Madame Medusa

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This article relates to the Disney character. For the Marvel Comics character introduced under the same name see Medusa (comics)

Madame Medusa

Age	Unknown
Gender	Female
Appears in	The Rescuers Mickey's House of Villains (slightly)
Performer	Geraldine Page
Designer	Milt Kahl (Based on his wife, and the Diamond Dutchess)

Madame Medusa is the fictional, blackhearted villainess from Disney's 1977 animated film, The Rescuers.

Madame has recently discovered the location of the world's largest diamond, the Devil's Eye, to be resting deep underground in a dark pirate's cave off to the coast. Madame Medusa will not rest until she gets her hands on said diamond, which is surely to be worth an enormous fortune which would bring her from being a simple pawn shop owner in the dark streets of New York City. Unfortutaly for Madame, she's found an enormous obstacle, neither she nor her parter, the not-as-wicked Mr. Snoops can enter the cave for they are too large to fit through the entrance and sending either one of her two crocodiles, Brutus or Nero is out of the question for they'd be too large as well. Madame Medusa finds no alternative than to pay a visit to Morningside Orphanage in New York and kidnap a poor innocent orphan girl. Penny then becomes the victim of Madame Medusa's wicked plans.

However, kidnapping isn't bad enough as Medusa is concerned. After being brought to a gloomy, lost riverboat stranded in the swamp of Devil's Bayou, Penny is constantly seeing all kinds of neglect and abuse. Penny is given a miserable little wooden chamber to sleep in and is victim to all kinds of emotional abuse both from Madame and from Mr. Snoops. Madame Medusa has no qualms about endangering the life of poor Penny sending her down into the dangerous cave, which tide fills up in the evening and once the diamond is in her possession, she will not care about abandoning Penny in Devil's Bayou and leaving her to whatever fate may be in store for her.

To be a trully evil and memorable Disney villain, Madame Medusa had to be black-hearted and she is no doubt one of Disney's greatest villains- as well as being one of the most colourful. Her power over little Penny and even her two rescuing mice, Bernard and Miss Bianca is too great for such small heroes, even though Madame may not be a threat to another person of her equal size, she is a mortal threat to the helpless orphan. Despite being drawn in a lively, caricature-like way, Madame is one of Disney's most realistic villains. She is not an evil sorceress, not a wealthy queen with servants and a castle, she's a simple pawn shop owner and her motive is far more believable than simply wishing to remain the fairest in the land or become all powerful, she wishes for wealth and to be able to live a comfortable life.

1 Origin
2 Trivia
3 Brutus and Nero
4 Mr. Snoops
5 External links

[edit] Origin

Mainly, Madame Medusa is a creation of Disney animator, Milt Kahl, however, it is possible he had based this character off several others to create her. It is said that Kahl based Madame's character and personality off of his ex-wife, whom he didn't really care for. It is now a well known fact that for a small amount of time, the creators of The Rescuers had considered reusing Cruella de Vil from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and having her as the villain of the newer film, however, that idea was soon scrapped and Madame Medusa's character developed almost nothing from her predecessor, except perhaps their reckless use of a red automobile.

Madame Medusa's motive is wanting to find the Devil's Eye, the world's largest diamond. The whole diamond themed idea originated in Margery Sharp's very own 1959 novel, Miss Bianca and the concept of the Diamond Dutchess was a clear inspiration for Madame Medusa. It should also be pointed out that Mr. Snoops is a retouched Mandrake, a character of the same book, Brutus & Nero, the aligators were based off the two bloodhounds, Tyrant and Torment and finally, Penny was inspired by Patience, the orphan in Sharp's novel.

Madame's hair and speacially, her facial features were inspired from the Greek mythology character, the monstruous Medusa.

[edit] Trivia

Madame Medusa made her big screen debut in June 22, 1977 in the Walt Disney Pictures release, The Rescuers, which quickly proved to be a huge critical and financial success.

Geraldine Page was the voice of this wicked character.

Milt Kahl was the main animator for Madame. Since he expected so much perfection from his evil creation, he ended up having to do most of the work for the rest of his team could not match the quality of his own work.

[edit] Brutus and Nero

Brutus and Nero watch maliciously as Penny drops her bottle containing a plea for help.

Brutus and Nero are Madame Medusa's two pet crocodiles. While Madame is away at her New York pawn shop, Brutus and Nero stay at the Devil's Bayou swamp area, where they are left in charge of preventing Penny's scape, often being triumphant in keeping the girl within their reach but knowing that Penny isn't very afraid of either one of them.

Brutus and Nero are among the first characters to appear in the film, coming right before the opening song, The Journey. At first, they show nothing but loyalty and obedience to Madame Medusa, but after they learn that Madame Medusa has no real respect for them, they turn their backs on her and attempt to harm her in the very end. In the case of Mr. Snoops, however, they show no loyalty nor respect towards the simplistic man, only disobedience. No matter how many times Mr. Snoops tries to make them his friend or compliment them, Brutus and Nero have an obvious dislike towards Mr. Snoops.

These two crocodiles, play two important roles in the film. One of their roles is to add to the sense of gloom surrounding Devil's Bayou, and nothing better than two large, scary-looking reptiles to do the trick. They also play a comedy role in one of the film's comical highlights in which the two rescue mice, Bernard and Bianca attempt to run away from their hungry jaws by hiding inside an old organ in the riverboat. Brutus and Nero then show their musical talent by using the organ's keys to blow the mice out of the pipes. They are also a dangerous obstacle in the rescuing of Penny, for Bernard, Bianca and the other rescuers will have to get past them more than once to even reach the girl.

Brutus and Nero are based off of the two bloodhouds, Tyrant and Torment, from Margery Sharp's novel, Miss Bianca.

[edit] Mr. Snoops

Mr. Snoops holding the bucket that will lower Penny into the dreadful underground pirate's cave, where the Devil's Eye is.

Mr. Snoops is Madame Medusa's partner and follower. He, too is involved in the kidnapping of Penny and wants his fair share of the Devil's Eye, which ne never even gets to touch. It is unclear what Mr. Snoops' profession is, but according to Rufus, the cat, Madame Medusa and Mr. Snoops work together in the old pawn shop in New York City, very close to Morningside Orphanage, where Penny's home is.

Mr. Snoops's personality is very different from that of Madame Medusa. Although he tries to be just as nasty, he can't be and for this he has almost no authority over Penny, Brutus, Nero and especially not over Madame. Mr. Snoops can't be called a villain, he is there only for his part of the treasure and doesn't fully approve of using Penny for their scheme, but that does not mean he has any sympathy for Penny. In the end, Mr. Snoops gets nothing but seeing Madame Medusa in pure shame and despair, which apparently was good enough for him.

Joe Flynn voiced the want-to-be-evil Mr. Snoops and the character was animated mainly by Milt Kahl. His character is based off of Mandrake in Margery Sharp's novel, Miss Bianca and his design is based off of both Mandrake and animation historian John Culhane, who after having been seen "snooping" around the Disney studios, the storywriters of the The Rescuers named the character, Mr. Snoops.

Mr. Snoops made a brief cameo appearance in Mickey's House of Villains (2002).