Some Geniuses Have Created An Entire ‘Ratatouille’ Musical On TikTok And It’s Incredible

In 2007, the world learned that maybe rats aren’t all that bad when Remy’s culinary skills wowed us in Ratatouille. 

For those who have forgotten (which is highly blasphemous, but ok), in the Pixar-Disney collaboration, Remy the French rat lived out his chef dreams by working with a talentless garbage boy named Linguini.

In a profession that prides itself on cleanliness — with vermin like rats being the ultimate enemy — Remy hid in Linguini’s chef hat and controlled the klutz enough to become “the finest chef in France”, according to one of the world’s most-renowned food critics. Absolutely tear-jerking stuff, to be honest.

So really it’s no surprise that Gen Z have banded together to revive the rat tale 13 years on with Ratatouille: The Musical — an entirely online musical created by people across the world on TikTok.

How Ratatouille: The Musical Came To Be

You see, it all started when 26-year-old teacher Em Jaccs posted ‘Ode to Remy’, a soft love ballad to Remy the Rat back in August.

But while the original video did pretty well with 110,000 likes, the song only really started to take off in October when TikTok star Brittany Broski used the audio as the backing track to her attempt at dancing like a giant Remy mascot.

From here, Jaccs ‘Ode to Remy’ started to take off, with people all over the app using the song as the audio to every video imaginable — from people talking about how weird the weeks of the pandemic have felt, to choreographed Remy dance numbers, and, for some reason, also a LOT of clips of Remy mascots dancing to crowds of kids, too.

Thanks to the some 15,000 videos using Jaccs audio, ‘Ode to Remy’ caught the attention of Daniel Mertzlufft, the composer and arranger responsible for the viral Grocery Store Musical that swept over TikTok earlier this year.

After hearing Jaccs original ballad, Mertzlufft decided to turn the track into a “big act II finale” number featuring the sounds of a 16-part ensemble, and stage notes for where exactly the rat would be as his “adoring fans praised him”.

With direction notes like “Remy on a lift flying over the audience” as the track reaches its crescendo, Mertzlufft ends his rendition with the joke note that Ratatouille: The Musical would be coming to Broadway in 2021.

Speaking to On Stage Blog, Mertzlufft explained that his over-production, while clearly a parody, “gives the feeling of a real, fully produce musical… [which is] even funnier because it’s clearly a joke, but you still get emotional”.

And emotional did TikTok get. Once Mertzlufft’s new arrangement hit the app, people across the world decided to pitch in to help make this virtual musical a reality in the hopes that a Broadway version could be a very real possibility.

For example, Aussie artist, Gabbi Bolt, decided to add to the musical by crafting a song (‘Good in the Garbage’) told from the perspective of Remy’s disapproving father, while 19-year-old Acacia Pressley and 17-year-old Blakey Rouse performed a duet as love interests Linguini and Colette (Ratatouille Tango).

A big player in the Ratatouille: The Musical universe, Rouse also created a banger titled ‘The Rats Way of Life’, to act as the musical number sang between Remy and his rat friends near the start of the tale.

RJ Christian, a theatre composer, even went above and beyond to create a track for the late Auguste Gusteau, to tie into the restauranteurs motto of “anyone can cook”, which is the inspiration Remy takes to follow his dreams in the original film.

Rolling with the same idea, Broadway star Kevin Chamberlin, dressed in a full chef’s outfit, also offered up his more jolly version of ‘Anyone Can Cook’, to add some variety in the songs available for the musical adaptation.

But beyond making actual tracks that would fit seamlessly into a Broadway Ratatouille musical, those who aren’t musically inclined even gave us a behind-the-scenes look at all the other moving parts that are necessary to make a successful Broadway production.

From TikTok’s about rehearsals, costume design, directing, choreography and even an official Playbill, Gen Z took Ratatouille: The Musical and absolutely ran with it. No, sprinted with it — and now the #RatatouilleMusical hashtag has an impressive 83.3 million views and counting.

Ratatouille: The Meme

But Ratatouille: The Musical has also snowballed into a meme, with just so much content existing on the app now.

From people ranking the unofficial musical’s best tracks, to imagining how Lin-Manuel Miranda would Lin-Manuel Miranda-fy Ratatouille: The Musical, Ratatouille-Tok has become it’s own little niche on the app — and it’s a real joy to see.

The best part of all, however, is that instead of shutting down the online production of the Ratatou-sical with cease and desist letters, yesterday Pixar almost sort-of welcomed the idea by tweeting out an image of Remy with the caption: “The rat of all our dreams”.

The rat of all our dreams. pic.twitter.com/T1srDJvObs

— Pixar (@Pixar) November 21, 2020

Fingers crossed, y’all. Perhaps our Ratatouille musical dreams will come true in 2021.