Gilbert (left) and Sullivan (right).
Gilbert is a scrapped hamster butler character from Flushed Away. He and Sullivan were intended to be Roddy's servants that assisted him whilst Tabitha and her family were away. He is voiced by Simon Callow.
History[]
Glibert and Sullivan were meant to appear alongside Roddy at his home in Kensington, having their own hamster cage near the window in Tabitha's room. Roddy would originally be seen as practically alone rather than literally alone because his butlers were very subservient and respectful, creating a class structure where they couldn't ever actually be his friends. They would assist Roddy in his leisure activities around the house, such as taking a bath in a bowl and playing horse polo, which aren't seen in the finalized film. They would also accompany Roddy whilst witnessing Sid's arrival to the house (albeit at daytime rather than night), remaining at the location after Roddy gets flushed into the sewers, with Gilbert also receiving the call he makes from the mobile phone on the Jammy Dodger instead of just Sid.
Gilbert and Sullivan lasted in production long enough to the point of appearing in trailers seen in Japan and on the DVD release of the DreamWorks Animation film Over The Hedge. They were ultimately cut from the final film entirely, possibly about a year from completion, with 20 minutes of completed footage of this version of Roddy's backstory cut, that the director of the film, David Bowers, referred to as being very funny stuff.[1] This would strengthen the focus on Roddy being completely, physically alone.
The cut footage wasn't made available on home media as a bonus feature, with the only snippets that have been released being in both final and unreleased trailers, animator reels and a workprint clip shared by David Bowers after Geoffrey Palmer's passing in a now deleted Tweet, where ability to share the footage was questioned.[2] In the clip, Sullivan shows determination in approaching the then-unknown presence in the kitchen, suggesting him to be the more confident of the duo.
The duo did also appear in both the console and Game Boy Advance version of the video game, likely being based off of an earlier version of the film.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The duo's names, Gilbert and Sullivan, seem to be a reference to W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.