Reception
Since his 2002 debut, Scrat has been the subject of overwhelmingly positive receptions to the point of being a highly popular animated character from the 21st century, with Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today referring to him as the "antithesis" of Mickey Mouse and noting the widespread appeal behind watching Scrat attempt to pursue his acorn and unintentionally altering the world in the process.[11] A reviewer from Associated Press of Ice Age: The Meltdown reacted positively towards Scrat, comparing him to the comedy character Fonzie because of his breakout role compared to the main characters and arguing that he stole the show among kids and their parents in theaters who laughed at and applauded for him consistently.[23] Another reviewer for the 2006 film, Monterey County Weekly writer Scott Renshaw, wrote that Scrat stood out to him and other people as the "real star of the show", warming them up to the movie's beginning then eventually being a highly entertaining final act to them. He referred to him as the "funniest cartoon character created since the zenith of Chuck Jones" because of the visual slapstick antics he was involved in that were similar to the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons and American silent film comedy actors like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. He then suggested that Scrat should have more spotlighting from Blue Sky Studios compared to the other main characters of the Ice Age films.[24] The storyboard artist Francis Glebas also compared Scrat to Wile E. Coyote, considering both to be the "perfect cartoon character[s]" because of their linear storylines involving simple goals that end in disaster for both.[25]
Scrat was cited by Fox Animation president Vanessa Morrison as being a major factor behind the long-term success of the Ice Age franchise. Several actors of the films, too, had recognized the iconicity of Scrat. John Leguizamo, the voice actor for Sid, felt Scrat's pursuit of his acorn served as an analogy of the pursuit of the American Dream, as both Americans and Scrat keep chasing after what they want but never appreciate what they have. Diego's voice actor, Denis Leary, expressed praise for Scrat being the funniest part of the films and said that he was worthy of his own TV show or movie series. The film historian Leonard Maltin explained that Scrat's pantomime-like behavior, or his expressive behaviors in exchange for lacking dialogue, made him as a character easy to understand and outlined the same kind of Sisyphean obsession that also made Wile E. Coyote cartoons effective in comedy.[11] Kathryn M. Ciechanowski, writing for the journal The Reading Teacher, attributed the effective comedy of Scrat to him being a tiny creature who caused an event as massive as the beginning of an ice age and his visible anthropomorphic emotions such as fear.[26]
Wedge, de Sève, and Forte have all acknowledged Scrat's extreme nut obsession representing human persistence and struggle, with Forte comparing him to the comic strip character Charlie Brown failing repeatedly to kick the football;[2] critics of other articles have followed similar sentiments. Ben McLeay of Pedestrian recognized him as the "beating heart of the Ice Age franchise" and said that the first thirty seconds of his onscreen appearance in the first film alone made it easy to understand the premise of Scrat's craving of acorns and external factors preventing him from achieving his goals. He also analyzed that Scrat was remarkably persistent in his one goal to reach his acorn in peace even amidst all the life-threatening obstacles that he faced, even to the point that he ruined his own acorn collection because of his own greed in Gone Nutty and let his acorn-obsessed impulses control him over pursuit of his love interest Scratte in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. He sympathized with Scrat lashing out with anger at a cruel and uncaring world and his endless battles with both external and internal conflicts.[27] Anna Menta of Decider described Scrat as being the "absolutely the best part" of Ice Age and the "true hero" of the film, starting from its introduction scene that made him relatable to her. She likened him to the Greek mythological character Tantalus because of their desires being forever out of reach, making Scrat a "tragic" character.[6]
Upside Down Shark writer Drew Friday followed the opinions of other critics by calling Scrat "the entire reason for the success of [the Ice Age franchise]", having reacted with bewilderment towards Scrat's "cartoonish immortality" and escalating cataclysms leading up to the solar system being reshaped by him in Ice Age: Collision Course. He interpreted the rodent's impacts as being a nod to, for better and for worse, the effects that one person could have on the world. Furthermore, he saw a common pattern in Scrat's acorn obsession being his fatal flaw that brought him repeated pain and suffering because of his greed and persistence.[12] Likewise, the English literature professor Heidi Hansson and her other co-authors saw the 2002 introduction scene as a moment of anthropogenic disaster, as Scrat had caused the glaciers to shift by cracking them but then lost his agency to reverse his actions, being forced to try to survive from his actions. They explained that Scrat's narrow escape from the ice reflects both terror of ice reminiscent of Romanticism tropes and slapstick elements in animation.[28] Similarly, Parth Thaker and his fellow co-authors for Journal of Science & Popular Culture saw Scrat's irrational behaviors plus accidental individual ability to engineer his surroundings as being sources of humor to audiences that also highlight the impact of human destruction on their environments. Scrat's actions in the second film, they said, was one instance of the theme of global warming being highlighted (the others being a Palaeotherium couple arguing about the weather and an armadillo trying to profit from climate change).[29]
The English professor Thomas Strychacz noted the creativity of Scrat's misadventures, calling them "funny, manic, and fantastic". He offered his socioeconomic interpretation that Scrat's acorn obsession is of a primal nature in which he hoards his acorn that is almost neither safety stored nor exchanged to other characters. Hence as part of the Hobbesian philosophical model in which humans naturally fight each other for their own interests, Scrat as a result ends up in battles with other characters such as Sid for his acorn due to his primal sense of competition for resources.[30] Robert Pitman of Screen Rant, calling Scrat "Ice Age's most iconic character", spoke highly of Blue Sky Studio's decision to allow him to eat his acorn successfully after having failed to for much of the studio's lifetime, considering it a perfect end to the company, the Ice Age franchise, and Scrat's story. As a result, he expressed concern that the upcoming film Ice Age 6 was going to nullify the personal closure that the studio's animators created for Scrat and suggested that another character replace him instead.[31]
Despite not being based on any real-life animal species, Scrat has been compared to multiple extinct taxa taxonomically classified to the clade Cynodontia that were first described after the 2002 film. The early shrew-sized mammal Cronopio dentiacutus, which lived in the late Cretaceous of South America, has been noted by the paleontologist Guillermo Rougier as being superficially similar to Scrat because of its long fangs, extended snout, and large eyes and therefore attesting to high ancient mammal form diversity.[32] The small-sized mammal relative Pseudotherium argentinus, which lived in South America during the Triassic, also resembled Scrat because of its long and flat snout and long fangs according to the paleontologist Ricardo Martínez.[33]
