 17, 2020
