Dear Ivy,
Ice Age: Scrat Tales will start streaming on Disney+ from April 13th, 2022. Disney+ announced the release date along with a new poster of the show on social media. Ice Age fans were excited with this announcement. The show, which is a spin-off from the Ice Age franchise, features Scrat. Scrat is a saber-toothed squirrel who is obsessed with collecting acorns, constantly putting his life in danger to obtain and defend them.
However, the release date revelation also left some fans surprised. Fans had believed that they had already seen the last of Scrat after he was missing in the most recent Ice Age movie released on Disney+, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. Scrat first appeared in Ice Age which was released in 2002. Several people over the years had claimed ownership of this character over the last 20 years. The strongest claim has been from you.
Back in 1999, you pitched a character to Blue Sky you called “SQRAT,” a combination of a squirrel and a rat which the studio said they weren’t interested in. However, once you saw the character appear in Ice Age, you filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox (Blue Sky was a 20th Century subsidiary). The judge eventually ruled that Fox and you both owned Scrat equally. Not satisfied, you continued to fight for total ownership. When Disney bought 20th Century, the rights to the Ice Age franchise folded under Disney.
On the 28th of January 2022, when the latest installment in the Ice Age franchise dropped, you tweeted that you had won as Scrat was missing in the movie.
This led to reports that Disney may have lost the rights to the character. Some fans were hopeful that you would license the character to Disney going forward, but there was no official confirmation regarding any of these reports. Thus, there was no clarity on the character’s future.
The Scrat Tales announcement has now left followers of the franchise confused. Some believe this show was in the works long before the dispute was settled and could thus be the last time we see Scrat on-screen in his current animation form.
The series comprises six all-new animated shorts starring Scrat who experiences the ups and downs of fatherhood, as he and the adorable, mischievous Baby Scrat, alternately bond with each other and battle for ownership of the highly treasured Acorn.
What do you think? Is this show a final goodbye to Scrat? If it is, Scrat and his fans will become sad once again! We have to get Scrat to appear in the seventh movie of the Ice Age franchise 20th Century Studios is working on!
In the sixth movie of the Ice Age franchise, Manny, Diego, Sid and 4 others are now in their current Bardel Entertainment animation form, but not Scrat unfortunately.
We all want to see both Scrat and Scratte in their current Bardel Entertainment animation forms when they finally appear in the seventh movie of the Ice Age franchise.
My petition needs just 17 more signatures to make it reach to its next goal.
And in the future, you must ask Bardel Entertainment if they are interested in Scrat the squirrel's current 2021 animation and if you can have them finally design Scrat in his current Bardel Entertainment animation form.
Signed,
Aidan Lane, one of the Scrat the squirrel fans.