Disney has shuttered Ice Age studio Blue Sky, finally killing Scrat once and for all

By Sam Barsanti | February 9, 2021 | 9:17pm

Aux Features Blue Sky

Disney has shuttered Ice Age studio Blue Sky, finally killing Scrat once and for all

Scrat Photo: PAULA BUSTAMANTE/AFP via Getty Images

If there’s one thing Fox’s Ice Age movies were known for, other than getting big-name celebrities to just use their normal voices for every character, it was the wacky comedy of a little prehistoric squirrel thing named Scrat. If you ever saw a commercial for Ice Age or an Ice Age toy, Scrat was the one who always got the biggest spotlight—despite rarely being involved in the actual plot of the movies. The basic gag in the Scrat bits was that he was always desperate to find somewhere safe he could store his big acorn, but his solutions invariably ended with Scrat accidentally triggering some terrible disaster (like an avalanche, the destruction of squirrel Atlantis, or disrupting the Earth’s core and breaking up Pangaea). Throughout all of these adventures, though, Scrat always came away unharmed, even when enduring a level of physical torture that only a Looney Tune could survive.

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Now, though, Scrat has met a terrible force that even he could not survive: The Walt Disney Company. Yes, after a few million years or so of chasing his acorn and getting into shenanigans, Scrat has finally been crushed to death by a mouse with more money than God. That comes from Deadline, though it didn’t quite describe it that way. According to its report, Disney is preparing to shut down Blue Sky, the animation studio that made the Ice Age movies (as well as 2019's Spies In Disguise, the Rio movies, and 2017's Ferdinand).

Blue Sky was part of 20th Century Fox’s animation division up until 2019 when Disney swallowed up, one small step in its ongoing attempt to cover the entire world like some kind of enormous sheet of ice, and—as Deadline points out—it seemed pretty obvious that Blue Sky’s days were numbered as soon as that happened. After all, Disney makes animated movies of its own that tend to be more successful than Blue Sky’s have been lately.

Disney is reportedly “working with” the soon-to-be-former Blue Sky employees to “explore open positions” at other Disney-owned studios, but as it stands now, some 450 people are “being impacted” by this. Blue Sky’s final movie, a fantasy story about a young shapeshifter called Nimona, will be left unfinished and will not be released. This has all turned into a real downer, so here’s a supercut of Ray Romano “voice acting.” His voice is naturally funny, so it’s funny when a big woolly mammoth talks like he does!