Ice Age: Here's Why We Won't See Scrat Anymore
Disney has reportedly agreed to discontinue use of Scrat, the popular saber-toothed muscrat who served as the de facto mascot of the Ice Age franchise, following a 20-year dispute between Blue Sky Animation, who produced the films, and a cartoonist who claimed ownership of the character. Ivy Silberstein, who goes professionally by Ivy Supersonic, says that in 1999, she created Sqrat, a character who was half-squirrel and half-rat, after seeing a similar animal in the park (bonus features on the Ice Age 2 DVD also make the "squirrel-rat" connection, saying that Scrat is an ancestor of both). Silberstein apparently tried to pitch the critter to Blue Sky or Fox (who owned Blue Sky at the time) at one point, and later filed a lawsuit alleging that her copyright had been violated when Scrat appeared in Ice Age without compensation to her.
Updated Feb. 22, 2022, 12:30 p.m. ET: Just days after this story circulated, Disney+ announced Ice Age: Scrat Tales, a six-part series of animated shorts featuring Scrat and his new family. This suggests that Disney never intended to discontinue use of the character, in spite of the various reports referenced or cited below. Below, the original story continues.
Several people have claimed ownership of Scrat over the years, making the character a nice diversion onscreen, but a bit of a headache for the studio in the real world. Silberstein's claims held the most weight, but in 2003, a judge found that she and Blue Sky had equal claim to the character. This allowed her to create a world around her version of Sqrat, which she did in a comic strip, but did not compel Fox to discontinue their use of Scrat, or to pay Silberstein. Unsatisfied and undeterred, she continued making her case to Fox for years.
Scrat was the mascot of Blue Sky for years, but following Disney's 2019 acquisition of Fox, Blue Sky was shuttered. While the Ice Age IP will live on at Disney, various news reports suggest that the studio met with Silberstein after the Fox acquisition to try to come to an acceptable resolution of her case. Most of those news stories are from outside of the English-speaking media, but Looper has a breakdown of the highlights.
Assuming these reports are accurate, it seems Scrat's absence from future Ice Age projects is the result of Disney acquiescing to Silberstein's demands, but the verbage in the articles does not suggest this was the result of a court ruling against Disney. Instead, it seems they either saw credibility in her argument, or simply did not want to deal with more litigation.
After appearing in the first five Ice Age films, the character of Scrat was one of a number of notable absences from The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, with others being several of the original voice actors. If that first Disney-released take on the franchise is a hint about what to expect next, that might make the timing of Scrat's departure pretty logical. Goodbye to the old days and hello to "Disney's Ice Age."
The day Buck Wild dropped on Disney+, Silberstein tweeted a photo holding the trademark with the caption "No #Scrat in #Disney #IceAge 6."